I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change

I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change is a musical comedy with book and lyrics by Joe DiPietro and music by Jimmy Roberts. It is the second-longest running Off Broadway musical.^[1] The musical was nominated for the Outer Critics Circle Award as Outstanding Off-Broadway musical in 1997.

Production history

The musical premiered Off-Broadway at the Westside Theatre on August 1, 1996 and closed on July 27, 2008, after 5,003 performances.^[1] Directed by Joel Bishoff, the cast featured Jordan Leeds, Robert Roznowski, Jennifer Simard, and Melissa Weil.^[2]

It was first produced in the town where playwright Joe DiPietro was born, Teaneck, NJ. This premier ran Feb 24 to March 12, 1995 at the American Stage Company Theater (Artistic Director James Vagias and Managing Director, Glenn Cherrits) , a professional theatre in residence on the campus of Fairlegh Dickinson University. Teaneck, NJ. Directed by Joel Bischoff, the cast included Robert Roznowski, Robert Michael and Melissa Weil. ^[3]

The musical was first produced in the UK at the Churchill Theatre, Bromley, followed by a short season in the West End Comedy Theatre from July 28, 1999 to September 25, 1999. Directed by Joel Bishoff, the cast featured Clive Carter, Shona Lindsay, Gillian Kirkpatrick and Russell Wilcox.^[4] It was revived in London at the Jermyn Street Theatre, running from March 1, 2005 to March 26, presented by Popular Productions Ltd.^[5] and by Maple Giant at the Bridewell Theatre in 2011. A Mandarin Chinese version debuted in Beijing, China, on June 20, 2007, and it had been also reproduced by LANCreators, Taiwan's only group producing Broadway musicals, and performed, in English, at the Crown Theatre, Taipei, from November 3, 2007.

It has been translated into at least 17 languages, including Hebrew, Spanish, Dutch, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Portuguese, German, Catalan, Finnish, Mandarin, Norwegian, French and Turkish.

It has played sit-down productions in Los Angeles, Toronto, Boston, Chicago, London, Tel Aviv, Mexico City, Guadalajara, Barcelona, Istanbul, Amsterdam, Budapest, Sydney, Prague, Bratislava, Seoul, Milan, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, Dublin, Buenos Aires, Berlin, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei, Tokyo, Manila, Wiesbaden, Heidelberg and Christchurch.^[6]

In 2008, Kookaburra: The National Musical Theatre Company toured NSW Australia with version of the production with Australian accents and references. This production was directed by Darren Yap, and starred Hayden Tee, Katrina Retallick, Marika Aubrey and Anthony Harkin. It's near sold-out season scheduled for Sydney in April 2009 was cancelled after the sudden collapse of Kookaburra.

In 2015 I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change ran in London in the small studio space named Above The Arts in London's West End in Leicester Square. It starred Julie Atherton Simon Lipkin Gina Beck and Samuel Holmes

Synopsis

I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change is presented in the form of a series of vignettes connected by the central theme of love and relationships. The play's tagline is "Everything you have ever secretly thought about dating, romance, marriage, lovers, husbands, wives and in-laws, but were afraid to admit." With few exceptions, the scenes stand independent of the others, but progress in a fashion designed to suggest an overall arc to relationships throughout the course of one's life. A first date, for example, comes before scenes dealing with marriage, and scenes dealing with marriage come before those dealing with child rearing. Despite the large number of characters, the show is typically done with a comparatively small cast: the original Off-Broadway production uses a cast of four.

Musical numbers

Source: guidetomusicaltheatre.com^[2]

Act 1

Scene 1: "Prologue"

• "Prologue"
• "Cantata for a First Date"

Scene 2: "Not Tonight, I'm Busy, Busy, Busy"

• "We Had it All"

Scene 3: "A Stud and a Babe"

• "A Stud and a Babe"

Scene 4: "Men Who Talk and the Women Who Pretend They're Listening"

• "Single Man Drought"
• "Why? 'Cause I'm a Guy"

Scene 5: "Tear Jerk"

• "Tear Jerk"

Scene 6: "The Lasagna Incident"

• "I Will Be Loved Tonight"

Scene 7: "And Now the Parents"

• "Hey There, Single Gal/Guy"

Scene 8: "Satisfaction Guaranteed"
Scene 9: "I'll Call You Soon (Yeah, Right)"

• "He Called Me"

Scene 10: "Scared Straight" Scene 11: (untitled)

• "Cantata Reprise #1"
• "Wedding Vows"

Act 2

Scene 1: (untitled)

• "Cantata Reprise #2"
• "Always a Bridesmaid"

Scene 2: "Whatever Happened to Baby's Parents?"

• "The Baby Song"

Scene 3: "Sex and the Married Couple"

• "Marriage Tango"

Scene 4: "The Family that Drives Together..."

• "On the Highway of Love"

Scene 5: "Waiting"

• "Waiting Trio"

Scene 6: (untitled)

• "Shouldn't I Be Less In Love With You?"

Scene 7: "The Very First Dating Video of Rose Ritz"
Scene 8: "Funerals are for Dating"

• "I Can Live With That"

Scene 9: "Epilogue"

• "Epilogue"
• "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change"

The current licensed version available for production includes a new song in Act I, Scene 2. The song "We Had It All" was added during the Off-Broadway run and was part of several tours of the show.

References

External links

• Internet Off-Broadway Database Listing