Palace Theatre, Broadway - February-March, 1983

 

MUSIC: John Kander

LYRICS: Fred Ebb

ORIGINAL BOOK: Peter Stone

BASED ON THE FILM:  

Woman of the Year

CAST:

Tess Harding Debbie Reynolds
Sam Craig Jamie Ross
Gerald Roderick Cook 
Jan Donovan Marilyn Cooper 
Helga Grace Keagy
Alexi Petrikov Victor Barbee
Chip Salsbury John Hammil 
Larry Donovan Timothy Jecko

 

 

SYNOPSIS: Tess Harding, nationally recognized TV news personality, is about to be named Woman of the Year. To Tess, however, it seems a somewhat dubious honor. As she waits in the wings to receive her award, she recalls a flippant editorial she wrote on the newspaper cartoon strips. The article really hit home and got to all the cartoonists who frequent the Ink Pot. It inspired Sam Craig to publish a caricature of her in his newspaper strip cartoon, Katz. Tess is annoyed by the dose of her own medicine but changes her tune when the handsome Sam shows up at her office. She invites him to dinner, but has great difficulty working on a follow-up date into her impossible schedule. Eventually he manages to get her down to the Ink Pot, where she amazes Sam and the other cartoonists by her knowledge of comic art. Romance is in full bloom, and marriage soon follows, but still there is so little time together. Sam's feelings are mirrored in his comic strip.

One day Tess takes exception to a Katz strip in which Katz says that marriage is a breeze; it's the living together that's so damned hard. It becomes the focal point of an argument that ends with Sam announcing that he is moving out. Now it's time for her to go on stage to accept her award - Woman of the Year - the woman who has just lost the man she cares most about!

Some weeks later her heavy work schedule has slowed down somewhat. She has had time to analyze her role as busy media personality compared to the traditional role of wife and companion. She goes to the Ink Pot and talks with Sam. She also seeks advice from a Russian ballet dancer, whom she helped to defect, before he returns behind the Iron Curtain to be with his wife. She then travels to the Rocky Mountain home of her first husband, in an attempt to determine what made his second marriage a success. Flying back to New York, she announces to the world that she is resigning her show to devote herself full time to Sam.

Having been tipped off about her announcement, Sam meets her at the studio to tell her that he wants to try again but that he wants her to keep her career. He just didn't want a relationship in which she was making all the decisions. They resolve to work things out and give it another go.

MUSICAL NUMBERS:

Woman of the Year

The Poker Game

See You in the Funny Papers

When You're Right, You're Right

Shut Up, Gerald

So What Else is New?

One of the Boys

Table Talk

The Two of Us

It Isn't Working

I Told You So

Who Would Have Dreamed

I Wrote the Book

Happy in the Morning

Sometimes a Day Goes By

 The Grass is Always Greener

 

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