Hay Fever - History

History

In 1921, Coward first visited New York City, hoping that American producers would embrace his plays. During that summer, he befriended the playwright Hartley Manners and his wife, the eccentric actress Laurette Taylor. Their "over-the-top theatrical lifestyle" later inspired him in writing Hay Fever.

Coward wrote the play in three days in 1924, intending the lead role of Judith Bliss for the actress Marie Tempest, "whom I revered and adored". Though she found it amusing, she thought it not substantial enough for a whole evening, but changed her mind after the success of Coward's The Vortex later 1924. Hay Fever opened at the Ambassadors Theatre on 8 June 1925 and transferred to the larger Criterion Theatre on 7 September 1925 and ran for 337 performances. Coward remembered in 1964 that the notices "were amiable and well-disposed although far from effusive. It was noted, as indeed it has been today, that the play had no plot and that there were few if any 'witty' lines."

The original cast was as follows:

• Sorel Bliss – Helen Spencer
• Simon Bliss – Robert Andrews
• Clara – Minnie Rayner
• Judith Bliss – Marie Tempest
• David Bliss – W Graham Browne
• Sandy Tyrell – Patrick Susands
• Myra Arundel – Hilda Moore
• Richard Greatham – Athole Stewart
• Jackie Coryton – Ann Trevor