Beggar's Holiday

Written by Dale Wasserman
Music by Duke Ellington
Lyrics by Dale Wasserman & John La Touche
(Suggested by John Gay’s “The Beggar’s Opera”)
Orchestrations by Mike Tomaro

Click HERE for The History of Beggar's Holiday

A collaboration with MCG Jazz

MCG Jazz Music Hall, Manchester Craftsmen's Guild, 1815 Metropolitan Street, Pittsburgh
Friday, December 18 at 8 pm
Saturday, December 19 at 8 pm
Sunday, December 20 at 2:30 pm

Musical Directors Marty Ashby and Mike Tomaro
Stage Director Jonathan Eaton

Mac is back – and he’s Happy! Duke Ellington's only Broadway show - an updated and totally Americanized version by Dale Wasserman of the Threepenny Opera starring the lovable rogue Happy Mac. Romance, thievery, corruption, passion – Mac is back in town! And he is accompanied by the incomparable sound of MCG Jazz.

“Beggar’s Holiday . . .has something to offend everybody. With left hooks and bolo punches, it attacks a myriad of American institutions, satirizing everything from the legal system to sexual ethics . . . The show is first of all entertaining, but nobody—repeat, nobody—escapes the bite of its teeth.”
Dale Wasserman

Beggar's Holiday exploded onto Broadway in 1947, when it was Broadway's first racially-integrated musical. Ellington’s retelling of the Threepenny Opera features text by John La Touche and Dale Wasserman, who went on to write the hit stage shows Man of La Mancha and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Its wickedly funny commentary on greed and corruption sounds positively present-day!