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Fanny (Feb. 4-7 at New York City Center) is the 50th regular-season production in the history of Encores! and yet it is the first time we have presented a show by composer and lyricist Harold Rome (1908-1993). While not as acclaimed as other composer/lyricists such as Berlin, Porter or Sondheim, the talented and underestimated Harold Rome had a distinguished career during the golden age of Broadway.

After studying law and architecture at Yale, Rome pursued his musical career in New York and first had success with the revue Pins and Needles, which opened in 1937 and ran for four years. With this show, he established his reputation for writing comedic, satiric and topical songs. He would continue to do this in the revues Sing Out The News (1938) and Call Me Mister (1946). These shows introduced hit songs such as "F.D.R. Jones," "Sing Me a Song of Social Significance" and "South America, Take It Away." Encores! featured a number of Rome's revue songs in its 2007 production of Stairway to Paradise.

In 1952 he collaborated with director and writer Joshua Logan on the musical Wish You Were Here, which was about a summer camp in the Catskills and famously featured a swimming pool onstage. Recorded by Eddie Fisher, the title song was one of Rome's biggest hits. When Logan was called upon by producer David Merrick to adapt Marcel Pagnol's trilogy of films ("Marius," "Fanny" and "Cesar") into a musical, Logan again turned to Rome, although not before Rodgers and Hammerstein turned down the project.

	Playbill cover for the original Fanny

Fanny marked a departure for Rome. Instead of writing songs of "social significance," he was now required to write songs of emotional significance in order to serve the powerfully poignant and romantic story. Fanny was not a revue and not a musical comedy, but a true musical play. And for the first time, Rome was voicing non-American characters. Continued...