"A faltering step in a basically right direction": Richard Rodgers and All Points West

By Felix Cox

The Great Depression hit hard on Broadway. While the 1929-30 season had featured 233 productions, the following year that number dropped 20 percent, to 187. Musicals, with their big budgets and high ticket prices, seemed an endangered species. By spring 1931 Rodgers and Hart had joined the exodus of nearly three-quarters of Broadway's talent to Hollywood.