28^th Festival Season - 2007

The Duchess of Chicago

By: Emmerich Kálmán

Premiere: Theater an der Wien, Vienna, 5 April 1928

Mary Lloyd, the very beautiful, very rich, and very spoiled daughter of Chicago's hot dog king, travels to Europe with her society girlfriends to see who can succeed in buying the most unobtainable item, with the winner receiving one million dollars. In a Budapest dance hall, she becomes intrigued with the visiting Crown Prince of Sylvaria, but throws a tantrum when he refuses her request that they dance a Charleston or fox-trot, insisting rather that a waltz or polka would be more appropriate. Mary buys the royal palace, cables her father that soon she will buy the Prince that goes with it, and promises all that before long he will be dancing to her tune. By prearranged plan, the Prince, however, is to soon marry his cousin, Princess Rosemarie, who confesses that she has no interest in a royal husband; her attention becomes increasingly fixed on Mary's private secretary, Mr. Bondy. The growing affection between Mary and the Prince is undermined when he learns from her girlfriends that, apparently, he is nothing but the means to her million-dollar prize. We won't give away the ending…but let it be said that the final curtain falls as the Prince insists on "a tender fox-trot with Mary."

The Duchess of Chicago was revolutionary in that it brought Viennese operetta fully into the jazz age. Its score is an engaging blend of the waltzes and csardases of the Old World with the Charlestons, fox-trots, and blues that defined the musical world of 1920's America. With songs like Up in heaven a jazz band is playing, We ladies from the U.S.A., and a fox-trot version of Beethoven's 5^th Symphony, this show ranks right up there with the composer's Countess Maritza and The Gypsy Princess.

Production Team
Conductor	Michael Borowitz
Director	Julie Wright
Choreographer	Carol Hageman
Set Designer	Kirk Domer
Costume Designer	Charlene Gross
Lighting Designer	Krystal Kennel
Assistant Director	Stephen Carr
Assistant Choreographer	Tricia Jenkins Meyer

Cast
King Pankraz XXVII / Benjamin Lloyd	Gary Moss
Sandor Boris	Grant Knox
Princess Rosemarie Sonjuschka	Jessie Wright Martin
Count Bojassowitsch	Anthony Buck
Marquis Perolin	Brian Tanner
Count Negresco	Jack Beetle
Prince Maxi	Alisha Hocking
Prince Stani	Jack Neill
Princess Alexis	Polly Dexter
Princess Maritza	Annie Jaeb
Baron Palffy	Todd Strange
Baron von Vöröshazy	Benjamin Robinson
Valadamir	Seth Kershisnik
Mary Lloyd	Danielle Knox
Jimmy Jack John Bondy / Mysterious Stranger	Jacob Allen
Edith Rockefeller	Amanda Kingston
Maud Carnegie	Carissa Kett
Daisy Vanderbilt	Betha Christopher
Dolly Astor	Diana Becker
Lilian Ford	Robin Farnsley
Baby Steel	Kathryn McCreary
Gladys Morgan	Stina Eberhardt
Elis Fahnestock	Analisa Leaming
Tihanyi	Nicholas Hartley
Kuppi Mihaly	Patrick Howle
Kompoty	Peter Foltz
Valet	David Kelleher-Flight
Bobby	Michael Denos
Joujou	Cecily Ellis
Loulou	Kathryn McCreary