Lindsay and Crouse was the writing team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, who collaborated famously on a succession of Broadway plays and musicals for 27 years during the mid 20th century. Their first collaboration was the rewriting of the book for the Cole Porter musical Anything Goes in 1935. They continued to co-pen books for Broadway musicals through 1962, including Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music in 1959. They also penned several successful comedies; notably winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1945 for their original play State of the Union. Several of their works were adapted into motion pictures. The team also co-produced the original production of Arsenic and Old Lace by playwright Joseph Kesselring.
They wrote the play Life with Father, which opened in 1939 and starred Lindsay and his wife Dorothy Stickney. It ran for over seven years[3] to become the longest-running non-musical play on Broadway. Other original Broadway plays they penned together included Strip for Action (1942), Life With Mother (1948), Remains to Be Seen (1951), The Prescott Proposals (1953), The Great Sebastians (1956), and Tall Story (1959). In 1946, they were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for their 1945 play, State of the Union.[4]
In addition to writing the books for Broadway shows, they were also "show doctors" who were asked to come and improve Broadway shows in out-of-town tryouts, assisting the director and author of the show to improve the script. They also co-produced the original production of the play Arsenic and Old Lace which ran on Broadway from 1941 through 1944.