Theatre Register
You Never Know (2001 Studio Cast)

You Never Know

Shows · You Never Know

A baron and his wife each disguise themselves as servants to test whether their respective love interests are attracted to them as people rather than titles. The dual masquerade leads to a farcical tangle as masters pretend to be servants and servants are mistaken for masters in this Viennese comedy of errors.

Opened
1938
Performances
78
Type
Musical
Era
Early
Music: Cole PorterLyrics: Cole PorterBook: Rowland Leigh

Productions1 on Broadway

1938 Winter Garden Theatre Original. September 21, 1938 · Rowland Leigh 78 performances

Every Broadway staging held in broadway-data, sourced to IBDB. West End runs are not yet held.

Licensing 1 entry

US Concord Theatricals Concord Theatricals available

Read from the licensor's own pages and catalogues. Rights move, and an empty row means we have not confirmed a publisher, not that the show cannot be licensed.

In the literature16 passages

Porter’s score produced one evergreen, the controversial “Love for Sale.” Otherwise, the score offered first-rate but generally not well-known numbers that have become favorites with show-music aficionados and saloon singers who specialize in show-tune esoterica. book:the-complete-book-of-1930s-broadway-musicals-dietz-dan-rowman-littlefield-publis#p105

Except for “What Will Become of Our England?,” all the songs from the original Broadway production were retained, and four were added to the score: the non-Porter “The Continental” from the film version; two songs from Porter’s 1938 musical You Never Know (“For No Rhyme or Reason” and “From Alpha to Omega”); and “My Lo… book:the-complete-book-of-1930s-broadway-musicals-dietz-dan-rowman-littlefield-publis#p255

Complete Lyrics also notes that “My Loulou” wasn’t listed in the program until two days after the New York premiere, but was apparently always part of the score and was heard at the beginning of the scene at the Café Martinique; although “To Get Away” wasn’t listed in the program, it seems to have been part of the “Gay… book:the-complete-book-of-1930s-broadway-musicals-dietz-dan-rowman-littlefield-publis#p408

The musical underwent a prolonged and agonizing tryout that included both an overhaul of the script, the constant deletion and addition of songs, and the loss of several cast members. book:the-complete-book-of-1930s-broadway-musicals-dietz-dan-rowman-littlefield-publis#p522

Cole Porter bounced back from the debacle You Never Know with the hit Leave It to Me!, a very loose adaptation by Bella and Samuel Spewack of their 1932 comedy Clear All Wires, which played for ninety-three performances at the Times Square Theatre and was later filmed in 1933. book:the-complete-book-of-1930s-broadway-musicals-dietz-dan-rowman-littlefield-publis#p539

Revenge with Music (1934; “You and the Night and the Music”); and Cole Porter’s You Never Know (1938; the title song and “What Is That Tune?”). book:the-complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-dan-dietz-hardcover-2014-rowman-lit#p411

Passages naming this show, found by keyword across 178 books. Where this show turns up in the literature, not curated trivia about it.

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