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Wel­come to July’s episode of The Mag­ic of The Musi­cal, where host Cale­do­nia Sky­tow­er explores the songs, sto­ries, and lore of the musi­cal the­atre. Tune in at 2pm slt/pacific on Sat­ur­day, July 18th for this month’s episode: “All About Eliza” — an episode that has been in var­i­ous stages of plan­ning for sev­er­al years. 

Alan J. Lern­er and Fred­er­ick Loewe’s My Fair Lady opened on March 15, 1956 at The Mark Hellinger The­atre on Broad­way. The show rep­re­sents not just the pin­na­cle of the artists’ work, but paid homage to the “clas­sics” of the 20thC musi­cal stage that came before it in the same breath as it pre­saged the changes that were on the way for musi­cals, and cul­ture in general.

Cale­do­nia is joined by first world col­league, direc­tor and chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Chris Nar­dine, to dis­cuss the show: its pro­duc­tion boons and chal­lenges, and why it remains a rel­e­vant piece of musi­cal lit­er­a­ture whose cen­tral issues can still be debat­ed and inter­pret­ed, even today.

Sources for this episode:

The Street Where I Live: A Mem­oir by Alan J. Lern­er & John Laur

The Mak­ing of My Fair Lady by Kei­th Garebain

The Word­smiths: Oscar Ham­mer­stein the 2nd & Alan J. Lern­er by Stephen Citron

Pro­duc­tions referenced:

Orig­i­nal Broad­way Pro­duc­tion — 1956

Orig­i­nal Lon­don Pro­duc­tion — 1958

Motion Pic­ture  — 1964

Fourth Revival, Lin­coln Cen­ter The­ater — 2018

Lon­don Sin­fo­nia Com­plete Record­ing — 2025

Just for Fun:

My Fair Lady “Rehearsal” from 1/29/60 CBS 2 Hour Spe­cial “The Fab­u­lous Fifties”

MY FAIR LADY’s Bartlett Sher, Cather­ine Zuber & Michael Year­gan on Their Lover­ly Collaboration

The Prob­lem With My Fair Lady’s End­ing (And How To Fix It) from Vlog­ger J.Draper