My Fair Lady facts for kids

My Fairy Lady
Program from Mark Hellinger Theatre
Music	Frederick Loewe
Lyrics	Alan Jay Lerner
Book	Alan Jay Lerner
Basis	Pygmalion, play by George Bernard Shaw Pygmalion, movie based on Shaw play
Productions	Broadway (1956) West End (1958) Movie (1964)
Awards	Tony Award for Best Musical

My Fair Lady is a musical. It is based on George Bernard Shaw's play, Pygmalion, and on the movie adaptation of the play starring Wendy Hiller and Leslie Howard. The book and lyrics for the musical were written by Alan Jay Lerner. The music was written by Frederick Loewe.

Productions

The musical premiered on Broadway on 15 March 1956 at the Mark Hellinger Theatre. It moved to other theatres in New York during its original run, and closed on 29 September 1962 after 2,717 performances. It starred Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews, Robert Coote, and Stanley Holloway. It was directed by Moss Hart.

The West End production opened on 30 April 1958 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Harrison, Andrews, Coote, and Holloway played their Broadway roles. It ran for five and one-half years for 2,281 performances.

Characters and original Broadway cast

The original cast of the Broadway stage production:

• Eliza Doolittle, a young Cockney flowerseller – Julie Andrews
• Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics – Rex Harrison
• Alfred P. Doolittle, Eliza's father, a dustman – Stanley Holloway
• Colonel Hugh Pickering, Henry Higgins's friend and fellow phoneticist – Robert Coote
• Mrs. Higgins, Henry's socialite mother – Cathleen Nesbitt
• Freddy Eynsford-Hill, a young socialite and Eliza's suitor – John Michael King
• Mrs. Pearce, Higgins's housekeeper – Philippa Bevans
• Zoltan Karpathy, Henry Higgins's former student and rival – Christopher Hewett

Awards

The musical won the Tony Award for Best Musical.

Adaptations

The musical was made into a movie in 1964 starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison.