My Fair Lady

What defines people? Their origin or their language? Phonetics professor Henry Higgins is deeply convinced that it is the latter. When he continues his dialect studies once again outside Covent Garden Opera, he meets the flower girl Eliza Doolittle, a most interesting example who speaks terrible cockney slang – and his ambition flares up! Higgins bets his colleague, Colonel Pickering, that he can turn the scruffy street brat into a fine lady in just six months. The poor but bright Eliza is fascinated by this offer and agrees to the language training. After a few initial difficulties, the experiment seems likely to succeed – if only love had not entered the game…

Is there anyone who is not familiar with such famous hits as »The rain in Spain«, »Wouldn't it be lovely?«, or »I'm getting married in the morning«?! »My Fair Lady« is probably the byword for the »classic« musical, and is undoubtedly one of the most frequently performed musicals of all time. Its success was a major factor in achieving the breakthrough of the musical as an art form in Germany. And yet it had been an uphill climb to get there: Bernard Shaw was unwilling to release his comedy »Pygmalion« to be set to music anywhere during his lifetime. Only tough negotiations with his heirs finally brought success. The curtain rose on »My Fair Lady« for the first time in the Mark Hellinger Theatre on Broadway on March 15 1956. This was followed by 2,716 performances in this theatre alone. For the Gärtnerplatztheater, Artistic Director Josef E. Köpplinger is now restaging the classic with Michael Dangl as Professor Higgins, Nadine Zeintl as Eliza Doolittle, Friedrich von Thun as Colonel Pickering, Robert Meyer as Alfred P. Doolittle and Cornelia Froboess as Mrs Higgins – and in a Bavarian version for the first time in this theatre!

MY FAIR LADY programme reading sample