Lucky Stiff

Lucky Stiff
Music	Stephen Flaherty
Lyrics	Lynn Ahrens
Book	Lynn Ahrens
Basis	The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, 1983 novel by Michael Butterworth
Productions	1988 Off-Broadway 1997 West End

Lucky Stiff is a musical farce. It was the first collaboration for the team of Lynn Ahrens (book and lyrics) and Stephen Flaherty (music). The show is based on the 1983 novel The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo by Michael Butterworth. It was created and performed at Playwrights Horizons off-Broadway in 1988, and won the Richard Rodgers Award for that year. The musical was seen in London's West End in 1997 but has not had a Broadway production. A film version had a limited release in theatres in 2015 but received mostly negative reviews.

Lucky Stiff premiered off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in April 1988, playing for 15 performances. Directed by Thommie Walsh, the show starred Stephen Stout as Harry, Julie White as Annabel, Stuart Zagnit as Vinnie and Mary Testa as Rita.

The musical was produced at the Olney Theatre, Olney, Maryland, in May 1989, starring Evan Pappas as Harry. It won the 1990 Helen Hayes Award for Best Musical, and Pappas won as Best Actor in a Musical.

A 1994 studio cast recording included Pappas as Harry, Judy Blazer as Annabel, Testa as Rita, Jason Graae as Vinnie, Debbie Shapiro Gravitte as Dominique, Paul Kandel as Luigi and Patrick Quinn as the Monte Carlo Emcee/Ensemble.

In 1994, the musical had its British debut at the Theatre Royal in Lincoln in the English midlands, and in 1997 it had a West End production, directed by Steven Dexter and starring Frances Ruffelle, Paul Baker and Tracie Bennett. It was revived for five performances as part of York Theatre's Musicals in Mufti staged concert series in October 2003, starring Zagnit, Testa, and several of the other original Playwrights Horizons cast members, as well as Malcolm Gets as Harry and Janet Metz as Annabel.

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