Sweet Charity

Sweet Charity
Original Broadway cast recording cover (1966)
MusicCy Coleman
LyricsDorothy Fields
BookNeil Simon
BasisNights of Cabiria
by Federico Fellini
Ennio Flaiano
Tullio Pinelli
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Productions1966 Broadway
1967 West End
1986 Broadway revival
2005 Broadway revival
2006 US tour
2009 West End revival
Awards1986 Tony Award for Best Revival

Sweet Charity is a musical with music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields and book by Neil Simon. It was directed and choreographed for Broadway by Bob Fosse starring his wife and muse Gwen Verdon alongside John McMartin. It is based on the screenplay for the 1957 Italian film Nights of Cabiria. However, whereas Federico Fellini's black-and-white film concerns the romantic ups-and-downs of an ever-hopeful prostitute, in the musical the central character is a dancer-for-hire at a Times Square dance hall. The musical premiered on Broadway in 1966, where it was nominated for nine Tony Awards, winning the Tony Award for Best Choreography. The production also ran in the West End as well as having revivals and international productions.

The musical was adapted for the screen in 1969 with Shirley MacLaine as Charity and John McMartin recreating his Broadway role as Oscar Lindquist in Sweet Charity: The Adventures of a Girl Who Wanted to Be Loved. For Bob Fosse, who directed and choreographed, the film was his feature-film directorial debut.


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