Love Life is a musical written by Kurt Weill

Kurt Weill

Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...

 (music) and Alan Jay Lerner

Alan Jay Lerner

Alan Jay Lerner was an American lyricist and librettist. In collaboration with Frederick Loewe, he created some of the world's most popular and enduring works of musical theatre for both the stage and on film...

 (book and lyrics). It opened at the 46th Street Theatre (now the Richard Rodgers

Richard Rodgers Theatre

The Richard Rodgers Theatre, is a Broadway theater in New York City, built by Irwin Chanin in 1925. When it was first opened, it was called Chanin's 46th Street Theatre. Chanin almost immediately leased it to the Shuberts, who bought the building outright in 1931 and renamed it the 46th Street...

) on October 7, 1948, and closed on May 14, 1949, after having played 252 performances. The original production starred Ray Middleton

Ray Middleton

Raymond Earl Middleton, Jr. , known and billed as Ray Middleton, was an American character actor.Born in Chicago, Illinois, Middleton was the first actor to play Superman in public, which he did on July 3, 1940, during the 1939 New York World's Fair's "Superman Day"...

 and Nanette Fabray

Nanette Fabray

Nanette Fabray is an American actress, comedienne, singer, dancer, and activist. She began her career performing in vaudeville as a child and then became a musical theatre actress during the 1940s and 1950s, winning a Tony Award in 1949 for her performance in Love Life...

, was directed by Elia Kazan

Elia Kazan

Elia Kazan was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated...

, and choreographed by Michael Kidd

Michael Kidd

Michael Kidd was an American film and stage choreographer.-Life and career:Born Milton Greenwald in New York City on the Lower East Side, the son of Abraham Greenwald, an immigrant barber, and his wife Lillian, Michael Kidd moved to Brooklyn with his family and attended New Utrecht High School there...

.

The show told the story of a married couple, Sam and Susan Cooper, who never age

Floating timeline

A Floating timeline is a device used in fiction, particularly in comics and animation, to explain why characters age little or not at all over a period of time - despite real-world markers like notable events, people and technology appearing in the works and correlating with the real world.A...

 as they progress from 1791 to 1948, encountering difficulties in their marriage (and thus the very fabric of American marriage) as they struggle to cope with changing social mores. One of the earliest examples of the concept musical

Concept musical

A concept musical is a musical where the show's metaphor or statement is more important than the actual narrative. Concept musicals have their roots in the plays with music Bertolt Brecht wrote with Kurt Weill and other composers...

, the action of Love Life was interspersed with vaudeville-style numbers that commented on the story, in a way very similar to Cabaret

Cabaret (musical)

Cabaret is a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions....

 (which opened in 1966).

No official cast recording of Love Life has ever been made; a strike at the time of the original production prevented preserving the original cast of this show, as also happened with Where's Charley?

Where's Charley?

Where's Charley? is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by George Abbott. The story was based on the play Charley's Aunt by Brandon Thomas. The musical debuted on Broadway in 1948 and was revived on Broadway and in the West End...

the same year.

The song "I Remember it Well," is the original version of a lyric Lerner revised for use in the 1958 film, Gigi

Gigi (1958 film)

Gigi is a 1958 musical film directed by Vincente Minnelli. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette...

.

Musical Numbers

Act 1

• "Who Is Samuel Cooper?"
• "My Name Is Samuel Cooper"
• "Here I'll Stay"
• "Progress"
• "I Remember It Well"
• "Green Up Time"
• "I Remember It Well (Reprise)"
• "Mother's Getting Nervous"
• "Economics"
• "My Kind of Night"
• "Women's Club Blues"
• "Progress (Soft Shoe Reprise)"
• "Love Song"
• "I'm Your Man"
• "You Understand Me So"
• "Finale Act 1"

Act 2

• "Ho, Billy, Oh"
• "I Remember It Well (Reprise)"
• "Is it Him or is it Me?"
• "Punch and Judy Get a Divorce" (Ballet)
• "This is the Life"
• Illusion Minstrel Show: "Madame Zuzu"
• Illusion Minstrel Show: "Takin' No Chances"
• Illusion Minstrel Show: "Miss Ideal Man"
• Illusion Minstrel Show: "Mr. Right"
• Finale

Other Numbers

• Locker Room
• Susan's Dream

External links

• Ovrtur.com Listing