Combine Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew” with Porter’s music and lyrics to get KISS ME, KATE — an instant success with every cast and audience. This is a play-within-a-play where each cast member’s on-stage life is complicated by what is happening offstage. Musical numbers include Why Can’t You Behave, So In Love, Wunderbar, Tom, Dick or Harry, Were Thine That Special Face, From This Moment On, Too Darn Hot, Brush Up Your Shakespeare, I Hate Men, Always True to You (In My Fashion) and Another Op’nin’, Another Show. KISS ME, KATE is fun, melodious and sophisticated.
KISS ME, KATE was originally produced in 1948 and has been considered one of Broadway’s treasures. It was revived in 1999, taking advantage of new technology in music and keeping in mind evolving social values. In the Revised Version all the basic music material for the show was taken back to the fundamentals of its melody, harmony and rhythm, and a new score was written. All seventeen of the original songs are present in the revised score, and the song From This Moment On from Porter’s OUT OF THIS WORLD as well as from the 1953 film version of KISS ME, KATE has been added. The book was carefully refined, not changed, for the new version. The character Harrison Howell has become a General with political ambitions, and adds some topical humor from the exact period of the show to the Revised Version.
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