Lend Me a Tenor

Act One

The farcical Lend Me a Tenor is set entirely in a suite of hotel rooms: a sitting room and a bedroom. There are half a dozen doors in the set leading to and from these two rooms. As the play opens on this scene, the audience hears the soaring voice of a glorious tenor singing from Verdi’s Rigoletto. Max, the overworked and underappreciated assistant to Henry Saunders, the high-strung General Manager of the Cleveland Grand Opera Company, enters to find Maggie - Saunders’ daughter - listening rapturously to the music. They are all in a tizzy for the arrival of that night’s guest performer, Tito Merelli, one of the world’s foremost operatic tenors, who will be performing the leading role in Pagliacci. Max was waiting for him at the train station to no avail; Maggie is lusting after Tito Merelli, looking to meet him and ultimately have a fling with him - much to Max’s chagrin as he has asked Maggie to marry him; and Saunders is about to blow his lid because this event is nothing