The Day Before Spring 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 and lyrics by 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...

 and music by Frederick Loewe.

Productions

The 1945 touring production closed in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 after three days due to a crippling coal strike. The show then opened at the Shubert Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts on October 30, 1945, with the Billboard Magazine critic writing "Lerner and Loewe look like potential supermen."

The musical opened on Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 on November 22, 1945 at the National Theatre

Nederlander Theatre

David T. Nederlander Theatre is a 1,232-seat Broadway theatre located at 208 West 41st Street, in New York City . One of the Nederlander Organization's nine Broadway theatres, the legacy of the theatre began with David Tobias Nederlander, for whom the theatre is named.Built by Walter C...

, and closed on April 13, 1946 after 167 performances. Directed by Edward Padula

Edward Padula

Edward Padula was an American theatre producer, stage manager, and occasional director and writer.Born in Newark, New Jersey, Padula began his theatrical career by directing the book for the early Lerner and Loewe collaboration The Day Before Spring in 1945...

 and choreographed by Antony Tudor

Antony Tudor

Antony Tudor was an English ballet choreographer, teacher and dancer.-Biography:Tudor, born William Cook, discovered dance accidentally. He began dancing professionally with Marie Rambert in 1928, becoming general assistant for her Ballet Club the next year...

, the cast included Lucille Benson

Lucille Benson

Lucille Benson was an American actress known for her roles in commercials, television, and movies in the 1970s and 1980s.-Personal life:...

, John Archer

John Archer (actor)

John Archer was an American movie and television actor.-Biography:Born Ralph Bowman in Osceola, Nebraska, Archer moved to California at the age of five...

, Bert Freed

Bert Freed

Bert Freed was a prolific American character actor, voice over actor, and the first actor to portray "Detective Columbo" on television.-Life and career:...

, Irene Manning

Irene Manning

Irene Manning was an actress/singer.She was born Inez Harvuot in Cincinnati, Ohio in a family of five siblings. Her family loved to go on outdoor picnics where the featured activity was group singing. This family environment helped Irene to develop a keen interest in singing at a very early age...

, and William Johnson

William Johnson (actor)

William Johnson was an American actor of the stage and screen.-Biography:Born in Baltimore, Johnson began his career as a child actor on the stage. He made his Broadway debut at the age of 8 as Gaffe in the 1924 play Shipwrecked. He returned to Broadway in 1926 to portray the Hangman in Rudolf...

.

The show was performed in July 2007 by the York Theatre Company in New York City as part of their Mufti Theatre series. The York staged concert starred Hunter Bell

Hunter Bell

Hunter Houston Bell is an American book author and one of the stars of the musical [title of show].-Early life:Bell was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and was raised in Wilson, North Carolina until the seventh grade, when he moved to Atlanta, Georgia. He moved to New York City in 1993, and currently...

, Amanda Watkins, Richard Todd Adams, Edward Watts and Tia Speros. The restoration of the show was undertaken by musical supervisors Aaron Gandy, Mark York and director David Glenn Armstrong and included material that had been missing since the show closed on Broadway in 1946. A treasure trove of material was bought by the Library of Congress in 1999 which filled the missing holes in the score.

Plot overview

The plot concerns a married woman who, at a college reunion, meets the man with whom she almost eloped ten years before. Romantically stirred by a novel he has written about her, she considers leaving her husband and reuniting with her former flame.

Song list

Act I

• The Day Before Spring
• God's Green World
• You Haven't Changed at All
• My Love Is a Married Man

Act II

• Friends to the End
• A Jug of Wine
• I Love You This Morning
• The Day Before Spring (Reprise)
• Where's My Wife?
• This is My Holiday