As Sponono failed on Broadway, Mary Frank escalated the controversy with a confrontational and confusing advertisement in The New York Times. The ad blamed New York’s 'Negroes and liberals' for not attending the play, even though Frank’s own production had radically changed the work and removed its original director from the process. In an especially strange twist, the advertisement credited Sponono entirely to Shah and Paton, effectively presenting the same authors whose work had been altered and whose warnings had been ignored as responsible for the failure. The play closed prematurely, in stark contrast to its South African reception. Alan Paton later described the Broadway episode as tragic and said he wished the authors had never presented the play there. Frank would not produce another play for two decades, while Shah abandoned theatre and moved toward film and television.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1960s
The Producer’s Bitter New York Times Attack After Sponono Collapsed
Sponono / Mary Frank / 1960s
As Sponono failed on Broadway, Mary Frank escalated the controversy with a confrontational and confusing advertisement in The New York Times. The ad blamed New York’s 'Negroes and liberals' for not attending the play, even though Frank’s own production had radically changed the work and removed its original director from the process. In an especially strange twist, the advertisement credited Sponono entirely to Shah and Paton, effectively presenting the same authors whose work had been altered and whose warnings had been ignored as responsible for the failure. The play closed prematurely, in stark contrast to its South African reception. Alan Paton later described the Broadway episode as tragic and said he wished the authors had never presented the play there. Frank would not produce another play for two decades, while Shah abandoned theatre and moved toward film and television.
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