ABSTRACT
Born into a life of privilege, married to a beautiful wife, author of several hit Broadway shows— it seemed that Cole Porter should be on top of the world. Fate had a hard knock in store for Porter, however, and afterward it would be years before he could overcome his physical suffering as well as his increasing lack of self-confidence to produce his masterpiece, Kiss Me, Kate. Porter rallied to some degree with his next Broadway score, Leave It to Me, when he worked for the first time with the librettists Samuel and Bella Spewack, a husband-and-wife team. Musical theater librettists have looked to many sources for ideas, and the centuries-old plays of Shakespeare have often been a fruitful inspiration. Porter also took care to distinguish the kinds of tunes he wrote for the backstage situations as opposed to those that were sung as part of the Shakespearean play.
