When Katharine Hepburn delivered her climactic stage speech, Gregory La Cava reduced it to only ten lines and filmed it on a closed set. He later brought in the actors and the extras in the audience and had them react to the filmed speech. Many of them broke down.
The screenplay was considerably altered from the hit stage play. Director Gregory La Cava was particularly gifted working with actresses. For two weeks prior to filming, he had his cast improvise in the boarding house set as if they were actually rooming together and had a script girl take down all their interchanges. Most of the dialog heard in the boarding house is extemporaneous ad-libs by the actresses.
Katharine Hepburn was in discussions to star in the original Broadway stage production of "Stage Door", but Broadway producer Leland Hayward, reportedly jealous of her deepening friendship with noted film director John Ford, cast his then-girlfriend Margaret Sullavan in the leading role. Hayward and Sullavan married one month after the stage play opened. Margaret Sullavan was considered for the film version, but became pregnant with their first child, and the part went to Katharine Hepburn.
Incredibly, Ann Miller was only 14 years old when she appeared in this film. She had lied about her age and procured a fake birth certificate, but the precocious Miller was so tall and beautiful at age 14 that she pulled it off. With this knowledge, it is quite impressive to see her holding her own whilst dancing with Ginger Rogers, by then an international star as the dance partner of Fred Astaire.
The name of the residence is the Footlights Club. The first shot of the interior is foot + lights - a pair of feet and a dustpan of light bulbs.