It must have been a Marx Brothers year, because 2014 had perfect timing.

Author and historian Kevin Fitzpatrick was organizing Marxfest, a month-long celebration of the Marx Brothers, with events in all five boroughs of New York City. Marxfest was to take place in May of 2014, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Brothers receiving their stage names from vaudeville monologuist Art Fisher.

Robert Pinnock, Matthew Curiano, Seth Shelden, Allison Jane, and Noah Diamond in the 2014 staged reading. Photo by Jonathan M. Smith.

At the same time, Marxian writer and performer Noah Diamond was finishing his “reconstruction, adaptation, and expansion” of I’ll Say She Is, and trying to figure out how to get it in front of an audience, in some form, on the 90th anniversary of the original Broadway opening — which also happened to be May of 2014.

Marxfest was a wild success, a high point in the recent history of Marx Brothers fandom. And one of the highlights of Marxfest was a pair of staged readings at the Players Theatre in Greenwich Village. Produced and directed by Trav S.D., these readings marked the first public performances of I’ll Say She Is since the Marx Brothers gave its final performance in June of 1925.

By the time the readings took place, the next step for I’ll Say She Is was already known. In his introduction to the first reading, Trav S.D. announced that I’ll Say She Is had been accepted to the 2014 New York International Fringe Festival.

revue of 1924 would be a downtown production, 90 years later — a fringe production. Presented to ecstatic crowds at the Sheen Center, the FringeNYC run served as a crucial workshop for the 2016 production; and featured the talents of many artists who would continue with the show, including musical director Sabrina Chap, costume designer Julz Kroboth, and performers Seth Shelden, Melody Jane, Kathy Biehl, C.L. Weatherstone, and Amber Bloom.

Fringe production is lightweight by nature — shows have 15 minutes to set up and 15 minutes to get out! The Fringe I’ll Say She Is was lavish by Fringe standards, but a fully-produced I’ll Say She Is still lay ahead. Revue specialties like the Pygmalion and Galatea Ballet (and the Marx Brothers’ “Tramp Ballet” spoofing it) would have to wait for 2016. But the long, awful I’ll Say She Is drought which had plagued New York since 1925 was finally over.