It's the last week or so of 1929 and the musical Strike Up the Band is going to open in a few weeks at the Times Square Theater in New York — book by Morrie Ryskind, and music by George and Ira Gershwin.
The show had a checkered history. In 1927, it went into out-of-town tryouts with a book by George S. Kaufman and a score by the Gershwins. It closed without ever reaching New York. In '29, Ryskind did a major rewrite of the book and some of the score was changed. One of the songs they dropped was "The Man I Love" which had previously been cut out of the 1924 musical, Lady Be Good, and after Strike Up the Band closed, the Gershwins stuck it in their 1928 musical, Rosalie, and it was cut from that show, too. It was later recorded as a standalone pop tune and it was one of their biggest successes.
The Ryskind revamp opened on Broadway in January of 1930 and closed the following June. Not a smash. In 1940, the title song was sold to MGM for a Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland movie. Apart from that tune and the title, the film had nothing to do with the Broadway version.
Let's look in on the rehearsals for the 1930 version and see George Gershwin at the piano…