Potash and Perlmutter (play)

{{short description|Play}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2022}}

{{Infobox play

| name = Potash and Perlmutter

| image = Potash and Perlmutter 1913 postcard.jpg

| alt =

| caption = Postcard advertising the Broadway production

| writer = Montague Glass and Charles Klein

| characters =

| setting = New York City

| premiere = {{Start date|1913|08|16}}

| place = George M. Cohan's Theatre

| orig_lang = English

| genre = Comedy

}}

Potash and Perlmutter is a three-act play written by Montague Glass and Charles Klein, based on earlier short stories written by Glass. Producer Albert H. Woods staged it on Broadway, where it opened at the George M. Cohan Theatre on August 16, 1913. The play is a comedy featuring the characters Abe Potash and Mawruss Perlmutter, who are business partners in the garment industry.{{cite news |title=A Play to Cheer All New York |work=The New York Times |date=August 17, 1913 |page=9 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1913/08/17/archives/a-play-to-cheer-all-new-york-potash-and-perlmutter-proves-to-be-an.html}}

The play was a hit and ran for 441 performances on Broadway. A production on London's West End opened on April 14, 1914, at the Queen's Theatre starring Augustus Yorke and Robert Leonard. By the fall of 1914, Woods had eight road companies presenting the show on tour.{{cite book |first1=Armond |last1=Fields |first2=L. Marc |last2=Fields |title=From the Bowery to Broadway: Lew Fields and the Roots of American Popular Theater |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |year=1993 |isbn=0-19-505381-8 |page=[https://archive.org/details/frombowerytobroa0000fiel/page/339 339] |url=https://archive.org/details/frombowerytobroa0000fiel/page/339 }}

The play was adapted as a 1923 movie, also called Potash and Perlmutter. Woods produced several theatrical sequels, including Abe and Mawruss (1915), Business Before Pleasure (1917), His Honor: Abe Potash (1919), Partners Again (1922), and Potash and Perlmutter, Detectives (1926), all written by Glass with various co-authors.