Kiss Me, Kate is a stage musical by Samuel and Bella Spewack (book) and Cole Porter (music and lyrics) that ran for 1,077 performances and was first performed in New York on December 30, 1948. It is roughly based on Shakespeare's play The Taming of the Shrew, where the main characters are actors in a stage production of that play.

Kiss Me, Kate was a comeback and a personal triumph for Cole Porter. After several successful musicals in the 1930s, notably Anything Goes, he experienced a terrible accident in 1937 which left him in continuous pain. Following the accident he continued to write songs and musicals but with limited success, and some thought he was past his prime. Kiss Me, Kate was in fact his biggest hit, receiving five Tony awards in 1949 (and again in its revival in 2000), and the only Cole Porter musical to have more than 1,000 performances on Broadway.

It was made into a film musical in 1953 by MGM, starring Howard Keel, Kathryn Grayson, Ann Miller, and Keenan Wynn, also featuring some well known dancers such as Bob Fosse, Carol Haney, and Tommy Rall as specialty dancers. It was filmed in 3-D.

Musical numbers

1. "Another Op'nin', Another Show" (not present in the film)
2. "Why Can't You Behave?"
3. "Wunderbar"
4. "So in Love"
5. "We Open in Venice"
6. "Tom, Dick, or Harry"
7. "I've Come to Wive It Wealthily in Padua"
8. "I Hate Men"
9. "Were Thine That Special Face"
10. "Cantiamo D'amore"
11. "Kiss Me, Kate"
12. "Too Darn Hot"
13. "Where Is the Life That Late I Led?"
14. "Always True to You in My Fashion"
15. "Bianca"
16. "Brush Up Your Shakespeare"
17. "I Am Ashamed That Women Are So Simple"

See also

• Play within a play

External link

• The IMDb entry on the 1953 movie

See Kiss Me Kate for the British TV sitcom.