Matthew Murphy
In 1959, director-writer Billy Wilder, co-writer I.A.L. Diamond, and stars Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe gave the world a delightful comedy film that has become a classic, nominated for six Oscars, winning one, and has been called one of the greatest films of all time, selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1989. That film is Some Like It Hot, which gave us Monroe at her most endearing, and is very notable for putting its two male leads in drag. Since the film’s debut, there was an attempt to create a TV series in 1961 (with Lemmon and Curtis agreeing to cameo in the pilot), a Bollywood remake was produced in 1975, three non-musical stage adaptations were produced, one in 1984 in Atlantic City with Joe Namath in the Curtis role, another in 1991 in London with Tommy Steele, and one in 2002 with Curtis — then in his 70s — taking on the role played by Joe E. Brown in the movie. There was also a 1972 Broadway musical titled Sugar (the name of Monroe’s character), which ran for 505 performances and was reworked for a tour, retitled Some Like It Hot: The Musical. Then in 2022, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman composed songs for a new musical adaptation of the movie, with a book by Matthew López and Amber Ruffin, that opened on December 11, 2022 and ran until December 30, 2023, earning 13 Tony Award nominations, winning four including a history-making win for J. Harrison Ghee for Best Actor in a Musical, one of the first two openly non-binary performers to be nominated for and win a Tony (the other was Alex Newell for Featured Actor in a Musical in Shucked in the same year). A North American tour launched in September 2024 in Schenectady, and it has now taken up residence at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre (Washington DC’s National Theatre has just announced the show will open its 2025-2026 season on November 25).
If you’re a fan of the classic movie, you will find enough of the story familiar. It has the bones of the original to build upon. It’s the Jazz Age, the country is still deep into the Prohibition era, and knock-about hoofers Joe (Matt Loehr) and Jerry (Tavis Kordell) are looking for work in a nightclub. Joe tries to convince one club that he and Jerry have a magic act, and Joe is offered a job but not Jerry because … Jerry is Black. Standing up for his friend — and it turns out the two are more like brothers since Jerry’s mother basically raised Joe after his father abandoned him (at least that’s the story they tell to convince employers that they are a package deal) — Joe shows the club manager their tap dance act, The Tip Tap Two, and before they can get thrown out the owner, mobster Spats Columbo (Devon Goffman), gives them a shot, and if no one walks out they get to live. It’s a joke. Not so funny, however, is the rat in Spats’ entourage, and hoping to get a better spot in the show Joe and Jerry walk into Spats’ office just as he and his goons are exterminating that rat and his goons. Panicking, the boys need to find a way out of the club and Chicago, and an idea comes to Joe as they hide out in the showgirls’ dressing room — dress like women and slip out of the club at closing time. Should be a snap. They do manage to get out but they still need out of Chicago, and Joe remembers what one of the girls told him about Sweet Sue (Tarra Conner Jones) putting together a band … an all-girl band, and she needs a saxophone and bass player, the two instruments the guys just happen to play. Joe thinks this is their way out, and Jerry believes it will only lead to another disaster but he has no choice but to go along and they manage to sabotage the original band members and show up at the train station with their own instruments and finagle their way into Sue’s show. Now all they have to do is get on the train and head west to California, hopefully far from Spats’ reach.
The guys have to keep up the ruse, and end up playing with the band in clubs between Chicago and San Diego, but complications begin to arise. Joe becomes smitten with the band’s singer, Sugar Kane (Leandra Ellis-Gaston), who sees ‘Josephine’ as her one true friend among the girls, who all treat her like dirt (perhaps jealous of her talent and the attention she gets). Jerry’s undercover name was to be Geraldine, but when ‘Josephine’ was about to make introductions to Sue, Jerry blurted out the name Daphne, because it felt right. As Joe struggles with his attraction to Sugar, the train finally arrives in California and the band is put up in the hotel where they will be performing. Enter Osgood Fielding III (Edward Juvier), who is instantly smitten with ‘Daphne’, who now has to fight off his advances for fear of being exposed. Spats has also figured out that the two tap dancers/witnesses have gone west and is on his way as well to rub them out. Daphne does all she can to avoid Osgood, but through a screwball circumstance involving Joe pretending to be a German screenwriter who woos Sugar, then having to play sick as Josephine, all the girls and Osgood show up at their hotel room and convince Daphne to go to Mexico with them to party into the night (ironically, Mexico was Joe and Jerry’s original destination to get to freedom). Daphne agrees and in the wee hours of the morning, something clicks when Osgood (aka Pedro Francisco Alvarez … he has two birth certificates) proposes — Daphne is part of Jerry and Jerry is part of Daphne. Daphne accepts but the hard part now will be explaining all of this to Joe, and trying to not get killed when they learn Sue has an investor coming to see the show — Spats Columbo. Will they make it out alive and will love conquer all?
