The Pajama Game Opens on Broadway

The Pajama Game opened at the St. James Theatre on May 13, 1954, a musical comedy built out of a labor dispute at a fictional pajama factory. George Abbott adapted it with Richard Bissell from Bissell's own novel 7½ Cents, about workers demanding a seven-and-a-half cent raise, with songs by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. John Raitt and Janis Paige played the factory boss and the union rep who fall for each other anyway. The dances were staged by a young choreographer making his first Broadway show, Bob Fosse, and Carol Haney stopped the house cold every night with 'Steam Heat.' Critics loved it, and it ran 1,063 performances before closing in November 1956.