Kiss Me, Kate

Kiss Me, Kate
source
Name	Kiss Me, Kate
Music	Cole Porter
Lyrics	Cole Porter
Book	Sam and Bella Spewack
Premiere	1948
Place	New Century Theatre, New York City
Productions	Broadway, West End, film, revivals

Kiss Me, Kate Kiss Me, Kate is a 1948 musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter and a book by Sam Spewack and Bella Spewack. The work intertwines a backstage comedy about a theatre company mounting a production of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew with romantic entanglements among the company's stars, producers, and supporting players. The original Broadway production became a landmark for musical theatre revival and adaptation, influencing later productions and film musicals during the Golden Age of Broadway and Hollywood.

Background and conception

The musical was conceived during the post-World War II era when producers like Vinton Freedley and impresarios such as Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II dominated Broadway. Cole Porter, noted for earlier scores for Anything Goes and Silk Stockings, collaborated with playwrights Sam Spewack and Bella Spewack, who had credits with The 1940s American theatre and screenwriters working in Hollywood with figures like Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman. The Spewacks fashioned a metatheatrical book that drew on precedents from George Bernard Shaw and Noël Coward as well as the Shakespearian source The Taming of the Shrew. Producer Lerner and Loewe peers, including Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, were contemporaries, while choreographers such as Hale Woodruff and Gower Champion—and directors in the lineage of Jerome Robbins and George Balanchine—shaped expectations for staging. Broadway houses like the New York City Center and the New Century Theatre provided venues for newcomers developed alongside established institutions including the Shubert Organization and Theatre Guild.

Production history

The premiere opened on Broadway in 1948 at the New Century Theatre under director George S. Kaufman and was produced by Boris Aronson and others. The show ran for a substantial engagement, rivaling contemporary productions such as South Pacific and Annie Get Your Gun. West End transfers followed, staged at venues like the London Coliseum and produced by impresarios who had worked on Olivier and Noël Coward revivals. Subsequent revivals include landmark productions at the Goodman Theatre, Lincoln Center, Royal National Theatre, and regional houses such as the Guthrie Theater and Old Globe Theatre. Choreographers and directors across decades—Michael Kidd, Trevor Nunn, John Doyle, and Susan Stroman—reimagined staging and dance, while performers linked to Ethel Merman, Alfred Drake, and Cole Porter’s contemporaries returned in concert and television broadcasts for programs on The Ed Sullivan Show and PBS.

Synopsis

A theatre troupe mounts a production of The Taming of the Shrew with the divorced stars Petruchio and Katharine echoing the combat of their Shakespearean alter egos. The backstage plot involves a producer, two gangsters, and romantic complications that intersect with the play-within-the-play. Characters negotiate contracts, debts, and jealousies in a plot structure reminiscent of comedies by Molière, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and playwrights like Noël Coward. The action moves between rehearsal rooms, hotel suites, and the stage, culminating in a performance that resolves both the Shakespearean conflict and the modern relationships in a reconciliation typical of mid-20th-century musical comedy.

Musical numbers and orchestration

Scores by Cole Porter for the show include songs that became standards in the American songbook, comparable to Porter’s work for Anything Goes and Night and Day. Notable numbers from the score entered popular repertoires alongside recordings by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee, and Bing Crosby. Orchestration for the original production reflected the era’s pit ensembles used at houses like the New Amsterdam Theatre and included arrangements suitable for later adaptations by arrangers associated with Gershwin revivals and conductors in the tradition of Leopold Stokowski and Leonard Bernstein. Dance sequences in the score recall choreography trends established by Agnes de Mille and Bob Fosse, while vocal demands attracted leading Broadway singers and crossover recording artists.

Original cast and notable revivals

The original Broadway cast featured stars of the period who joined a lineage that includes performers from Ethel Merman to Kathryn Grayson and from Alfred Drake to later interpreters like Howard Keel and Zachary Levi in concert productions. Revivals have starred prominent figures in theatre and film across decades: West End casts have included performers connected to Laurence Olivier and Dame Judi Dench lineages, while U.S. revivals involved artists nurtured at institutions like Juilliard and The Juilliard School and companies such as The Metropolitan Opera and New York City Opera who crossed into musical theatre. Regional revivals and international productions have mounted the piece at venues ranging from the Sydney Opera House to the Lyric Theatre, London.

Critical reception and awards

Critical response at opening compared the work to contemporaneous triumphs such as South Pacific and recognized Cole Porter’s return to top-form among Broadway composers including Jerome Kern and Irving Berlin. The production garnered major awards of the period and later recognition in retrospectives held by institutions like the American Theatre Wing and the Tony Awards database, where it is often cited in histories of the Best Musical category. Revivals have been nominated for and won awards from bodies such as the Olivier Awards, Drama Desk Awards, and regional honors administered by organizations like the New York Drama Critics' Circle.

Adaptations and cultural impact

The musical was adapted into a 1953 film directed by George Sidney and produced within the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer system, featuring screen stars whose careers intersected with studios like RKO Pictures and Warner Bros. Songs entered jazz and pop repertoires, influencing arrangements recorded by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Thelonious Monk-era artists. Kiss Me, Kate’s intertextual approach influenced later meta-musicals and informed stage works by writers and composers such as Stephen Sondheim, Mel Brooks, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Stephen Schwartz. The show’s legacy is preserved in archives at institutions like the Library of Congress, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and academic studies in departments at Harvard University, Yale University, and Columbia University that examine mid-20th-century American musical theatre.

Category:1948 musicals