18 Playbills/Programs (Lunt, Fontanne, Cohan, Nixon Theatre, Pittsburgh, PA)

Description

Continuing from above:  I calculated the cost of the other 14 items by comparing each one of them to the other playbills on sale for that particular play at other theatres in the same time frame--1930's(Since None of the Nixon Theatre playbills I'm selling were for sale on the internet). I took the lowest price I found for each item and then discounted that lowest price by another 30%. The total of the lowest prices for the 14 was 0 and I'm asking for 5. Now the discount at .00 is over 50%).    Please read added info. on Condition below.
Here's some information on the playbills. Picture 1) This is a 12 page Souvenir Book about Robert E. Sherwood's New Play 'There Shall Be No Night' starring Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne(not Nixon Theatre) with pictures of scenes from the play(a very young Montgomery Clift is in one), also a two page article on the Lunts, another 2 pages on 'The Lunts At Home' with photos, two pages on Robert E. Sherwood, the playwright. It is well bound with minor wear and some darkening on the back cover. There are 2 for sale on EBAY, one for and the other for . Picture 2) 'On To Fortune' with a Mary Rogers in a small role(1935)in excellent condition, and 'You Can't Take It With You', Hart and Kaufman(1938)in excellent condition. Picture 3) A four-page undated color announcement (not sure what you call these-brochure?) and a playbill for the play 'Victoria Regina'(1939) starring "The First Lady of American Theatre" Helen Hayes. Both in Very Good shape. Picture 4) An undated 4 page brochure-announcement for the upcoming 'Hamlet' with Leslie Howard and a playbill for 'Susan and God' starring Gerttrude Lawrence(1939). The playbill is in excellent condition. The Hamlet announcement has several creases(no tears) across the front cover. Picture 5) Two undated play Announcements, one for 'Kiss The Boys Goodbye' by Claire Boothe(several creases) which is two pages(front and back) and George M. Cohan in 'I'd Rather Be Right', by Hart and Kaufman, 4 pages with a light crease. Picture 6) Playbill for 'Winterset' by Maxwell Anderson starring Burgess Meredith(never saw a picture of him so young). It is in Very Good shape. (Thus far none of the described materials have any binding issues, No loose pages, No tears or loss, No Writing, No markings, and very minimal soiling). Picture 7) offers three different materials for a "New Play by S.N. Behrman" 'Rain From Heaven'. The playbill(1935) and the two announcements(undated, but obviously before the playbill) are in very good condition(no issues).
I've enclosed one of the announcements in the playbill.
Note there are two signatures on the cover of the playbill. They seem to me to be facsimile signatures. I didn't see any real signatures on any of the playbills. Picture 8) Here is the playbill(28 pages!) to go along with the Souvenir Book for
'There Shall Be No Night'(1940) starring
Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. I'm taken by how white and bright the pages of this 74 year-old playbill are. However, note that one four-sided 'page' is loose in the middle. There is absolutely no damage, no tears etc.. It simply came free of its staples. Otherwise very good condition. Picture 9) 'The Children's Hour' by Lillian Hellman(this playbill oddly is undated(just November 16th at 8:30) but it looks like the others that date from 1935 to 1939. Let's say 1938 the date that Aline Bernstein wrote 'The Journey Down' about her 4 year romantic relationship with Thomas Wolfe. Aline Bernstein is credited with 'Settings' for the Nixon Theatre production of 'The Children's Hour'(ooh, that was impressive). This playbill is in excellent condition. Picture 10) 'Show Boat' was looking a lot better when I scanned it last night. Now the cover has come loose. But since it already had a large chip at the bottom of its 1st(and thus 2nd) page, ((not affecting any of the writing though)) i'd only priced it at so now the whole deal is for 0. Oh, what the hell. 0. The free 'Show Boat' is, btw, a Souvenir Program from Casino, not Nixon, theatre in N.Y. The freebies are from Pictures 11  'Ah Wilderness'(1933) by O'neill starring George M. Cohan. It's large 9 1/2 by 7 inches and in Good+ condition before the aforementioned chip, and another Nixon theatre offering, an eight page (counting covers) booklet full of reviews for Mourning Becomes Electra a Trilogy 'presented on one day'. Very Good before chip on back and Picture 12 Eva Le Gallienne presenting 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Through The Looking Glass(1935) Good Plus before chip on back, and a playbill for a concert by Fritz Kreisler in Pittsburgh (1933)Good Plus before chip. And now(9 pm), having spent more than 2 hours babbling on i'm going to eat dinner----as it is too late for the theatre. But First:  Below is an article about the closing of the Nixon Theatre and below that is a picture of the Nixon Theatre, which opened in 1903 and closed(or was moved and re-named) in 1950.
