Editing Kiss Me, Kate (section)

==Conception==
Producer [[Saint Subber|Arnold Saint-Subber]] conceived the idea for ''Kiss Me, Kate'' after witnessing the on-stage/off-stage battling of husband-and-wife actors [[Alfred Lunt]] and [[Lynn Fontanne]] during their 1935 production of ''The Taming of the Shrew''. In 1947, he asked the Spewacks (undergoing their own marital woes at the time) to write the script; [[Bella Spewack]] in turn enlisted [[Cole Porter]] to write the music and lyrics.<ref name=Royston/>

Porter's score drew from musical styles of the [[Italian Renaissance]], [[Giuseppe Verdi|Verdi's]] operas, blues, the [[Viennese waltz]], and, in "Brush Up Your Shakespeare", the 1897 hybrid "Bowery waltz". In writing the lyrics for ''Kiss Me, Kate'', Porter drew from Shakespearean themes and language, without creating something esoteric, and the song "[[Always True to You in My Fashion]]" was inspired by the [[Ernest Dowson]] poem "''Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae''”, with its refrain "I have been faithful to thee, Cynara, in my fashion".<ref name=Royston>{{cite web |last=Royston |first=Peter |url=http://www.portwashington.com/moveweb/Guidewrite/kissmekate.html |title=''Kiss Me, Kate'': The Love Connection|website=Portwashington.com|accessdate=13 August 2024}} (originally published in ''Center Stage Magazine'', Winter/Spring 2002)</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=STC-admin |date=2015-09-21 |title=''Kiss Me, Kate'' and 'The Bard of Stratford-on-Avon' |url=https://cms.shakespearetheatre.org/index.php/watch-listen/kiss-me-kate-and-the-bard-of-stratford-on-avon/ |access-date=2024-08-13 |website=Shakespeare Theatre Company}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Benario |first=Janice M. |date=2001 |title=Always True to You (in My Fashion) |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43938516 |journal=The Classical Outlook |volume=79 |issue=1 |pages=2–4 |jstor=43938516 |issn=0009-8361}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt18j8wx1 |title=A Cole Porter Companion |date=2016 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=978-0-252-04009-2 |jstor=10.5406/j.ctt18j8wx1 }}</ref>