Lewis Funke covered the Broadway news in his column "News and Gossip of the Rialto" on the front page of The Sunday Times entertainment section.
Funke reported that Clifford Odets, one of the major playwrights of the 1930s when Group Theatre was in its prime, had been hard at work in a local hotel suite for the last six weeks. Odets hadn't had a play on Broadway since his "ill-starred" "Clash By Night" in 1941, He expected to finish his new play by June 1 when he was contractually obligated to return to Hollywood, where he was now working as a screenwriter. He was considering calling the new play either "April Shower" or "The Blue Rider." It was about a much-decorated major who becomes a deserter and was set in a Washington hotel in the month of April (hence 'April Showers"). John Garfield and Franchot Tone, two other Group Theatre alums now busy in Hollywood, both were mentioned as possibilities in the lead role. No producer had been set. Meanwhile Odets had put aside "Tides of Fundy" and "Errand For Uncle," a battlefield play that he felt was no longer timely, had gone into the bottom drawer perhaps to reemerge at a later date as a memory piece.
Tone had set aside a fund for director Harold Clurman, another Group Theatre alum, to find and nurture new plays. Funke wrote that director Elia Kazan might figure into a future production as part of this effort. Clurman also was joining his wife Stella Adler and Kazan to found a theater school to open in the fall. Adler, an actress herself, was appearing on Broadway at this time in "He Who Gets Slapped" and teaching acting at the New School. Marlon Brando was among her students.
Eugene O'Neill had suggested that drama critics read his new play, "The Iceman Cometh," before the Theatre Guild production next season. He had previously offered up "Mourning Becomes Electra" to the press but only three reviewers took up his offer.
Paul Porter, who recently stage managed "The Magnificent Yankee" complained of the confusion between him and Paul Porter of the OPA. He had almost gotten into a fistfight with a drunk at a bar who had thought he was responsible for price controls.