The Club: A musical diversion (Frenchs musical library)

The Club, called "a musical diversion" and billed as feminist social satire. Eve Merriam wrote the book and lyrics for a highly successful 1976 Tommy Tune-directed off-Broadway production that ran 19 months and won an Obie Award. Members of a stuffy, all male club, circa 1905, tap dance and sing fourteen songs of the era, all indicative of male smugness and superiority. Four men, dressed to the nines, hang out together at their upper-class men-only club. They drink, play pool, smoke cigars and exchange comments about their wives and mistresses. Sometimes they come up with hoary, pre-Henny Youngman jokes about men and women. They also rehearse a show which they plan to present publically. It includes parts where the men dress as women plus an extremely long melodrama. But, the audience will discover that the top hats, white ties and tails are actually being worn by women. In this inventive conception, they impeccably personify men of a century ago, with the typical male attitudes toward women circa 1900. The production features nearly 90 minutes of nonstop singing and dancing. A wickedly, delicious musical!