Alan Jay Lerner (right) and Fred Loewe
Alan Jay Lerner (August 31, 1918 – June 14, 1986) was an American Broadway lyricist and librettist.
Born in New York City, he was the son of Joseph Jay Lerner, the brother of the owner of the Lerner Stores, a chain of dress shops. The founder and owner of Lerner Stores was Samuel Alexander Lerner. Alan Jay Lerner was educated at Bedales School, Choate Rosemary Hall, and Harvard, where he befriended classmate John F. Kennedy. Like Cole Porter at Yale and Richard Rodgers at Columbia, his career in musical theater began with his collegiate contributions to the annual Harvard Hasty Pudding musicals.
Following graduation, Lerner wrote scripts for radio, including Your Hit Parade, until he was introduced to a down-on-his-heels Austrian composer Frederick Loewe, who needed a lyricist, in 1942. Their first collaboration was a musical adaptation of Barry Connor's farce The Patsy called Life of the Party for a Detroit stock company. It enjoyed a nine-week run and encouraged the duo to join forces with Arthur Pierson for What's Up?, which opened on Broadway in 1943. It ran for 63 performances and was followed two years later by The Day Before Spring. One of Broadway's most successful partnerships had been established.
(For more information follow this link to Wikipedia)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Frederick Loewe (June 10, 1901 - February 14, 1988) was a Tony Award-winning Austrian-American composer.
Loewe was born in Berlin to Viennese parents Edmond and Rosa Loewe. His father Edmond was a noted Jewish operetta star who traveled considerably, to North and South America and throughout much of Europe. Fritz grew up in Berlin and attended a Prussian cadet school from the age of five until he was thirteen.
At an early age Loewe learned to play piano by ear and helped his father rehearse. He eventually attended a music conservatory in Berlin, one year behind virtuoso Claudio Arrau. Both won the coveted Hollander Medal awarded by the school, and Fritz gave performances as a concert pianist while still in Germany.
In 1925, his father received an offer to appear in New York, and Loewe traveled there with him, determined to write for Broadway. This proved to be difficult, and he found work playing piano in German clubs in Yorkville and in movie theaters as the accompanist for silent pictures.
Loewe began to visit The Lambs Club, a hangout for theater performers, producers, managers, and directors. It was here that he met Alan J. Lerner in 1942. Their first collaboration was a musical adaptation of Barry Connor's farce The Patsy called Life of the Party for a Detroit stock company. It enjoyed a nine-week run and encouraged the duo to join forces with Arthur Pierson for What's Up?, which opened on Broadway in 1943.
(For more information follow this link to Wikipedia)
The Show ...
Gigi is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe.
The title character, a teenaged girl living in Paris at the turn of the 20th century, is being groomed as a courtesan by her grandmother Mamita and Aunt Alicia. Before she is deemed ready for her social debut, she encounters the highly eligible bon vivant bachelor Gaston Lachaille, who becomes capitvated by the girl as she is transformed from a wild adolescent to a charmingly poised young lady. Gaston's Uncle Honoré serves as both narrator and major player, as he once was involved romantically with Mamita, although advancing age has confused their recollections of the past.
You can read more of this synopsis at Wikipedia
