High Fidelity (musical)

High Fidelity
Original Broadway promotional poster
Music	Tom Kitt
Lyrics	Amanda Green
Book	David Lindsay-Abaire
Basis	High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
Productions	2006 Broadway 2008 St. Louis 2009 Chicago 2010 Washington D.C. 2011 Fullerton, CA 2011 Clinton, IA 2012 St. Louis, Kansas City 2015 Canberra, Australia 2016 Perth, Australia

High Fidelity is a musical with a book by David Lindsay-Abaire, lyrics by Amanda Green, and music by Tom Kitt. Based primarily on the Nick Hornby novel of the same name, the plot focuses on Rob Gordon, a Brooklyn record shop owner in his thirties obsessed with making top five lists for everything, always observing rather than participating in life. When his girlfriend Laura leaves him, he goes through a painful re-evaluation of his life and lost loves (with a little help from his music) and he slowly learns that he has to grow up and let go of his self-centered view of the world before he can find real happiness.

Kitt recognized the material's potential for musical adaptation when he first read the book, long before the film was released and became a cult hit. He approached Green, with whom he had attended the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop, with the idea, and she too saw the possibilities. Their score runs the gamut from pop music to rhythm and blues to romantic ballads, with each song in the style and musical vocabulary of a different pop or rock artist, including Bruce Springsteen, Beastie Boys, Indigo Girls, Talking Heads, Aretha Franklin, The Who, Guns N' Roses, Billy Joel, George Harrison, Percy Sledge, and others. However, all of the songs in the musical were original compositions, and none of the music by the classic artists spoken about by the characters is actually heard in the show — although (in a fantasy sequence) "Bruce Springsteen" shows up to advise the lead character of Rob on how to be like The Boss.