Welcome to BWW's New Daily ON THIS DAY Series celebrating theatrical birthdays, openings and special events that took place on this day in theatre history!
Today in 1938, Pygmalion opened at the Maxine Elliott's Theatre. Written by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, the play centers on Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins. He makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech. The play is a sharp lampoon of the rigid British class system of the day and a comment on women's independence, packaged as a romantic comedy.
In celebration of this day, we bring you a Broadway veteran Julie Andrews singing 'Wouldn't It Be Loverly' from the musical that was inspired by the play, My Fair Lady. Click below to check it out!
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