• My Fair Lady - AIMS Awards
• My Fair Lady - Photos
• Cast and Production details
• Lerner and Loewe 
• Sponsors

My Fair Lady - AIMS First Active Awards Nominations 
We did it! We did it!!. Coolmine Musical Society received 7 nominations for AIMS Awards. At the AIMS Awards Banquet in the Great Southern Hotel, Killarney on Saturday 15 June, we won the awards for Best Choreography and Best Visuals. "My Fair Lady" was runner up for Best Overall Show. Full details on the AIMS website. Our nominations were: 

My Fair Lady - Photos 
Coolmine Musical presented a spectacular production of this classic fairytale musical in March 2002. The show ran for 6 performances to full houses in Draíocht, Blanchardstown. Here's a selection of photos from backstage. 
 

Over fifty years since it's breath-taking launch on Broadway, Lerner and Loewe's most successful musical collaboration continues to weave it's magic.   The story of Eliza Doolittle's transformation from street seller to society belle holds an appeal for all ages and the show stopping tunes are familiar to everyone - "I Could Have Danced All Night", "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?", "With a Little Bit of Luck" "On The Street Where You Live"....	"The horses are leaving the paddock, m.'lady"....Doireann Ní Chaomhanaigh, Jim Barber and Steven Downey
"Wiv' a little bit of luck..." .Kate Furlong, John Furlong and Emer Morrissey.	Coolmine Musical Society followed on last year's award winning production of "Oliver" with a major production of one of the world's best loved musicals..   With Paula Fay as Eliza Doolittle and Tony Finnegan as Professor Henry Higgins,   Director: Vivian Coates  Musical Director: Aidan Faughey  Choreographer: Siobhan McQuillan  Draíocht, Blanchardstown  Tuesday 5 March to Saturday 9 March 2002
Celebrating a great run - Paula Fay (Eliza) with CMS chairperson Máire Caffrey cut the cake. (with special thanks to Jimmy!!)
	"Poor Professor Higgins"..The Servants Chorus - Kate Furlong, Ruaidhri Boland, Deirdre O'Halloran, Donal Steele and Maureen Soitout
"Done him in, you say?"..Joe Murphy (Lord Boxington/ Lord High everything!!) with Paula Fay (Eliza), Tony Finnegan (Higgins) and Sean McConnell (Ascot Jockey)
	"I can't afford it"... John Furlong (Alfie Doolittle) and Justin Parkes (Colonel Pickering)

Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe  
- the writers of My Fair Lady 

The transformation of Shaws bittersweet comedy into a winning Broadway musical set quite a challenge for Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. On their first attempt in 1951 perhaps they were unaware that many of the great songwriters of the time - Noel Coward, Cole Porter and Richard Rodgers - had already turned down the opportunity. It was on their second attempt three years later that they succeeded in creating the timeless work, which ran on Broadway for a record breaking 2,281 performances. Lerner subsequently wrote ...."we picked it up again and this time we stayed with it to completion...What was essential was that every song and every addition to the play not violate the wit and intelligence of Shaw's work." 

Alan Jay Lerner was born in New York in August 1918 and after studies at Harvard and at the Juillard School of Music, he became a scriptwriter for radio personalities such as Celeste Holm and Victor Borge. In 1942, his chance meeting with Loewe at the Lamb Club in New York led to an enduring and successful partnership, which lasted for two decades. 

Frederick Loewe had tasted success at the early age with his composition "Katrina", a popular hit in Europe in 1919. Born in Vienna, Loewe was the son of Edmund Loewe, a well-known tenor. His father encouraged Fredericks piano playing and at thirteen, Loewe junior began a concert career, which culminated with the award of the Hollander Medal in Berlin in 1923. The following year, at the age of twenty, he moved to America, where his musical talents were not immediately recognised. He worked in a variety of jobs including cowpunching and mail delivery before taking up work as a piano player in New York clubs. 

The early years of the partnership were not wildly successful but in March 1947, critics and audiences applauded the hit musical "Brigadoon". Lerner won an Oscar in 1951 for his work on the story and screenplay of "An American in Paris", the same year as the duo enjoyed further success with "Paint Your Wagon". Following the spectacular run for "My Fair Lady" in 1954, Lerner and Loewe enjoyed multiple Oscar honours in 1958 with the film "Gigi". Effectively, the curtain came down on their stage show career with the Arthurian fantasy "Camelot" in 1961. Loewe who had suffered a heart attack in 1958 went into retirement although Lerner continued to write and collaborate with others including Andre Previn and Leonard Bernstein. Of his partner Frederick Loewe, he once wrote..."A collaboration as intense as ours inescapably had to be complex. But I loved him more than I understood or misunderstood him and I know he loved me more than he understood or misunderstood me." 

Special Thanks to our Sponsors  

• Fingal County Council
• Fastlane Freight Forwarders
• Ultrakabin
• Barnmore Demolition & Excavation

  
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