Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2008 - 38

stored, resistance plate dimmers were covered with Vaseline,
and the revolving stage was given a coat of paint to withstand
the winter weather. Casa Mañana was to return even bigger and
better in the summer of 1937.
Rose and his publicity team were not shy in promoting
the 1937 Casa Mañana Revue. On one of the full-color ﬂyers,
he announced:
I stake my reputation as a showman on my personal
guarantee that the Fort Worth Frontier Fiesta of 1937
will in all aspects - magnitude, loveliness, lavishness,
and imagination - exceed and excel our efforts in
1936. I agree with our President -
THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO RAISE PRICES.
Were I presenting the Casa Mañana on Broadway, seats
would retail for no less than $5.50 each. Despite this,
despite the fact that this year's expenditures exceed
that of last years by
MORE THAN A QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS,
and weekly operating cost is ﬁfty per cent greater than
last year,
THERE WILL BE NO ADVANCE IN PRICES.

The entire production team returned to Fort Worth to
mount the new revue, A Musical Dramatization of "BEST
SELLERS" based on four popular novels, Gone with the Wind,
Lost Horizon, Wake Up and Live, and It Can't Happen Here.
Rose once again produced a mix of attractions for the 1937
Frontier Fiesta, but replaced Jumbo with "Melody Lane,"
a sentimental sing-along of old time favorites, and the "Fireﬂy Garden," featuring Salici's Puppets, replaced the wild west
show. Harriet Hoctor, billed as "America's Premiere Ballerina,"
headlined the Casa Mañana Revue.
As before, Albert Johnson designed all attractions for the
1937 Frontier Fiesta. For the new Casa Mañana Revue, he
again designed a full stage set for each of the acts. As a part
of the "bigger and better" publicity campaign, newspaper accounts touted the new show as having the "largest set in the
world" (ﬁg. 15). The headline for a story in the 29 June 1937
issue of the Fort Worth Press reads: "Workers Say it is No Fun
Pushing Mammoth Stage - Weighs a Million Pounds as Used
in Fiesta Show; Is Largest Ever Constructed Anywhere." Carlton
Winckler noted forty workers (out of the full crew of ﬁfty-two
stage hands) had exactly twelve minutes to position the set in
place before the massive stage revolved. At a height of forty-one
feet, the set incorporated a series of sixteen elevators to raise
showgirls to the top of the scenery. A ﬂeet of electrically driven
eighteen-foot battleships patrolled the lagoon with blazing guns
when the stage receded for the ﬁnale (ﬁg. 16).
As in 1936, Johnson's fee for designing all attractions for
the 1937 Fiesta was $5,000. As a member of United Scenic Artists Local 350, Chicago, he was obliged to use only union painters. Although ﬁgure 17 features a host of union painters posing
with Johnson on the set for "It Can't Happen Here," there was
evidently a problem ﬁnding enough local 350 card holders in
Fort Worth. The union levied a $250.00 ﬁne against Johnson,

and threatened an additional $5,000 penalty and revoking his
union card for ten years. In a letter to Centennial General manager James Pollock, dated 8 July 1937, Rose brings Johnson's
predicament to light. Rose closed the letter with the following
statement: "May I also point out that we paid the great Albert
Johnson $5,000 for his services, not only for designing the Casa
Mañana scenery but everything else on the grounds that was
changed this year. Dallas paid Mr. Melziner $14,400 for doing
one unit of entertainment-the Panic American Casino."
Evidently Johnson successfully resolved this dispute, since
he was back on Broadway designing You Never Know in 1938.

Forty workers had exactly twelve minutes to
position the set in place before the massive stage
revolved. At a height of forty-one feet, the set
incorporated a series of sixteen elevators to
raise showgirls to the top of the scenery. A ﬂeet
of electrically driven eighteen-foot battleships
patrolled the lagoon with blazing guns when the
stage receded for the ﬁnale.
Raoul Pène du Bois and his costume designs were not to
be eclipsed by the magnitude of the scenery for the production. In addition to the glittering hoop skirts for the "Gone with
the Wind" cotillion and the exotic orient inspired costumes for
"Lost Horizon," his design for "It Can't Happen Here" showcased the largest gown ever built. Fabricated from 1,200 yards
of shimmering satin, the train of the gown was carried by a
retinue of twenty-eight men as "Miss Liberty" climbed to the
top of the set's massive staircase.
Although the second season for the Frontier Fiesta and
Casa Mañana were successful, Billy Rose was forced to close
the stage show early. He appeared to "borrow" liberally from
Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind in the opening act
under the same title. Mitchell responded on 10 September with
a lawsuit alleging Rose had pirated her novel and sought an immediate court injunction to close the show and seize all of the
sets, costumes, and other assets of the production. Lawyers for
the city of Fort Worth concluded that Mitchell had a good case
for plagiarism. Rose had no less than eight named characters,
including Scarlet O'Hara and Rhett Butler. The production included a scene of the burning of the O'Hara's mansion, which
Rose called "... the coincidental burning of the mansion and
the novel 'a thirty year old theatrical trick'" (Jones 1999, 135).
The court ruled on 14 September in Mitchell's favor, and Rose's ﬁve
percent gross proﬁts were impounded as due compensation.
Although Casa Mañana opened for a third season in 1938
and again in 1939, the 1937 season ended Fort Worth's relationship with the ﬂamboyant Rose and his talented production team.

W I N T E R

2008

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TECHNOLOGY

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2008