About the work
Kiss Me, Kate is a musical by Cole Porter (music and lyrics) with a book by Bella and Samuel Spewack, premiered on Broadway in 1948. It wittily embeds Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" in a backstage plot — a musical within a musical.
Plot
A theatre company is rehearsing a musical version of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew". The divorced acting couple Fred Graham (at once director and player of Petruchio) and the star Lilli Vanessi (who plays Katharina) carry on their private battles as passionately as the stage figures wage their war of the sexes. The chaos is heightened by two gangsters who turn up over a wrongly signed IOU, and by Fred's flirtations with the young dancer Lois. The private and stage plots intertwine until Lilli wants to leave the company — but in the end, on stage as in life, love triumphs.
Cultural significance
Kiss Me, Kate was the very first musical to win, in 1949, the newly created Tony Award for Best Musical, and is regarded as Cole Porter's most dramaturgically accomplished work. Porter's score, with songs such as "So in Love", "Too Darn Hot" and "Brush Up Your Shakespeare", ranks among the best of American music theatre. The work is still performed worldwide and is considered a model of the elegant interweaving of classic and entertainment.