Face the Music (musical)

Face the Music
1932 Playbill cover
Music	Irving Berlin
Lyrics	Irving Berlin
Book	Moss Hart
Productions	1932 Broadway 1933 Broadway

Face the Music is a musical, the first collaboration between Moss Hart (book) and Irving Berlin (music and lyrics). Face the Music opened on Broadway in 1932, and has had several subsequent regional and New York stagings. The popular song "Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee" was introduced in the musical.

The musical was written as a political satire, specifically spoofing political and police corruption that the Seabury Commission was investigating. It also satirized show business, showing the far-fetched economies, such as seeing 4 films with a room and bath for 10¢. The musical did not ignore the Depression but rather found humor in it. There were many titles considered, among them Nickels and Dimes, but Berlin came up with the final title.

Producer Hal Reisman desperately seeks backers for his Broadway show. Because of the Great Depression, once-rich investors are "Lunching at the Automat". Kit Baker, a former musical-comedy star and her boyfriend Pat Mason are now out of work and poor ("Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee"). In his search, Reisman meets crooked policemen who need to get rid of their illegal money before they are found out. The corrupt police chief Martin van Buren Meshbesher and his eccentric wife Myrtle become investors in the show, expecting it to be a failure. In the show-within-the-show, Rodney St. Clair sings "My Beautiful Rhinestone Girl". However, when risqué material is added the show is raided and the government tries to close it. The flop becomes a hit because of the publicity.

These songs were added in the touring version of the show that was slightly revised, and were restored in the 2007 Encores! production.

Face the Music opened in Philadelphia on February 3, 1932 for 2 weeks in its pre-Broadway tryout.

The musical premiered on Broadway at the New Amsterdam Theatre on February 17, 1932 and closed on July 9, 1932 after 165 performances. Staging was by Hassard Short, direction by George S. Kaufman and choreography by Albertina Rasch. It had a return engagement from January 31, 1933 to February 25, 1933 for 31 performances at the 44th Street Theatre (demolished in 1945). The cast featured Mary Boland (Mrs. Meshbesher), Margot Adams (Miss Eisenheimer), Charles Lawrence (Martin van Buren Meshbesher), Robert Emmett Keane (Hal Reisman), Katherine Carrington (Kit Baker), Thomas Arace (Detective), and The Albertina Rasch Dancers.