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Lend Me a Tenor

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A booklist for: Lend Me a Tenor

Production dates: October 28 – November 6, 2011

This is a booklist created by Gere Branch library staff to accompany the stage production of Ken Ludwig’s Lend Me a Tenor at Gere’s neighbor, The Lincoln Community Playhouse.

Lend Me a Tenor is set in September 1934. Saunders, the general manager of the Cleveland Grand Opera Company, is primed to welcome world-famous Tito Morelli, known as Il Stupendo, the greatest tenor of his generation, to appear for one night only as Otello. The star arrives late and, through a hilarious series of mishaps, is given a double dose of tranquilizers and passes out. His pulse is so low that Saunders and his assistant, Max, believe he’s dead. In a frantic attempt to salvage the evening, Saunders persuades Max to get into Morelli’s Otello costume and fool the audience into thinking he’s Il Stupendo. Max succeeds admirably, but Morelli comes to and gets into his other costume, ready to perform. Now two Otellos are running around in costume and two women are running around in lingerie, each thinking she is with Il Stupendo. A sensation on Broadway and in London’s West End, this madcap, screwball comedy is guaranteed to leave audiences teary-eyed with laughter. Lend Me a Tenor was written by Ken Ludwig, and opened in London’s West End in 1986, and on Broadway in 1989. The original Broadway production received 9 Tony nominations, and won for Best Actor and Best Director.

Reading Recommendations for fans of Broad Comedic Farces, and Operas

A Night at the Opera: An Irreverent Guide to the Plots, the Singers, the Composers, the Recordings
by Denis Forman [782.1 For]

With an encyclopedic knowledge of opera and a delightful dash of irreverence, Sir Denis Forman throws open the world of opera–its structure, composers, conductors, and artists–in this hugely informative guide.


Othello
by William Shakespeare [822.33 ShaT7nc]

An international team of scholars offers: modernized, easily accessible texts, ample but unobtrusive academic guidance, attention to the theatrical qualities of each play and its stage history, and informative illustrations, including reconstructions of early performances.


The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza
by Lawrence Block [Block]

Bernie Rhodenbarr and his lesbian companion, Caroline, break into a luxurious New York apartment, learn that another burglar has beaten them to it, and soon find themselves accused of murder.


Star Island
by Carl Hiaasen [Hiaasen]

Ann DeLuisa, body double for drug-addled pop star Cherry Pye, is kidnapped by an obsessed paparazzo, and Cherry’s entourage must rescue her while keeping her existence a secret from Cherry’s public–and from Cherry herself.


Island of the Sequined Love Nun
by Christopher Moore [Moore]

In an effort to outrun a previous employer’s lawsuit against him, pilot Tucker Case takes a job with a mysterious Pacific island doctor that brings him up against such challenges as a typhoon, a shark, and a talking bat.


The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove
by Christopher Moore [Moore]

Autumn in the sleepy California town of Pine Cove is turned upside down by the arrival of a Mississippi Delta blues musician, a huge sea serpent drawn to the sound of the steel guitar, the explosion of a tanker truck at a gas station, and a mysterious trailer that shows up in the local trailer park.


Blood Lite
by The Horror Writers Association [813.08 Hor]

A collection of entertaining tales that puts the fun back into dark fiction, with ironic twists and tongue-in-cheek wit to temper the jagged edge.


Nature Girl
by Carl Hiaasen [Hiaasen]

Honey Santana, the bipolar, self-proclaimed “queen of lost causes,” has plans to give Boyd Shreave and his mistress a lesson in civility, unaware that she is being followed by her obsessed ex-employer and her one-time drug runner ex-husband.


Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
by Douglas Adams [Adams]

For Dirk Gently, private detective, a simple search for a missing cat uncovers a bewildered ghost, a secret time traveler, and a devastating secret that threatens the future of humanity.


Good Omens
by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett [Gaiman]

The world is going to end next Saturday, but there are a few problems–the Antichrist has been misplaced, the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse ride motorcycles and the representatives from heaven and hell decide that they like the human race.


Basket Case
by Carl Hiaasen [Hiaasen]

Once a hotshot investigative reporter, middle-aged Jack Tagger now bangs out obituaries for a South Florida daily. When Jimmy Stoma, the infamous front man of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, dies in a diving “accident “, Jack uses clues from the singer’s own music to unravel the mystery and resurrect his career in the process.


Bluebeard
by Kurt Vonnegut [Vonnegut]

Kurt Vonnegut has surpassed even his own giddy heights of hilariously bitter irony in Bluebeard. It is a novel so funny and yet so terribly serious that you will read it – then reconsider your own life.


Created in partnership with the Lincoln Community Playhouse by ka/Gere Branch October 2011 | Modified for use on BookGuide by sdc/bmpl