Lend Me a Tenor

Lend Me a Tenor
Written by	Ken Ludwig
Date premiered	March 6, 1986
Place premiered	West End
Original language	English
Genre	Comedy
Setting	A hotel suite in Cleveland, Ohio in 1934.

Lend Me a Tenor is a comedy by Ken Ludwig. The play was produced on both the West End (1986) and Broadway (1989). It received nine Tony Award nominations and won for Best Actor (Philip Bosco) and Best Director (Jerry Zaks). A Broadway revival opened in 2010. Lend Me a Tenor has been translated into sixteen languages and produced in twenty-five countries.

The play takes place in 1934, in a hotel suite in Cleveland, Ohio. The two-room set has a sitting room with a sofa and chairs at right and a bedroom at left. A center "stage wall" divides the two rooms, with a door leading from one room to the other. (Throughout the play, the audience can see what's happening in both rooms at the same time.)

Act I

As Scene I of the play opens, Henry Saunders, general manager of the Cleveland Grand Opera Company, is anxiously awaiting the arrival of Tito Merelli, a world-famous Italian opera tenor, known as "Il Stupendo" to his many fans. Merelli is coming to Cleveland to sing the lead role in a performance of Giuseppe Verdi's Otello. It's the biggest event in the Cleveland Opera's history. A sellout crowd and the members of the Cleveland Opera Guild will be at the opera house that evening to see the great Merelli.

Saunders' harried assistant, Max, is also in the hotel suite. Saunders has charged Max with seeing to Merelli's needs, and with getting Merelli to the opera house in time for the performance. Also there is Maggie Saunders, Henry's daughter and Max's sometime-girlfriend. Maggie is a fan of Tito Merelli, and hopes to meet him (and, she confesses to Max, she is romantically attracted to the famous opera singer).

Tito finally arrives at the hotel suite, accompanied by his hot-tempered Italian wife, Maria, who is jealous because Tito flirts with other women. When she finds Maggie hiding in the bedroom closet, trying to get Tito's autograph, Maria angrily assumes that Maggie is Tito's secret lover. Maria writes Tito a "Dear John" letter, and leaves the hotel.

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