I’d like to sup with my baby tonight,
Fulfill the cup with my baby tonight,
But I ain’t up to my baby tonight,
‘Cause it’s too darn hot.
It’s too darn hot,
It’s too darn hot.
Cole Porter, “Kiss Me Kate”

Anne and I went to the Muny on Friday night. Earlier this year, we had let our season seats of twenty year go. Now that Anne has the summers off, she is no longer tied to Missouri and tends to drift away, back to Michigan and missed many of the shows. So, it seemed no longer worthwhile to keep getting season tickets. Our friend John G. left town and offered us the tickets to “Kiss Me Kate” and we took him up on the deal. Unfortunately, another peril of the Muny reared itself on Friday, Saint Louis’ summer heat. The mercury hit 98 °F and was still quite toasty at show time. Fortunately, “Kate” has the perfect antidote for this heat, its lead number in the second act, Too Darn Hot.

Jay and Carl are due into the Lou, in a couple of weeks. Anne was wondering at dinner whether or not we should warn them that the daytime high’s that they are used to in Seattle are only 60% of the highs here. I figure that this blog post constitutes a fair warning. A couple of months ago, when that Californian preacher was predicting the end of the world, he wasn’t predicting that it would actually occur on that day. He forecasted a period of up to 75 days where environmental conditions steadily deteriorated. I would say that his prediction was spot on, but the rest of Saint Louis prefers not to refer to this time as the end of days, but simply summertime in Saint Louis. What do you think will break first, the temperature, this world or me?

Featuring Cole Porter’s melodious score, “Kiss Me, Kate” won the first Tony award for a musical. Based upon Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew”, it is surprising on how much of the “Shrew” made it in to Kate. Not just the plot about squabbling lovers, but also scenes and even dialogue. We enjoyed “Shrew,” when it appeared last month at this year’s Shakespeare festival. “Kate” makes for a nice encore. Produced in 1949, “Kiss Me, Kate” tells the story of a divorced acting couple. They’re co-starring in a production of “Shrew,” a play within the play, comedy that parallels their “Kate” relationship. The musical features such numbers as Another Op’nin’, Another Show, So In Love, Brush Up Your Shakespeare and of course Too Darn Hot. The cast includes Joneal Joplin, one of our favorites and the hardest working actor in Saint Louis.