The Butter and Egg Man

About the show

A 1920s slang term popularized by Texas Guinan,—someone wealthy and unwary. A souvenir booklet for the original production of The Butter and Egg Man devoted an entire page to the various claims of origin for the phrase. Peter Jones is a young man who arrives on Broadway from Chillicothe, Ohio, hoping to invest $20,000 in a play and turn a profit sufficient to buy a local hotel back home. He is conned by Joe Lehman and Jack McClure into backing their play with a 49-percent stake. The play opens out-of-town in Syracuse and bombs. Lehman and McClure want out, and Jones buys them out, and revamps the play into a huge hit. Jones then sells back to them at a huge profit after learning of claims that the play was stolen, and returns home to get his hotel. Kaufman's comedy may be seen as a precursor to Mel Brooks' The Producers.