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 in performance dialogue). In an "extremely conventional production" at the Shakespeare Memorial Theater in 1919, starring Ethel Warwick and Edmund Willard, William Bridges-Adams stuck rigidly to the "First Folio" text, but completely removed the Induction and all references to Sly. In a 1922 production at The Old Vic starring Florence Buckton and Rupert Harvey, director Robert Atkins was the first to graft the "A Shrew" epilogue onto a performance of "The Shrew", with Hay Petrie playing Sly. In 1927, H.K. Ayliff directed a modern dress production at the Garrick Theatre in New York, with Mary Ellis and Basil Sydney. At the time,