Northwestern University’s Dolphin Show, America’s largest student-produced musical is proud to present our 71st Annual production, My Fair Lady. This year’s show, produced by School of Communications students, Rachel Birnbaum and Louis Schermerhorn and directed by Tristan Powell, opened January 25th in Northwestern’s Cahn Auditorium and ran until February 2nd.

My Fair Lady, with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, astonished and delighted audiences and critics alike with its original 1956 production and subsequent Academy Award winning film adaptation. Expertly re-imagining George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, the piece tells a story of great transformation. Eliza Doolittle, a cockney flower girl, becomes the subject of a bet proposed to a local speech scientist, Henry Higgins. Can she be transformed from a lowly street beggar to a ‘true’ English lady, simply by learning to re-articulate her speech?

This new spin on the classic musical aimed to re-invigorate this canonical text and bring new light to its dazzling theatricality. “I plan to explore its depiction not only of the maddening joy of love, but also companionship, friendship, and the experience of being touched by someone else.” said Powell. “I aim to awaken and enliven the role of the ensemble in the show,” Powell added, ”and in doing so, heighten the dramatic tension that lies in Eliza’s societal shift.”