Franklin D. Roosevelt to be Inaugurated Tomorrow

By Moss Hart

Directed by Thomas Lynch

at the Eureka
215 Jackson Street, San Francisco

October 2-28, 2001

Featuring a score by Irving Berlin, sketches by Moss Hart and stars like Ethel Waters and Clifton Webb, As Thousands Cheer was a huge success when in opened on Broadway in 1933, running for 400 performances. The musical revue was set up in newspaper format, with topical headlines projected onto the stage curtains. Besides FDR, Hart spoofed Noël Coward, the Rockefellers, Joan Crawford, even Gandhi. The headline, 'Franklin D. Roosevelt To Be Inaugurated Tomorrow' introduced a strangely prescient sketch about President and Mrs. Hoover’s exit from the White House, stripping it bare before their return to Palo Alto.