SHE LOVES ME A Musical Comedy in 2 Acts. Book by Joe Masteroff. Based on the play Parfumerie by Miklos Laszlo. Music by Jerry Bock. Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick. Musical numbers Staged by Carol Haney. Directed by Harold Prince. Settings and lighting by William and Jean Eckart. Costumes by Patricia Zipprodt. Musical direction by Harold Hastings. Orchestrations by Don Walker. Incidental music arranged by Jack Elliott. Eugene O'Neill Theatre, Broadway - 23 April, 1963 (302 perfs) Lyric Theatre, London - 29 April, 1964 SYNOPSIS Secret pen pals blossom into a love affair in this charming musical based on the Jimmy Stewart filmThe Shop Around the Corner. With a small cast of winsome eccentrics aiding and abetting the love-stricken couple, She Loves Me is sure to prove a hit with audiences everywhere. STORY Act One On a beautiful summer day in Budapest in 1934, the employees of Maraczek’s Parfumerie arrive at work (“Good Morning, Good Day”). Working at the shop are Ladislav Sipos, a fretful middle-aged salesman with a family; teenage delivery boy Arpad Laszlo; thirty-something Ilona Ritter, who is having an affair with suave Steven Kodaly; and Georg Nowack, the shy assistant manager. Mr. Maraczek arrives to open the store, and soon business is under way (“Sounds While Selling”/”Thank You, Madam”). Georg has been exchanging letters with an anonymous woman he knows only as “Dear Friend”, and he shares today’s romantic letter with Sipos. Maraczek advises Georg to get married and recalls being a bachelor (“Days Gone By”). Arpad begins stocking the shelves with a new musical cigarette case. Mr. Maraczek insists that they will manage to sell one within an hour. A nervous young woman, Amalia Balash, enters, hoping to obtain a job at the Parfumerie. When Georg tells her they are not hiring, she demands to speak with Maraczek. Amalia takes one of the cigarette cases and convinces a customer that it is really a musical candy box that plays each time it is opened to gently tell the owner, “No more candy” (“No More Candy”). Maraczek is impressed and immediately hires Amalia. As summer turns into autumn and then into the early days of winter, tension grows in the shop. Ilona and Kodaly are at odds, Mr. Maraczek is increasingly short-tempered with Georg, and Georg and Amalia bicker constantly. Georg finds solace in his anonymous romantic pen pal, not suspecting that his correspondent is none other than Amalia (“Three Letters”). Their fellow employees observe their bickering, and Sipos explains to Arpad that they argue because they unknowingly like each other very much. Arpad naively suggests they tell Georg and Amalia this, and Sipos retorts that they’d never believe it. Finally, in early December, the two “Dear Friends” arrange to meet in person. Maraczek humiliatingly dresses down Georg for a minor problem. Georg tells Sipos that tonight he will finally meet his “dear friend” (“Tonight at Eight”). Meanwhile, Amalia explains to Ilona that even though she has not met her “dear friend” yet, she knows him very well from his letters (“I Don’t Know His Name”). Mr. Maraczek and Georg argue, and when it becomes obvious that Maraczek is about to fire Georg, Sipos knocks over the stack of musical cigarette boxes to distract him. Maraczek reprimands Sipos and leaves. Sipos tells Georg that no replacement would treat him as well as Georg does (“Perspective”). Maraczek insists
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