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Let 'Em Eat Cake 

Full-Length Musical, Satire/Political Satire  /  3w, 7m plus ensemble

Music and Lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin
Book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind

Aiming its barbs at everything from totalitarianism to fashion shows, Let ’Em Eat Cake is a dark, cynical and hilarious American operetta featuring one of the Gershwin brothers’ most complex and inventive scores.

Let 'Em Eat Cake 

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  • Cast Size
    Cast Size
    3w, 7m plus ensemble
  • Duration
    Duration
    120 minutes (2 hours)
  • Audience
    Target Audience
    Adult
Also Available
Let 'Em Eat Cake (Concert Version)

Details

Summary
A biting sequel to the Pulitzer prize-winning Of Thee I Sing, Let ’Em Eat Cake is a darker, more complex look at politics and American culture in the early 1930s. In this tuneful but edgy satire, President Wintergreen is defeated for reelection, and he and his former Vice President, Alexander Throttlebottom, form an incipient Fascist movement to take over the government. The rousing score from George and Ira Gershwin includes the hit song “Mine.”
History
Let ’Em Eat Cake premiered on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre on 21 October 1933. Produced by Sam H. Harris, the production featured William Gaxton as J.P. Wintergreen, Victor Moore as Alexander Throttlebottom, Philip Loeb as Kruger, and Lois Moran as Mary Wintergreen.
Keywords
Performing Groups
  • Time Period 1930s
  • Setting Various locations, from Main Street to the White House to the Guillotine. 1933.
  • Features Period Costumes
  • Duration 120 minutes (2 hours)

Media

“Delightful... lively and vivacious and rippling with little musical jokes.” – National Review

“The show is still very funny... the score is lively and vivacious and rippling with little musical jokes drawn out of everything from Schubert to Sousa to The Pirates of Penzance.” – National Review (2019)

“Very sophisticated... with its counterpoint, multiple songs within musical interludes, and its duets and large choral numbers, this was the composer’s most complex score to date... The score to Let ’Em Eat Cake is composed in a series of mini-musical sequences, something Sondheim was to popularize decades later. The eclectic influences included Handel, Shubert, Gilbert and Sullivan (‘I am the very model of a modern major general’), Yiddish music and blues.” – Theater Scene

“Though George Gershwin’s highly skilled musicianship was justly admired... some may sense disturbing parallels to our present times.” – Operetta Research Center

Music

Music Samples

  • Musical Style Classic Broadway
  • Vocal DemandsModerate
  • Orchestra Size X-Large

Licensing & Materials

  • Licensing fees and rental materials quoted upon application.

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Authors

George Gershwin

George Gershwin

George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn on September 26, 1898, and began his musical training when he was 13. At 16, he quit high school to work as a "song plugger" for a music publisher, and soon he was writing songs himself. "Swanee," as introduced by Al Jolson, brought George ...

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Ira Gershwin

Ira Gershwin

Ira Gershwin, the first songwriter to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize, was born in New York City on December 6, 1896. In 1917 The Evening Sun published his first song (“You May Throw All The Rice You Desire But Please, Friends, Throw No Shoes”). Four years later, Ira enjoyed hi ...

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George S. Kaufman

George S. Kaufman

George S. Kaufman was born in Pittsburgh in 1889. During his early career as a reporter and drama critic , he began to write for the theatre. For 40 years, beginning in 1921 with the production of Dulcy, there was rarely a year without a Kaufman play — usually written in coll ...

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Morrie Ryskind

Morrie Ryskind

Morrie Ryskind, the librettist of Louisiana Purchase, was born in New York City in 1895 and graduated from the Columbia University School of Journalism. His principal collaborator in the theater was George S. Kaufman, with whom he wrote the Marx Brothers musical Animal Cracke ...

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