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July 13, 2012

Cole Porter’s score for the 1933 musical “Nymph Errant” was said to be his favorite. Certainly there are songs in this frothy, forgettable concoction, which has been reconstituted by the enterprising Prospect Theater Company, that chime with the unmistakable wit of Porter at his smartest and gayest — in the original meaning of that word.

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July 15, 2012

Besides an ode to bodacious bosoms, Cole Porter’s “Nymph Errant” features white slavery, lesbianism and a heroine who desperately — and unsuccessfully — tries to get laid. Yet despite all these goodies, it wasn’t until 1982 that this 1933 show finally came to New York. Maybe it’s because “Nymph Errant” is as loony as it is racy.

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New Jersey Newsroom
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Michael
Sommers

July 14, 2012

The most legendary among Cole Porter’s many musicals is “Nymph Errant,” a lavish 1933 London extravaganza that starred Gertrude Lawrence as a runaway schoolgirl gleaming amid risqué situations. Although Porter thought that “Nymph Errant” was one of his finest scores – and it really is a beauty — the show never reached Broadway. Since then, due to the daunting size of its cast and other considerations (more about which in a moment), the musical rarely has been staged anywhere.

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Backstage
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Erik
Haagensen

July 13, 2012

When I saw the American premiere of "Nymph Errant" in 1982 at the much-missed Equity Library Theatre, this "lost" Cole Porter musical—a 1933 vehicle for the English star Gertrude Lawrence that played the West End for five months but never got to Broadway—proved to be a surprisingly diverting lark of overwhelming Englishness and musical-comedy arbitrariness. An amber-bound period piece, it was clearly never going to be anything more than what it was. The Porter estate, however, seems to think differently. A campy 1999 revision of Romney Brent’s witty but wordy original book played the Chichester Festival in England, and now we have Rob Urbinati’s misguided attempt to introduce a Rodgers and Hammerstein aesthetic into this antic, "Candide"-like work. Combined with Will Pomerantz’s flatfooted direction and choreography, the resulting Prospect Theater Company production doesn’t fly.

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July 13, 2012

Romance and adventure greet a young woman as she travels through Europe on her way home to Oxford, England from her finishing school in the 1933 musical Nymph Errant, which Prospect Theater Company has revived at the Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row. Boasting a bevy of tunes by Cole Porter, the show couldn’t be more buoyant musically, but a new libretto, which attempts to fuse sentiment and winking comedy, from Rob Urbinati, and some curiously somber moments in director Will Pomerantz’s staging undermine the piece’s inherent merriment.

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