Nick & Nora

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nick & Nora is a musical with a book by Arthur Laurents, lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr., and music by Charles Strouse.

At its core are witty and urbane high society couple Nick and Nora Charles, characters created by Dashiell Hammett in his novel The Thin Man, which inspired six films, a radio show, and a television series. In this incarnation, the two are attempting to solve the murder of a bookkeeper while dealing with their marital woes.

Citing high costs, the producers opted to replace out-of-town tryouts with a longer than usual nine-week gestation period of seventy-one previews in New York City, during which time the project underwent extensive script rewrites, multiple song replacements, and a major cast change [1]. The Broadway production, directed by Laurents and choreographed by Tina Paul, finally opened on December 8, 1991 at the Marquis Theatre where, unable to overcome the bad publicity and brutal reviews, it ran for only nine performances. The cast included Barry Bostwick, Joanna Gleason, Christine Baranski, Debra Monk, Faith Prince, and Chris Sarandon.