The setting is Maraczek’s Parfumerie in Budapest where the expert sales staff is managed by Georg Nowack. On the staff is Amalia Balash, strong-willed, confident and highly vocal in her disagreements with the boss; the dashing rake Steven Kodaly, and his love-sick sweetheart Ilona Ritter. The ensuing romantic entanglements—caused by an exchange of heartfelt letters between the unsuspecting Amalia and Georg, Steven’s incorrigible womanizing, and Ilona’s impossible romantic dreams—are pure musical theater gold.
She Loves Me is a musical adaptation of the Hungarian playwright Miklós László’s incredibly influential stage play Parfumerie (1937). It premiered on Broadway in 1963 and ran for 301 performances before moving to London’s West End. The musical was revived again on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1990s to much acclaim. Overall, She Loves Me is the third adaptation of László’s play after two films—the first being The Shop Around the Corner (1940), directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan, and the second being In the Good Old Summertime (1949), directed by Robert Z. Leonard and starring Judy Garland and Van Johnson. The Shop Around the Corner would later go on to be remade as the Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks vehicle You’ve Got Mai (1998). In 2016, the Roundabout’s revival of She Loves Me became the first Broadway show to be broadcast live.
- Title: She Loves Me
- Book by Joe Masteroff
- Music by Jerry Bock
- Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick
- Publisher: The Fireside Theatre
- Place: Garden City, New York
- Year: 1993
- Hardcover
- Photographs by Carol Rosegg
- Length: 133pp
- Dimensions: 5.75” x 8.5”
- Condition: The dustjacket is in great condition with practically no wear. The boards are equally pristine. The pages are clean and crisp—no folds, tears, or extraneous marks.