Creativity Quote by Ethel Merman

There is a seasoned performer’s smirk tucked inside Ethel Merman’s “unbelievable.” She’s not just marveling at old Broadway chaos; she’s quietly reclaiming how much of the classic era was held together by nerve, tempo, and sheer human stamina. “Slapdash” lands like a backstage anecdote told with a cigarette in hand: affectionate, a little indicting, and completely unromantic about the myth of effortless glamour.

The intent is double-edged. On the surface, Merman is commenting on process: producers “used to” assemble shows fast, improvised, sometimes irresponsibly. Underneath, she’s highlighting a gap between how theater was actually made and how it’s nostalgically remembered. The past gets varnished into legend; she drags it back to the workbench. That “when we talk about them now” is doing heavy lifting. It points to the way history gets curated by hindsight, PR, and survivor bias. We remember the hits, not the near-disasters that opened anyway.

Context matters: Merman came up when Broadway ran on instincts and egos, before today’s workshop culture, risk mitigation, and corporate capitalization. Her voice - famously brassy, immovable - was part of what made that slapdash system viable. The subtext is almost a dare: you think those shows were inevitable? They weren’t. They were assembled in a rush, then made to look inevitable by performers who could bulldoze a weak scene with a single note.

It works because it punctures nostalgia without turning bitter. Merman’s tone suggests awe at survival as much as criticism of the system that demanded it.