Welcome to another Wildcard Wednesday! 85 years ago on this very day, Broadway saw the premiere of The Second Little Show, the follow up to the previous year’s incredibly well-regarded The Little Show, which we covered way back on a May 2014 Musical Theatre Monday. (Check out the entry here.) Although the producers secured the talents of Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz (who composed most of the score, as they did for The Little Show), the intimate thematic approach did not allow for stars, so Libby Holman, Clifton Webb, and Fred Allen, the previous production’s dynamic trio, were not signed for the second entry in what would turn out to be a trilogy. (Knowing what a following the three previous players had, Max Gordon snapped them up for a hot new revue that would open later that season, Three’s A Crowd, which we covered here.) Without any headliners, The Second Little Show didn’t come near to approaching the success of either aforementioned show, closing after only 63 performances. (Dietz reportedly hoped to hire Ethel Merman, an idea that the producers nixed. She, of course, went on to become a smash the next month in Girl Crazy.) Yet even the score seemed second tier, with only one real hit emerging — and it wasn’t even by Dietz and Schwartz!

The tune in question, “Sing Something Simple,” was written by Herman Hupfeld and is performed below by in a period recording by Stuart Ross and Joe Sargent.

The only Schwartz and Dietz song recorded during the time of production was “Lucky Seven,” an ordinary, but otherwise peppy number, performed below by Leo Reisman’s Orchestra.

And, we’ll close this brief post with the lovely Dietz and Schwartz’s “You’re The Sunrise,” performed by the wonderful Karen Morrow.

Come back next Wednesday for another Wildcard post! And tune in tomorrow for a new Xena Thursday!