This production of Kiss Me, Kate is based on director Michael Blakemore and choreographer Kathleen Marshall’s 1999 “revisal” of the show. That version, which won the 2000 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical, added all-new orchestrations, crisp new choreography and a dollop of new dialogue to the show without eliminating the mugging, clowning, overacting and vocal embellishments that made the 1948 Broadway original and five previous Music Circus productions such a hoot. The result is the best of both worlds: an ingenious script and score by some of best and brightest of Broadway’s Golden Age embellished with a contemporary sensibility and modern stagecraft by leading artists of the 21st century.

In 1948, successful Hollywood screenwriters Samuel and Bella Spewack were considering writing a musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. Cole Porter, who had collaborated with the Spewack’s on their only Broadway hit, 1938’s Leave It to Me, eagerly agreed to do the music.  The working title was the supremely unexciting The Shrew until Porter wrote the second act finale, “Kiss Me, Kate” – lifted directly from one of Petruchio’s speeches in Shakespeare’s original.

Kiss Me, Kate opened at the Century Theatre in New York on December 30, 1948, with a cast that included musical theatre legend Alfred Drake (Babes in Arms, Oklahoma!, Kismet) as Petruchio/Fred. His co-star as Katherine/Lilli was Patricia Morison, best known for taking over the role of Anna in the original cast of The King and I after Gertrude Lawrence’s death – onstage. The show ran until July 28, 1951, racking up a total of 1,077 performances, making it Porter’s most successful Broadway musical.           

Concurrent with the New York run, two professional companies toured the United States and Canada, a London edition packed the English National Opera’s cavernous Coliseum for two full years and a German version set box office records at the Vienna’s magnificent Volksoper opera house as Wunderbar, the title of one of the show’s songs.

In addition to its worldwide critical and box-office success, Kiss Me, Kate had the distinction of winning the very first Tony Award for Best Musical when the category was introduced in 1949. Cole Porter was also honored for the show’s score.

In 1953, MGM released a film version of “Kiss Me, Kate” starring the biggest names of that over-the-top era of musical films: Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel, Ann Miller and Bobby Van.

True to its mission of bringing the best Broadway musicals to Sacramento as soon as the rights become available, Music Circus produced its first Kiss Me, Kate in 1953. That production starred Jesse White as one of the stage-struck gangsters. White was a major star on stage, in film and in series television.  Ironically, he is best known today for his long-running gig as the Maytag repairman, “the loneliest man in town.”

The biggest star of Music Circus’ 1959 Kate was behind the scenes: set designer Robin Wagner. After two years (1958, 1959) designing all productions for the then-ten-show Music Circus season, Wagner moved on to Broadway as assistant set designer on a dozen shows until 1968, when he got his big break as set designer for the ground-breaking musical Hair. He went on to become a three-time Tony Award winner, most recently for The Producers.

For the 1980 production of Kiss Me, Kate, Music Circus cast Judy Kaye as Katherine/Lilli. Kaye’s was a storied “show biz” career. With little Broadway experience under her belt, Kaye was cast in On the Twentieth Century in 1978 and became the understudy for headliner Madeline Kahn. When Kahn developed vocal problems from the demands of the role only weeks into the run, Kaye stepped in and became the clichéd “overnight star.”

Music Circus’ most recent Kiss Me, Kate, staged in 1996, was memorable for bringing three longtime Music Circus favorites – Sarah Tattersall, Michael G, Hawkins and Rachel DeBenedet – together for their only show together under the tent, although all three had appeared previously in pairs. The show’s choreographer was Dan Mojica, whose name you’ll find once again on the title page of this playbill.