Kiss Me, Kate
Shows · Kiss Me, Kate
After having collaborated ten years earlier on Leave It to Me!, Cole Porter and the husband-wife team of Samuel and Bella Spewack were reunited for Kiss Me, Kate, the composer’s biggest hit and the fourth longest running musical of the Forties. The idea for the show began germinating in 1935 when producer Saint Subber, then a stagehand for the Theatre Guild’s production of The Taming of the Shrew, became aware that i…
- Opened
- 1948
- Performances
- 1,077
- Type
- Musical
- Era
- Golden Age
Won the Tony Award for Best Musical, 1949.
Productions6 on Broadway
| 1948 | New Century Theatre Original. December 30, 1948 · John C. Wilson | 1,077 performances · 3 Tony wins |
| 1952 | Broadway Theatre Revival. January 8, 1952 · John C. Wilson | 8 performances |
| 1999 | Martin Beck Theatre Revival. November 18, 1999 · Michael Blakemore | 881 performances |
| 2001 | Victoria Palace Theatre Transfer. | |
| 2001 | Victoria Palace Theatre Original. | |
| 2019 | Studio 54 Revival. March 14, 2019 · Scott Ellis | 257 performances |
Every Broadway staging held in broadway-data, sourced to IBDB. West End runs are not yet held.
Recordings 18 albums held
Licensing 6 entries
| US | Concord Theatricals Tams-Witmark | available |
| US | Concord Theatricals Tams-Witmark | available |
| US | Concord Theatricals Tams-Witmark | available |
| UK | Concord Theatricals Tams-Witmark | available |
| UK | Concord Theatricals Tams-Witmark | available |
| UK | Concord Theatricals Tams-Witmark | available |
Read from the licensor's own pages and catalogues. Rights move, and an empty row means we have not confirmed a publisher, not that the show cannot be licensed.
43 passages naming Kiss Me, Kate, found by keyword across 178 books. It's where this show turns up in the literature, not curated trivia about it.
Cullum played him as John Barrymore, with the love-hate relationship of Oscar and Lily also recalling Fred and Lili in Kiss Me, Kate. book:broadway-musicals-show-by-show-seventh-edition-stanley-green-cary-ginell#p241
Wilson, John C. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Kiss Me, Kate book:broadway-musicals-show-by-show-seventh-edition-stanley-green-cary-ginell#p387
West Side Story (1957) and Sensations(1970), both from Romeo and Juliet; Kiss Me, Kate (1948), from The Taming of the Shrew; Swingin'the Dream (1939) and Babes in the Wood(1964), both from A Midsummer Night's Dream; Love and Let Love (1968), Your Own Thing (1968), and Music Is (1976), all from Twelfth Night; Two Gentle… book:broadway-musicals-show-by-show-green-stanley-green-kay-5th-ed-rev-and-updated-by#p131
The musicals of the post-Oklahoma! era seemed overly populated with these hoyden Jejune Allyson types (Daisy in Bloomer Girl, Hildy in On the Town, Carrie in Carousel, Lois in Kiss Me, Kate, Cissy in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Lola in Seventeen, and Hilda in Plain and Fancy). book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p57
(A few years later “From This Moment On” came into its own when it was interpolated into MGM’s 1953 film version of Kiss Me, Kate where it was performed by Ann Miller, Tommy Rall, Bob Fosse, Bobby Van, Jeannie Coyne, and Carol Haney.) book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p116
Alfred Drake was approached to play the King, but turned down the offer (allegedly because he didn’t want to commit to another long run, a la Kiss Me, Kate; but perhaps he was concerned that his character had so little to sing). book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p140
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