Kiss Me, Kate after Broadway

Abstract Having achieved sensation in New York, Kiss Me, Kate was marketed to audiences and producers internationally. This chapter explores a set of revivals involving Sam and Bella Spewack, who became custodians of the property as other members of the creative team moved onto new projects. Using two London productions and the staging at the Vienna Volksoper, it identifies how Kiss Me, Kate transitioned from commercial musical theater environments to subsidized opera houses, bridging a gap between genres, performers, and the viability of musicals to bolster audience interest in classical music spaces. Above all, the chapter reveals the scale of involvement and intervention that the Spewacks exercised to keep the sentiments of Kiss Me, Kate in step with the tone of the original Broadway production, fighting other creative undertakings they felt were not in the spirit of the work as it was initially conceived.