Lysistrata Jones

Lysistrata Jones
Opening Night Playbill Cover
Music	Lewis Flinn
Lyrics	Lewis Flinn
Book	Douglas Carter Beane
Basis	Lysistrata by Aristophanes
Productions	2011 Broadway

Lysistrata Jones is a musical comedy adaptation of Aristophanes' comedy Lysistrata. The book is by Douglas Carter Beane and the score is by Lewis Flinn. After a critically acclaimed off-Broadway run with Transport Group Theatre Company, the show opened on Broadway in December 2011 and closed in January 2012. The show tells the tale of the men on a losing college basketball team whose cheerleader girlfriends refuse to have sex with them until they win a game.

The plot of the musical closely parallels the plot of the ancient Greek play Lysistrata, with some artistic liberties to bring the story in to the 21st century. In the original play, Lysistrata leads the women of Athens to stop having sex with their husbands and lovers until the long-lasting Peloponnesian War is finally ended. In the musical, the men's basketball team at fictional Athens University has lost every game for the last 30 years when a cheerleader named Lysistrata "Lyssie J." Jones transfers to the school. Lyssie J. inspires the girls at the school to stop having sex with the team members until they finally win a game.

The musical premiered at the Dallas Theater Center, running from January 15 to February 14, 2010 under the title Give It Up!

It was next produced by Transport Group at the Judson gymnasium in Greenwich Village in May and June 2011. The show began previews on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre on November 12, 2011 and officially opened on December 14, 2011. It was directed and choreographed by Dan Knechtges, with sets by Allen Moyer, costumes by David C. Woolard and Thomas Charles LeGalley and lighting by Michael Gottlieb. The musical closed on January 8, 2012 after 34 previews and 30 regular performances. According to Playbill, "The usually powerful chief critic of the New York Times raved about it downtown and uptown, penning a genuine "money" review for its commercial transfer, but, ultimately, there was not enough box-office interest to support the starless musical."