Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is an outrageous and savagely funny fantasy about people, their pleasures, pains and perversions, a penetrating satire on insanity – a millionaire's private lunacy. Featuring an infectious score by the Oscar- and Tony-winning team of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman (Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Little Shop of Horrors), God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is a legendary collaboration between one of America's greatest novelists and the songwriting team behind some of the greatest hits of all time.

Eliot Rosewater, drunk, volunteer fireman and president of the fabulously rich Rosewater Foundation, is about to attempt a noble experiment with human nature, with a little help from writer, Kilgore Trout. The result is Vonnegut's funniest satire, an etched-in-acid portrayal of the greed, hypocrisy and follies of the flesh to which we are all heir.

Any fan of the music of Menken and Ashman will delight in producing this gem, which marked the first collaboration for the two. Full of unforgettable characters and a rich and hysterically funny story, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is a perfect choice for theatres that are looking for hidden greats of musical theatre.

Alan Menken speaks about his work:

"Of all the musicals I've composed scores for in my career God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is probably closest and dearest to my heart..."

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"... It was my very first commercially produced musical and, more importantly, my first collaboration with Howard Ashman. Adapted from Kurt Vonnegut's novella, it tells the story of Elliot Rosewater, the eccentric head of the Rosewater Foundation, son of Senator Rosewater, descendant of generations of wealthy and powerful Rosewater's, who finds in the poor and forgotten Americans in Rosewater Township, Indiana, the very people who most deserve his foundation's generosity. And that story struck a deep chord in both Howard and me. The fact that Kurt Vonnegut himself became creatively involved in our little musical was a total dream-come-true.

If you look (and listen) carefully, the seeds of our later work are all over this musical. It was the cradle from which we emerged to write Little Shop of Horrors, The Little Mermaid and Aladdin . We lost Howard Ashman way too soon, or that list of titles would have been much longer. That makes it all the more meaningful to me that, nearly 40 years after its creation, God Bless You Mr Rosewater now joins those other titles out in the world."