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My Fair Lady then played for four weeks at the Erlanger Theatre in Philadelphia, beginning on February 15, 1956. The musical premiered on Broadway March 15, 1956, at the Mark Hellinger Theatre in New York City.
Mar 15, 2018 · My Fair Lady premiered on Broadway March 15, 1956, at the Mark Hellinger Theatre. The production earned Rex Harrison a Tony Award and Julie Andrews a nomination.
- It’S Rooted in Greek Mythology.
- George Bernard Shaw Didn’T Want Pygmalionto Get The Musical Theater Treatment.
- Rodgers & Hammerstein Tried (and Failed) to Make A Pygmalionmusical.
- Director Moss Hart Took Two Days Off to Work with Julie Andrews one-on-one.
- The Show Had A Number of Working titles.
- A Dead Penguin Was The Original Run’s Backstage Mascot.
- The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly in The … Hills and Mountains.
- The Very First Preview Was Almost canceled.
- Fifteen Minutes of Material Was Cut.
- The Original Cast Recording Topped The Billboard Charts.
Pygmalion is named after a mythical artist who supposedly sculpted an ideal woman—only to fall in love with the statue. A product of ancient Greek folklore, this character would later be immortalized by the Roman poet Ovid, who wrote about him in Book 10 of The Metamorphoses. Similarly, the male lead in Shaw’s Pygmalion—phonetics professor Henry Hi...
In 1908, composer Oscar Straus amazed audiences with The Chocolate Soldier, an operetta based on Shaw’s 1894 play Arms and the Man. But the success of this adaptation ultimately hurt the creator of its source material. During The Chocolate Soldier’s run, few theaters were willing to produce Arms and the Man—and Shaw’s wallet took a hit. During his ...
When Shaw died in 1950, producer Gabriel Pascal held the rights to Pygmalion. Over the next few years, he asked several writers if they could develop a musical adaptation. Most didn’t get very far. At one point, Pascal handed the assignment off to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. On paper, they looked like the perfect men for the job: The ...
When Julie Andrews, then just 19, was cast as Eliza Doolittle, the young actress found herself intimidated by the part. “[It] became obvious … that I was hopelessly out of my depth as Eliza Doolittle,” she said. To help his star find her footing, Hart canceled a weekend of full-cast rehearsals and gave Andrews step-by-step assistance. “For those tw...
At first, the show went by Liza, which eventually evolved into Lady Liza. However, Harrison didn’t care for either name because he felt that they both relegated his character to second fiddle status. A number of alternatives were then tossed around—including Fanfaroon, a British slang term meaning “one who brags about himself.” Finally, Loewe and L...
A dedicated Shaw fan, Harrison wanted My Fair Lady to resemble its source material as closely as possible. At rehearsals, he habitually brought along a Penguin edition copy of the Pygmalion script. Whenever a line of My Fair Lady’s dialogue didn’t seem right to Harrison, he’d look up and shout “Where’s my Penguin?” One day, Lerner decided to have a...
Get your facts straight, Henry Higgins! In one of Act I’s most popular songs, Higgins, Eliza, and Colonel Pickering declare that “the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.” But catchy as it may be, the little number is not meteorologically accurate. Every year, Spain’s northern hills and mountains receive far more rainfall than the plainsto the ...
Before it came to Broadway, My Fair Lady had its opening previewin New Haven, Connecticut on February 4, 1956. Unfortunately, Rex Harrison nearly derailed the production. Earlier that day, there was a last-minute rehearsal with the orchestra—which Harrison had never heard before. As soon as they started playing, the actor’s self-doubts about his si...
The Connecticut crowd may have loved what they saw at the preview, but My Fair Lady’s creators thought there was room for improvement. To shorten the show's runtime, seven songs were deleted. Among them was a tender ballad called “Say a Prayer for Me Tonight.” Conceived as a solo for Eliza, this song later appeared in the movie musical Gigi (1958)—...
For 15 weeks, the show's album held down the number one slot. Within its first year alone, the My Fair Lady cast recording became the best-selling album that Columbia Records had ever seen, netting $5 million that year. Over the next 10 years, it would sell a then-impressive 5 million copies.
Sep 29, 2014 · On this date 52 years ago, the original production of My Fair Lady ended its 2,717-performance run. The Playbill Vault looks back at the musical's premiere on Broadway.
Apr 13, 2018 · It’s now a classic, with a splashy revival about to open on Broadway. But in 1956, a nervous leading man and technical troubles meant the show almost didn’t go on.
Jun 21, 2010 · In 1956, songwriters Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musicalized Shaw's "Pygmalion," and when film producer Jack L. Warner saw the Broadway premiere of MY FAIR LADY, he immediately began making plans for the most lavish movie musical in the history of Warner Bros.
Apr 8, 2021 · This beloved adaptation of the Broadway stage hit stars Audrey Hepburn in the role of Eliza Doolittle, a sassy, working-class London street vendor, and Rex Harrison as the elitist Professor...
