“There’s a Small Hotel,” originally written for the Billy Rose production of Jumbo but dropped, was introduced in the 1936 musical On Your Toes by Doris Carson and Ray Bolger. According to Thomas S. Hischak in The American Musical Theatre Song Encyclopedia the song was reprised by Luella Gear and Monty Woolley with a comic lyric. The show ran for a total of 315 performances, one of the two longest running shows of the year. The London production of the show opened in 1937. The show was revived on Broadway in 1954 but ran for only 64 performances. However, the 1983 revival ran for 505 performances, won several Tony awards, and produced a cast album.

The show also introduced the song “Glad to Be Unhappy” and the ballet “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” composed by Rodgers and choreographed by George Balanchine. The ballet was danced by Ray Bolger and Tamara Geva in the stage production and by Eddie Albert and Vera Zorina in the unsuccessful 1939 film version of the show which cut most of the original score and used only a few tunes as instrumental background music. Gene Kelly re-choreographed the ballet for the 1948 film biography of Rodgers and Hart, Words and Music, in which he danced with Vera Ellen.

For the first time, Rodgers and Hart wrote the book for the show and then took their script to George Abbott who agreed to direct the production. However, just before the show went into rehearsal, Abbott took off to spend the winter in Palm Beach. Another director was called in, and the opening in March was a disaster. As Rodgers recounts in his autobiography Musical Stages, he wired Abbott who returned to New York, threw out all of the new director’s changes, went back into rehearsal with the original script, and saved the show.

Ever since returning from Hollywood, Rodgers and Hart had been discussing the fact that they wanted their songs to be an integral part of the musical and help move the story forward. On Your Toes was revolutionary in that sense as the first show to incorporate the ballet into the story line. Bolger, a university music teacher, persuades the director of the Russian Ballet to stage a jazz ballet at the school. He dances the role with the prima ballerina and is marked by her jealous boyfriend who tries to shoot him from the audience.

According to author David Ewen in All the Years of American Popular Music this was Balanchine’s first effort in popular music theater. He created two ballets, one “a satire on formal Russian ballets... and the other a ballet in an American style and tempo, ‘Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,’ the climax of the entire musical.”

“There’s a Small Hotel” appeared on Your Hit Parade four times and made it to the charts twice. First the Hal Kemp Orchestra with Skinnay Ennis on vocals took it to first place for two weeks and it stayed on the charts for a total of 15 weeks. Paul Whiteman, who was pictured on the sheet music, took it to number 19 for one week with Durelle Alexander on vocals. Although the Claude Thornhill Orchestra, which included French horns (unusual for the time) recorded a highly acclaimed rendition of the song arranged by Gil Evans, their version didn’t make the charts. It featured the vocal group, the Snowflakes whose name was derived from the orchestra’s theme song “Snowfall.”

Alec Wilder, discussing “There’s a Small Hotel” in his book American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900-1950, says, “The verse is a marvel and, though making no pretense of being any more than an introductory statement, is still a very special piece of music all by itself.... The chorus is part of theater music history, a simple, direct, perfectly disciplined song, and like all simple things, hard to analyze.”

In his book Can’t Help Singin’ Gerald Mast says, “In their best songs, Hart’s acid lyrics cut through Rodgers’ sweet sounds like a knife.... In ‘There’s a Small Hotel’ the sweet melody and sweet description of the countryside come to an abrupt halt in the release with a rhetorical question, ‘Who wants people?’ Although Rodgers admired the way Hart was able to capture the feeling of two newlyweds who needed no one in the world except each other, nothing in the song (or show) indicates that these lovers are wed. Though they intend to use the bridal suite, this ‘small hotel’ is one of those ‘honeymoon hotels’ in the era before motels (and modeled on a rather notorious New Jersey inn that Hart apparently knew well.)”

Rodgers comments on Hart’s lyrics for “There’s a Small Hotel” in his autobiography. “It was the melody--romantic, unsophisticated, youthful--that suggested the theme to Larry of an idealized country inn with its wishing well, one-room bridal suite and view of a nearby church steeple. This was another example of his ability to convey the appeal of the simple life.”

“There’s a Small Hotel” was sung by Frank Sinatra in the film version of Pal Joey and by Betty Garrett in the film biopic of Rodgers and Hart, Words and Music. It has been recorded by many of the stalwarts of jazz including Count Basie, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, and Joe Williams. Others who have recorded it include composer/keyboardist Joe Zawinul and three trombonists, Bennie Green, J. J. Johnson, and Kai Winding, with strings. It is sung on new recordings by Rebecca Kilgore, Nancy King, and Madeline Eastman.