About the Play:

Dames at Sea is a full-length musical comedy with book and lyrics by George Haimsohn and Robin Miller and music by Jim Wise. Ruby steps off a bus from Utah and is immediately cast in the chorus of a Broadway show. When the theatre is forced to close, Ruby's songwriting sailor boyfriend persuades the Captain of his ship to allow the show to move on deck. Voila! Dames at sea! When the show's lead gets seasick, Ruby may have to go on for her. Will Ruby come back a star? Do you need to ask?

Dames at Sea is a campy show based on the Broadway and Hollywood musicals of the 1930s and 1940s and tells the story of a struggling Broadway production and an understudy rising to stardom. It's big-time New York, into which sweet little Ruby from faraway Utah has come to make it big on Broadway. Who should she chance to meet but another boy from Utah: Dick, a sailor, who also has ambitions as a songwriter. On Opening Night, when they learn that their theater is being demolished, Ruby and the cast, with the help of Dick and some adoring sailors, make plans to perform the show on a naval battleship, which just happens to be passing by. Dick saves her doomed Broadway show with a smash tune, as Ruby becomes a star on the deck of a battleship. One of the most unique musicals ever created, the original production of Dames at Sea at the now legendary Caffe Cino pulled off the feat of creating a magnificent musical extravaganza experience on an eight foot by eight foot platform with a tight, multi-talented cast of six actors playing the leads and also playing the singing and dancing chorus. It's filled with songs, tap-dancing and romance from start to finish. It is suitable for general audiences.

Dames at Sea premiered in 1966 in a one-act Off-Off Broadway production at Greenwich Village's historic Caffe Cino. Originally set to run for two weeks, it ran for a dozen more, starring a young and largely unknown Bernadette Peters as Ruby. She returned to the role in 1968, to star in an expanded, two-act Off-Broadway production that opened at the Bouwerie Lane Theatre before moving to the Theatre de Lys, running for 575 performances and launching the career of multiple Tony award winner Bernadette Peters, one of Broadway's greatest stars. Selected as "Best Musical of the Year" by Time, Newsweek, and the Outer Critics Circle, it quickly became a staple of regional high school, college, and community theatres, finally reaching Broadway in 2015 to another round of rave reviews.

Cast: 3 women, 4 men (flexible casting, room for extras)

What people say:

"A winner! A gem of a musical." — New York Times

"An instant hit." — United Press International

About the Playwright:

George Haimsohn (1925-2003) and Robin Miller (1928-2010) are best known for co-writing the book and libretto of the popular 1960s Off-Broadway musical Dames at Sea. It was their only collaboration. Haimsohn's other musicals included Now Zing and Johnny American. Miller's other musicals included Peg, Radio Times and Vanity Fair. Music for Dames at Sea was composed by Jim Wise (1919-2000) an American musical composer and English professor who co-wrote the play Olaf Who Never Walked But Always Danced.