About the work
Nine is a musical by Maury Yeston (music and lyrics) with a book by Arthur Kopit, premiered on Broadway in 1982. Based on Federico Fellini's film 8½, it won five Tony Awards including Best Musical. The work is known for its almost entirely female cast surrounding a single male lead.
Plot
The celebrated Italian film director Guido Contini, at thirty-nine, is mired in a deep creative and personal crisis: he lacks a screenplay for his next film, and his private life is a chaos of mistresses, wife, muse, and the ever-present memory of his mother. While trying to recover at a spa, the women of his life parade past him. Guido must confront his self-deceptions before he can find a new beginning, both artistically and as a person.
Cultural significance
Nine is regarded as one of the most sophisticated concept musicals of the 1980s and a showpiece of demanding Broadway composition. Yeston's score, in which the many female figures paint a polyphonic portrait of one man, is praised for its musical elegance. An acclaimed 2003 revival and the 2009 film with Daniel Day-Lewis attest to the enduring fascination of this introspective work about creativity and crisis.