SIGNED, Inscribed to the play's stage manager, and dated by Ayn Rand, February 22, 1973, on opening night in New York City: "To Arthur Silber --with many thanks-- and my best wishes for your future -- Ayn Rand 2/22/73."

 This is the Playbill for Rand's off-Broadway play, famous as Night of January 16, which opened at the McAlpin Rooftop Theatre under its original title, Penthouse Legend, faithful to Rand's definitive script. 

Night of January 16 had enjoyed success in 1936 on Broadway and in Los Angeles under the title Woman on Trial. "In the years following the Broadway production, the play has been astonishingly successful , up to and including the present time. It was produced in Britain and in other foreign countries. In 1941, Paramount released a movie version of the play with Ellen Drew and Robert Preston. [In a Sunday New York Daily News feature article, NY critic] Rex Reed quoted Ayn as saying 'I had nothing to with the screen adaptation. There is nothing of mine in the movie except the names of some of the characters and one line of dialogue, 'The court will adjourn until ten o'clock tomorrow morning.' The movie, she said was 'cheap, trashy and vulgar'" (Branden, 124N).

 In 1968, Rand published her definitive version of the play (New York: World Publishing) under the title Night of January 16. "I could not change its name: the play had become too famous," she wrote in her Introduction. For this publication, Rand revised the entire text of the scripts from the Broadway and Los Angeles versions of the play to create her own definitive version. "That final version," she writes in her Intro, "is the one one now published here, in this book. I am glad to see it published. Up to now, I had felt as if it were an illegitimate child roaming the world. Now, with this publication, it becomes legitimately mine." 

In 1973, the announcement appeared in her fortnightly periodical The Ayn Rand Letter (January 15, 1973): "Ayn Rand's courtroom drama, Night of January 16, will open February 22 at the McAlpin Rooftop Theatre. The play will be presented under its original title, Penthouse Legend." Rand herself added a promotional note under the announcement: "If the production of Penthouse Legend is successful, it may become a breakthrough: the start of a Romantic movement in the theatre. I can tell you that it is being produced in the right spirit and style, with an excellent cast under a brilliant director." 

A fine copy of the Playbill. Except for Rand's inscription to the stage manager on opening night, no writings or markings of any kind. The sheet behind the inscribed Title Sheet, containing four pages of ads, is not attached, but fits right in. Accompanying the signed Playbill is the issue of The Ayn Rand Letter with the announcement and Rand's promotional note, reprinted nowhere else. This issue contains the full text of the first appearance of Rand's essay, "Epitaph for a Culture." Book #Bv1311. $7500. Have you ever seen a Playbill signed by Ayn Rand?