By Len Barcousky Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
As Mayor David Lawrence saw it, sentiment could not stand in the way of "Pittsburgh's march of progress."
He and Mae West shared the stage of the Nixon Theater on April 29, 1950, after the final performance of her play, "Diamond Lil." The 47-year-old theater was scheduled for demolition, making way for the new headquarters of the Aluminum Company of America.
But the mayor also offered hope to the 2,256 people who came to the closing-night performance. "The Nixon is not dying," he told the crowd, according to the May 1 edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "We didn't come here to bury the Nixon, but to praise it and move it."
Pittsburgh had a long tradition of renaming and even relocating landmark structures, the mayor said. "He recalled how St. Paul's Cathedral, which used to be at Fifth Avenue and Grant Street, had been razed to rise again in Oakland," reporter Gene Jannuzi wrote. "[H]ow St. Peter's Episcopal Church had been moved stone by stone from Diamond and Grant to Forbes and Craft to make way for the Frick Building."
The Nixon, too, would get a new address. It would relocate from Sixth Avenue into the soon-to-be-renamed Senator Theater on Liberty Avenue, a distance of about three blocks.
"Diamond Lil" was a short three-act play linked to "one of the longest curtain-calls on record," Mr. Jannuzi wrote. Mae West offered the crowd "about 10 minutes of rehearsed coyness" as she took her bows.
In the audience for that final show Mr. Jannuzi found two women -- Mrs. Arthur Sheets and Mrs. J.W. Henry -- who had attended the opening night performance at the Nixon "in the winter of 1903 as young girls."
"Mrs. Sheets had with her the sheepskin-bound program that had been a first-night souvenir," he wrote.
Pittsburgh theatergoers were determined to collect some of their own souvenirs from that last night.
"Suddenly before the theater was emptied, the dismantling of the house began ..."
"They took the shades off the clusters of lights on the marble pillars ... All the mirrors had disappeared from the ladies' and men's rooms. A dozen box seat chairs were missing."
Somebody removed more practical items. "Manager Eddie Wappler reported that two toilet seats had been stolen from the ladies' room," Mr. Jannuzi wrote.
A second story in that same edition described plans to convert the Senator from strictly a movie palace to a "legitimate" theater. Local businessmen had backed the move. They were "determined to see Pittsburgh retain its position as one of the time-honored road centers off Broadway" for traveling shows.
The theater was scheduled to open in September, and "the initial offering of a new era [was to be] the Rodgers and Hammerstein smash musical 'Oklahoma!'"
The Nixon had a 22-year run on Liberty Avenue, serving as a venue for both stage shows and movies. It closed in 1972 and was demolished in 1975 to make room for a parking lot.
The building that replaced the old Nixon, Alcoa's former headquarters, has itself become a Downtown landmark. Completed in 1953, its exterior walls and much of its interior decoration were made of, what else, aluminum. It was renamed the Regional Enterprise Tower when Alcoa moved from what is now Mellon Square to new offices on the North Shore.
Gene Jannuzi, who covered the Nixon closing, left the Post-Gazette for the steel business. He retired as CEO of the former Moltrup Steel in Beaver Falls. Contacted by phone, he remembered writing the Nixon Theater story, staying up much of the night to rework and polish it. Now 94, he still writes occasional op-ed pieces for the newspaper.