The Taming of the Shrew steps forward and speaks directly to the audience as herself; "Well, I must own, it wounds me to the Heart/To play, unwomanly, so mean a Part./What – to submit, so tamely – so contented,/Thank Heav'n! I'm not the Thing I represented." Cole Porter's musical "Kiss Me, Kate" is an adaptation of "Taming of the Shrew". The music and lyrics are by Porter and the book is by Samuel and Bella Spewack. It is at least partially based on the 1935/1936 Theatre Guild production of "Taming of the Shrew", which starred husband and wife Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, whose backstage
The Taming of the Shrew Shrew" and "A Knack to Know a Knave" as supporting a date of composition prior to June 1592. Stephen Roy Miller, in his 1998 edition of "A Shrew" for the New Cambridge Shakespeare, agrees with the date of late 1591/early 1592, as he believes "The Shrew" preceded "A Shrew" (although he rejects the reported text theory in favour of an adaptation/rewrite theory). Keir Elam, however, has argued for a "terminus post quem" of 1591 for "The Shrew", based on Shakespeare's probable use of two sources published that year; Abraham Ortelius' map of Italy in the fourth edition of "Theatrum Orbis