| State of the Union | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Russel Crouse Howard Lindsay |
| Characters | Grant Matthews Mary Matthews Spike McManus Kay Thorndyke Jim Conover Sam Thorndyke Sam I. Parrish Bill Nolard Hardy Lulubelle Alexander Judge Alexander |
| Date premiered | November 14, 1945 |
| Place premiered | Hudson Theatre New York City, New York |
| Original language | English |
| Subject | |
| Genre | Comedy |
| Setting | Conover's home, Washington, D.C.; Book-Cadillac Hotel, Detroit |
| IBDB profile | |
State of the Union is a play by American playwrights Russel Crouse and Howard Lindsay about a fictional Republican presidential candidate. The play premiered on November 14, 1945 at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway, ran for 765 performances, and closed on September 13, 1947. Both playwrights received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for their work.
In 1948 the play was adapted for a film directed by Frank Capra.
Members of Manhattan's upper society, artistic, and literary communities understood fully that the plot of the play was based upon the long extramarital affair of Wendell Willkie with Irita Van Doren. The play opened 13 months after Willkie's death.
Some persons felt Crouse and Lindsay should have got a flogging rather than a Pulitzer Prize. By publicizing the supposed affair, even tacitly, the play humiliated Willkie's widow, and exposed their teenage son to "adult matters" between his parents.
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