The Amorous Flea is a musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 with a book by Jerry Devine and music and lyrics by Bruce Montgomery

Bruce Montgomery (entertainer)

Bruce Eglinton Montgomery was an American composer, author, musical theater performer and painter; and a conductor and director, particularly of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas....

. It is based on Molière

Molière

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...

's 1662 comedy

Comedy

Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

 The School for Wives

The School for Wives

The School for Wives is a theatrical comedy written by the seventeenth century French playwright Molière and considered by some critics to be one of his finest achievements. It was first staged at the Palais Royal theatre on 26 December 1662 for the brother of the King...

.

The off-Broadway

Off-Broadway

Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...

 production, directed by Jack Sydow, opened on February 17, 1964 at the East 78th Street Playhouse and moved to York Theatre, running for a total of 93 performances. Proctor won the Theatre World Award

Theatre World Award

The Theatre World Award, first awarded for the 1945-46 season, is an American honor presented annually to actors and actresses in recognition of an outstanding New York City stage debut performance, either on Broadway or off-Broadway.-History:...

 for his performance http://www.firezine.net/issue5/fz5_04.htm. Songs in the production include "Lessons On Life".

Principal cast

• Arnolphe - Lew Parker - Baritone
  Baritone
  Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
  
  
• Chrysalde - David C. Jones - Baritone
• Alain - Jack Fletcher - Baritone
• Georgette - Ann Mitchell - Alto
  Contralto
  Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
  
  
• Agnes - Imelda De Martin - Mezzo-soprano
  Mezzo-soprano
  A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
  
  
• Horace - Philip Proctor
  Philip Proctor
  Philip Proctor is an American actor, voice actor and a member of The Firesign Theatre. He plays Rocky Rococo and Nancy in the Nick Danger series. He is from Goshen, Indiana...
  
   - Tenor
  Tenor
  The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
  
  

Synopsis

Arnolphe is about to marry Agnes, a beautiful orphaned girl whom he has groomed to be the perfect wife by sequestering her in a convent

Convent

A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...

 and keeping her totally ignorant of the outside world since she was four years old. Just as she reaches legal age, she meets and falls in love with Horace (son of Arnolphe's old friend Oronte), whom Arnolphe befriends without revealing his identity as the girl's lecherous

Lust

Lust is an emotional force that is directly associated with the thinking or fantasizing about one's desire, usually in a sexual way.-Etymology:The word lust is phonetically similar to the ancient Roman lustrum, which literally meant "purification"...

 fiancé. To his dismay, Horace persists in describing his success at wooing Agnes. Eventually her birth father Enrique arrives on the scene to demand she fulfill the marriage contract he arranged for her many years before, Agnes discovers the deception, and the revelation of the identity of the intended groom leaves Arnolphe a very unhappy man.

Songs

Act I

• All About Me
• All About He
• All About Him
• Learning Love
• There Goes a Mad Old Man
• Dialogue on Dalliance

Act II

• March of the Vigilant Vassals
• Lessons on Life
• Man is Man's Best Friend
• The Other Side of the Wall
• Closeness Begets Closeness

Act III

• It's a Stretchy Day
• When Time Takes Your Hand
• The Amorous Flea
• Learning Love (REprise)
• Finale