Shows · Face the Music
Face the Music
Opened 1932
165 performances
Musical, Early
The mood of cynicism created by the Depression continued to spawn a number of sharply satirical Broadway musicals. The Gershwin brothers, Georges S. Kaufman, and Morrie Ryskind had led the way with Strike Up the Band and Of Thee I Sing, and now it was the turn of Irving Berlin and Moss Hart (with Kaufman joining the project as director). In Face the Music the concern was with New York politicians and policemen with little tin boxes, the reduced financial circumstances of the city’s elite (former wealthy socialites sing “Let’s Have Another Cup o’ Coffee” in the Automat), and the insane world of the theatre. In the leading role, Mary Boland played Mrs. Martin Van Buren Meshbesher, the wife of a police sergeant “lousy with money,” who tries to lose some of it by backing a tasteless Broadway show, The Rhinestone Girl, that surprisingly becomes a hit. Despite the Seabury investigation into police corruption (which also figured in the 1959 musical, Fiorello!), the boys in blue manage to beat the rap when Mrs. Meshbesher contributes the profits from the show to the city’s depleted treasury. Early in 1933 Face the Music returned to Broadway for a month-long run.
"a musical comedy revue,": the show's own period marketing line.
- Music
- Irving Berlin
- Lyrics
- Irving Berlin
- Book
- Moss Hart
Productions2 on Broadway
Songs4 songs
Let’s Have Another Cup o’ Coffee, On a Roof in Manhattan, Soft Lights and Sweet Music, I Say It’s Spinach
Recordings 3 recordings
Licensing 2 entries
| US | Concord Theatricals Concord Theatricals | available |
| UK | Concord Theatricals Concord Theatricals | available |
Face the Music is a musical, the first collaboration between Moss Hart (book) and Irving Berlin (music and lyrics). Face the Music opened on Broadway in 1932, and has had several subsequent regional and New York stagings. The popular song "Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee" was introduced in the musical by J. Harold Murray.
“Let’s Have Another Cup of Coffee” from Face the Music).
The Complete Book of 1930s Broadway Musicals Dietz Dan Rowman Littlefield Publis, p. 305Something wrong here? Correct a field or report the problem. Every change is recorded in public under the contributor licence.