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2 unusual facts about Subways Are for Sleeping


Subways Are for Sleeping

Producer David Merrick and press agent Harvey Sabinson decided to invite individuals with the same names as prominent theatre critics (such as Walter Kerr, Richard Watts, Jr. and Howard Taubman) to see the show and afterwards used their favorable comments in print ads.

The cast included Orson Bean, Sydney Chaplin, Carol Lawrence, Gordon Connell, Grayson Hall, and Green's wife Phyllis Newman (whose costume, consisting solely of a towel, was probably Freddy Wittop's easiest design in his distinguished career), with newcomers Michael Bennett and Valerie Harper in the chorus.


Phyllis Newman

Additional theater credits include Bells Are Ringing, Pleasures and Palaces, The Apple Tree, On the Town, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, Awake and Sing!, Broadway Bound, and Subways Are For Sleeping, for which she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, beating out Barbra Streisand in I Can Get It for You Wholesale.


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