Kiss Me, Kate ranks among the most popular musicals in the American theater. Cole Porter composed the music and wrote the lyrics for the show. The book (dialogue) was written by the husband-and-wife team of Samuel and Bella Spewack. The show opened on Broadway in New York City on Dec. 30, 1948. It ran for 1,077 performances, the longest of Porter’s many musicals.
Kiss Me, Kate is a show-within-a-show. The framework is a tryout in Baltimore for a musical based on The Taming of the Shrew (about 1593), a comedy by the famous English playwright William Shakespeare. Much of the show is a musical adaptation of that play. The central characters are Fred Graham, the producer and star of the production of The Taming of the Shrew, and his co-star, Lilli Vanessi, his former wife. During the Taming of the Shrew portion of the show, Graham plays Petruchio and Vanessi plays Kate, the main characters in Shakespeare’s play.
In the Broadway production, Alfred Drake played Fred Graham/Petruchio, and Patricia Morison played Lilli Vanessi/Kate. A romantic subplot involves two of the tryout performers who also have supporting roles in The Taming of the Shrew. Those roles were played by Harold Lang and Lisa Kirk.
Porter’s score included some of the composer’s greatest hits, such as “Wunderbar,” “So in Love,” “Too Darn Hot,” and “Always True to You in My Fashion.” John C. Wilson directed the Broadway production. Hanya Holm was the choreographer (dance designer). A motion-picture version of the musical was made in 1953 with Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson in the roles of Fred Graham and Lilli Vanessi.
