Pins and Needles: 25th Anniversary of the Hit Musical Revue

Pins and Needles
Music	Harold Rome
Lyrics	Harold Rome
Book	Arthur Arent Marc Blitzstein Emmanuel Eisenberg Charles Friedman David Gregory Joseph Schrank Arnold B. Horwitt John Latouche Harold Rome
Productions	1937 Broadway

Pins and Needles is an idiom revue with a book by Arthur Arent, Marc Blitzstein, Emmanuel Eisenberg, Charles Friedman, David Gregory, Joseph Schrank, Arnold B. Horwitt, John Latouche, and Harold Rome and music and lyrics by Harold Rome. The title Pins and Needles was created by Max Danish, long-time editor of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU)'s newspaper Justice. It ran on Broadway from 1937 to 1940, was revived in 1978, and produced again in London in 2010 to positive reviews. In 2016, the show ran at the Provincetown Playhouse in New York City, where it was produced by the Steinhardt School at New York University. The revue was also performed in 1938 in the White House for Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

The International Ladies Garment Workers Union used the Princess Theatre in New York City as a meeting hall. The union sponsored an inexpensive revue with ILGWU workers as the cast and two pianos. Because of their factory jobs, participants could rehearse only at night and on weekends, and initial performances were presented only on Friday and Saturday nights. The original cast was made up of cutters, basters, and sewing machine operators.

Pins and Needles looked at current events from a pro-union standpoint. It was a "lighthearted look at young workers in a changing society in the middle of America's most politically engaged city." Skits spoofed everything from Fascist European dictators to bigots in the Daughters of the American Revolution. Word-of-mouth was so enthusiastically positive that the cast abandoned their day jobs and the production expanded to a full performance schedule of eight shows per week. New songs and skits were introduced every few months to keep the show topical.

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