Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Victoria presents Kiss Me, Kate, the Tony Award-winning 1940’s musical comedy from Cole Porter (Anything Goes, Fifty Million Frenchmen) with a score of witty, hummable hits paired with ridiculous Shakespearean antics from Sam and Bella Spewack (Leave It To Me!, My Three Angels).

The battle of the sexes takes centre stage as former spouses, leading lady Lilli Vanessi, and her ex-husband, actor/director Fred Graham, feud onstage and off during a musical presentation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. On opening night, the rekindling of their affection is complicated by misguided flirtations, romantic discord, gambling debts, singing gangsters, and other enjoyable backstage shenanigans.

Kiss Me, Kate combines the irreverent and bawdy humour of four magnificent writers: William Shakespeare, Sam and Bella Spewack (Tony Award for Best Author – Musical, 1948) and Cole Porter (Tony Award for Best Musical, 1948) with memorable musical numbers spanning a variety of music genres including “So In Love,” “Wunderbar,” “Tom, Dick or Harry,” “Too Darn Hot,” “Brush Up Your Shakespeare,” “I Hate Men,” “Always True to You (In My Fashion)” and “Another Op’nin, Another Show.”

“You have only to listen to Porter’s score — a swoon-worthy progression of deftly shifting rhythms and sophisticated rhymes and musical motifs — to understand the show’s timeless charm.” Peter Marks, The Washington Post.