The Pajama Game

The Pajama Game was awarded the 1955 Tony for Best Musical and, over half of a century later, claimed the award for Best Revival of a Musical, proving that the story is truly timeless. With an energetic score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross (Damn Yankees), The Pajama Game is brimming with songs and dances that have become musical theatre standards, including "Steam Heat" and "Hernando's Hideaway."

Conditions at the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory are anything but peaceful as sparks fly between new superintendent, Sid Sorokin, and Babe Williams, leader of the union grievance committee. Their stormy relationship comes to a head when the workers strike for a 7 ½ cent pay increase, setting off not only a conflict between management and labor, but a battle of the sexes as well.

Featuring plenty of fun and splashy production numbers, including a comic "dream ballet," The Pajama Game is filled with standout featured roles and a large ensemble, making it a perfect choice for high schools and community theatres. This perennial favorite is a surefire crowd-pleaser and a glowing example of solid, classic musical comedy.

Patron’s Welcome Message - Alistair McComas:

Welcome to the Old Scotch Music and Drama Club’s unique production of the Tony award winning Broadway musical The Pyjama Game in the Geoffrey McComas Theatre - OSMaD’s ninth annual production.  Producer Richard Beverage, the cast and the crew, deserve our congratulations for committing their immense talents to this tremendous Scotch Family event.

As high-voltage industrial relations and relationships intertwine, the powers of what and in whom one believes are the fuel for the musical fire.  Based on Richard Bissell’s novel 7 ½ Cents, The Pyjama Game was made famous by the 1957 film starring Doris Day. 

In that same year, a 23 year old Polish Australian, the late Richard Pratt, was performing in Ray Lawler’s pioneering Australian play Summer of the Seventeenth Doll in London, then New York. While Pratt stop short of signing a Hollywood contract offer, preferring instead to build Visy into a global ‘box office hit’, Pratt never stopped loving the arts, in a panoramic deep passion, including as one of Australia’s most generous billionaire philanthropists.

Forty three years later, in 2000, Richard Pratt donated $1 million to build the Geoffrey McComas Theatre, in honour of his communications advisor, friend and my late grandfather. Geoff himself dedicated five decades to a passion - the art of the spoken word, as a Melbourne radio broadcaster, long before Spotify. Neither man attended Scotch: it was about the future. After convincing Pratt to donate, my late father Campbell McComas AM (69) announced the gift at school assembly, when I was in year 12 - a memorable day in the Memorial Hall, five years before Campbell‘s funeral in the same full Hall in 2005. 

The following year, The Pyjama Game was revived on Broadway, to critical acclaim, winning a Tony award for best revival.  Tonight, a decade on, OSMaD brings the early days of The Pyjama Game and this theatre’s great benefactor in the theatres of New York full-circle, to the dress circle.

As patron, I pay tribute to the late Richard Pratt’s and Campbell‘s, contribution to the arts in Australia, especially at Scotch.  Campbell created and played more characters than any other actor in history – over 1,800 worldwide.  His love for theatre began in a Scotch-St Catherine’s play in 1970, igniting a dream for Scotch to have a world-class theatre of its own - a dream realised in the creation of this theatre, just months before his exit, stage left, well before his cue.

May the participant in tonight‘s production gain the same friendship, satisfaction and confidence from their involvement in theatre that Richard, Campbell and I were fortunate to receive in Scotch theatres and beyond.  

One of the remarkable features in the James Forbes Academy is its availability to the wider community, via amateur music and drama groups. Tonight’s production is one of the many such examples.  It is pleasing to see a vital aspiration expressed by the Academy’s creators continue to flourish. 

Alistair McComas – Patron on The Pyjama Game