When I was growing up, the biggest hit on Broadway was My Fair Lady. Composer Frederick Loewe joined forces with Alan Jay Lerner to transform George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion into a musical comedy. This was no mean feat. When Shaw wanted to make a point, he had no trouble going on at great lengths to do so.
Poster design for the Lamplighters production of A Minister’s Wife (from the event page for this production)
I was therefore somewhat more than a little surprised to encounter news of another didactic Shaw play with a similar treatment. This time the play was Candida, which Michael Halberstam, Artistic Director of the Writers Theatre, deemed worthy of a musical setting. To this end he enlisted composer Joshua Schmidt to join forces with lyricist Jan Tranen with Austin Pendleton providing all the text for the “words without song.” The result was a musical entitled A Minister’s Wife. It received its premiere at the Writers Theatre in New York in 2009, followed by a series of performances at the Lincoln Center Theater during the 2010/2011 season.
In a little less than a month’s time, A Minister’s Wife will be performed in San Francisco. It will be the second production to be presented in the Lamplighters Music Theatre 2024/2025 season. Staging will be directed by M. Jane Erwin, working with Music Director Brett Strader.
This production will be given three performances in the Taube Atrium Theatre, which is on the top floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue, on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. There will be two matinee performances at 2 p.m. on Saturday, February 15, and Sunday, February 16, along with an evening performance at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 15. General admission will be $76 with a $71 rate for seniors (age 62 or older), and $31 for children aged eighteen or younger and students aged 25 and under.
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