Call Me Madam

Call Me Madam
Original Broadway Playbill
Music	Irving Berlin
Lyrics	Irving Berlin
Book	Howard Lindsay Russel Crouse
Productions	1950 Broadway 1952 West End
Awards	Tony Award for Best Original Score

Call Me Madam is a musical with a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse and music and lyrics by Irving Berlin.

A satire on politics and foreign policy that spoofs America's penchant for lending billions of dollars to needy countries, it centers on Sally Adams, a well-meaning but ill-informed socialite widow who is appointed United States Ambassador to the fictional European country of Lichtenburg. While there, she charms the local gentry, especially Cosmo Constantine, while her press attaché Kenneth Gibson falls in love with Princess Maria.

The lead character is based on Washington, D.C. hostess and Democratic Party fundraiser Perle Mesta, who was appointed Ambassador to Luxembourg in 1949. The Playbill distributed at each performance humorously noted that "neither the character of Mrs. Sally Adams nor Miss Ethel Merman resemble any person living or dead."

In 1949, Merman and her family were vacationing at the Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs with Howard Lindsay and his wife Dorothy Stickney. Watching Merman poolside while reading a magazine article about Mesta, Lindsay was struck by how typically "American" she was and immediately envisioned her portraying a colorful character similar to the newly appointed ambassador. When he proposed the idea to Merman, who had little interest in either society or political news, she responded, "Who's Perle Mesta?"