Lend Me A Tenor

Lend Me A Tenor is a comedic play written by Ken Ludwig. The play was produced on the West End in 1986 and then on Broadway in 1989. It went on to receive nine Tony Award nominations, winning for Best Actor and Best Director. Lend Me a Tenor has been translated into sixteen languages and produced in twenty-five countries. The play takes place in 1934, set in a hotel suite in Cleveland, Ohio. The two-room set has a sitting room with a sofa and chairs on the right and a bedroom on the left. A center wall divides the stage into two rooms, with a door leading from one room to the other, allowing the audience to see what is going on in both rooms at the same time.

As the play opens, Henry Saunders, general manager of the Cleveland Grand Opera Company, is anxiously awaiting the arrival of Tito Merelli, a world-class Italian opera tenor, also called Il Stupendo by his fans. Merelli is coming to Cleveland to sing the lead role in a performance of Giuseppe Verde’s Othello, which is set to be the biggest event in the history of the Cleveland Opera House. The show has sold out, and an eager crowd, as well as members of the Cleveland Opera Guild, will pack the house that same night to see Merelli perform.



Saunders’s assistant, Max, is also in the hotel suite, as well as his daughter, Maggie. Saunders has tasked Max with seeing to Merelli's needs, and with getting Merelli to the opera house in time for the performance. Maggie and Max are an on-again, off-again couple, and she is a big fan of Tito Merelli.

Tito finally arrives at the hotel suite with his wife, Maria, who is jealous because Tito constantly flirts with other women. When she finds Maggie hiding in the bedroom closet, trying to get Tito's autograph, Maria angrily assumes that Maggie is Tito's secret lover. In the sitting room, Max gives Tito a tranquilizer-laced drink, trying to calm him down before the performance. What he does not realize is that Tito has already taken tranquilizers and has now ingested a double dose. Tito finds out that Max is an aspiring opera singer, and kindly agrees to give Max a singing lesson.

When Tito returns to the bedroom, he finds a note from Maria. Horrified that his wife has left him, Tito goes into a fit of passion and tries to kill himself, but Max calms Tito down, and takes the singer into the bedroom, where Tito lies down on the bed for a rest.



Later on, Max finds that he is unable to wake Tito from his nap. He finds an empty medicine bottle and Maria's letter, mistakenly assuming Tito has committed suicide. When Saunders arrives, Max tearfully tells him that Tito is dead. Saunders is furious. The opera performance will have to be canceled, and the audience will demand their money back. It will be a disaster for the Cleveland opera and for Saunders himself.

It is decided that Max will fill the role of Othello, pretending to be Tito. Saunders is convinced that once he is decked out in makeup and his costume, no one will be able to tell that it is not Tito. Max gets ready, and he and Saunders leave for the performance, just as Tito is waking up.

Max's performance as Othello is a success, and no one suspects that he is not Tito. Then Saunders gets a phone call, telling him that the police are downstairs in the lobby, looking for someone dressed as Othello who believes himself to be Tito Merelli. Saunders tells Max to quickly change out of his Othello costume while he goes downstairs to handle the police. Max returns to the bedroom and is shocked to find Tito is missing from the bed. Still wearing his Othello costume, Max leaves the hotel suite and runs to find Saunders.



A few seconds later, Tito Merelli returns to the hotel suite, also dressed as Othello. Frantic and on the run from the police, Tito is even more confused when other characters from the play show up to congratulate him on his outstanding performance as Othello. For the rest of the play, Tito and Max are confused for one another, especially by Maggie who is in romantic pursuit of Tito but ends up seducing Max by accident.

At the end of the play, everything falls into place. Maria returns to the hotel and makes up with Tito, while Max manages to step into the bathroom long enough to change out of his Othello costume and wig, emerging as himself. Tito and Maria leave together. Maggie realizes that not only was Max the man dressed as Othello that she made love to, he was also the man who sang so passionately in tonight's opera performance. As the play closes, Max and Maggie share a kiss.