Take Me Along

Take Me Along!
1959 Broadway Playbill
Music	Bob Merrill
Lyrics	Bob Merrill
Book	Joseph Stein Robert Russell
Basis	Eugene O'Neill's play Ah, Wilderness
Productions	1959 Broadway 1985 Broadway revival

Take Me Along is a musical based on the Eugene O'Neill play Ah, Wilderness, with music and lyrics by Bob Merrill and book by Joseph Stein and Robert Russell.

The idea to musicalize Ah, Wilderness came to David Merrick when George M. Cohan came through St. Louis with the original production of the O'Neill play. (It was rare of Merrick to mention his hometown, as he hated it, and once he refused to fly TWA to the coast because it flew over St. Louis). While producing The Matchmaker in 1955, he began working on Connecticut Summer. Things came to a halt when lyricist/librettist John La Touche died suddenly. But in 1957, an adaptation of another O'Neill play, Anna Christie, came to town, called New Girl in Town. Merrick decided to ask the composer, Bob Merrill, to take another stab at it.

Take Me Along was directed by Peter Glenville with production design by Oliver Smith, lighting by Jean Rosenthal, costumes by Miles White, musical direction and vocal arrangements by Lehman Engel, dances and musical numbers staging by Onna White, ballet and incidental music by Laurence Rosenthal, orchestrations by Philip J. Lang; and was produced by David Merrick. It opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre on October 22, 1959 and closed on December 17, 1960 after 448 performances.