Matthew Murphy
As a movie fan, and as someone who has seen the original movie several times, this writer can be pretty particular when it comes to film-to-stage adaptations because more often than not things have to be changed out of necessity that can often change the story for the show so much it no longer resembles its source material (I can’t begin to explain how disappointed I was with the stage version of Thoroughly Modern Millie), so I was a bit apprehensive about Some Like It Hot, especially since the movie is very white, while the key roles of Sugar and Sweet Sue are played by Black women in the show. Not a big deal, and the show does manage to address their race in the time period with some humor, such as when one of the girls asks Sue if they’re heading South. Of course, the story also has to address the brotherly connection between Joe and Jerry as well, but it’s all handled with real sensitivity. Where the story, by Matthew López and Amber Ruffin, really begins to diverge from the movie’s screenplay (and making the show’s screenwriter German is almost certainly a nod to the film’s director Billy Wilder, who produced films in Germany between 1929 and 1933, leaving the country after Hitler’s rise to power) is with Daphne’s Act II realization of who they are. By this point, Joe has noticed Jerry seems to spend more time as Daphne (and if you’re watching closely, Daphne’s makeup begins to transform into a more feminine look from just the slap of lipstick they applied before dashing out of the nightclub), and Daphne has to tell Joe how she feels, and most importantly, that she feels free now. It’s handled with so much grace and sensitivity that you can’t help but erupt in applause — and maybe get a few tears in your eyes — to see someone who is being their authentic self for the first time. And the really interesting thing about this particular plot point is that it is even more important and urgently needed than it was just three years ago as the LGBTQ+ community is under constant attack from the political and evangelical right. Of course there will be some people who find this divergence from the original story outrageous and offensive but … those are the people who really need to see this kind of a storyline because if nothing else it shows Daphne as a real human being with real human feelings. Bravo to López, Ruffin and Kordell for making this work so beautifully.
Also making everything work so well is the outstanding cast. Matt Loehr is hilarious as the constant showman/schemer Joe. He’s got to have a certain manic energy to his performance, and he has to give Joe, Josephine, and Kip (the German), different personalities while still never letting the audience forget he’s Joe. He’s got some wonderful tap dancing skills and great comic timing, always the brunt of jokes about his supposed old age. He also makes the audience feel some sympathy for Joe as he tries to tell Sugar the truth but can never quite muster up the nerve until he absolutely has to. Tavis Kordell is outstanding as Jerry/Daphne in their national tour debut. At first, Jerry is almost the straight man to Joe, or more like the attempted voice of reason, but always being drawn into one adventure after another. Once Jerry dons the wig and dress and becomes Daphne, they become more confident and straightforward, at one point finally telling Joe they’re going to do what they want to do now, not what Joe wants to do. And when Daphne opens up to Joe about their feelings, it just feels honest, not heavy-handed at all, and Kordell just bares their soul, first in dialogue and then in a wonderful song (‘You Could Have Knocked Me Over With a Feather’). And Kordell also has some great tap skills, dancing in perfect sync with Loehr, and their voice is also magnificent. Both Loehr and Kordell give wonderful performances.
Tarra Conner Jones kicks off the show with the loud, brash musical number ‘What Are You Thirsty For?’ that helps set the tone (and pokes some fun at the Prohibition Era setting). She is the show’s comic relief, always ready with a perfectly timed one-liner or just a simple turn of her head (and giving some Nell Carter vibes in a good way), and her reaction when she discovers Joe instead of Josephine in the dressing room is comic gold. Also outstanding is Leandra Ellis-Gaston as Sugar Kane, a character everyone sees on the outside as a sexpot, but she’s so much more. Ellis-Gaston humanizes Sugar to show that she is a woman who just wants to be loved, and to just have real friends, which makes her connection with Josephine so special (and complicated). Sugar is an intelligent woman with career goals and Ellis-Gaston makes the audience root for her all the way, and we really have empathy for her as she feels betrayed once again when it turns out Josephine and Kip are not who she thought they were. She gets a lot of very high energy song-and-dance numbers, but the quieter ‘At the Old Majestic Nickel Matinee’ allows her to pour some real emotion onto the stage. She is simply spectacular.
Matthew Murphy
Edward Juvier doesn’t make his appearance as Osgood until near the end of Act I, but his introduction song, ‘Poor Little Millionaire’, is full of humor and allows Juvier to really camp things up. He’s also just so adorable as he is instantly smitten by Daphne, accepting her for who she is, no questions asked, and putting his heart firmly on display with the song ‘Fly, Mariposa, Fly’ (using the metaphor of a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly to make Daphne understand who she really is). Juvier’s performance and his chemistry with Kordell has you rooting for those two lovebirds to make it work. Jamie Laverdiere as Agent Mulligan, Devon Goffman as Spats and Devon Hadsell as Minnie all give terrific performances and have their moments to shine.
The show is directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw, and he keeps things moving swiftly along, culminating in a totally screwball dance number involving the cast, several doors and costume changes that had to be so tightly choreographed and planned to make it work without a hitch. The scenic design by Scott Pask is a bit pared down from the Broadway production (there is no train the pulls onto the stage, rather some painted flats to represent the interior and exterior of the train … but it works) but it still has a nice art deco look and manages to still feel lavish, with the help of Natasha Katz’s lighting design. Gregg Barnes’ costumes run the gamut from frumpy (some of Josephine’s looks are … something) to showstopping (Daphne’s red dress and Sugar’s sparkly silver gown are winners), but perfectly tell us who these characters are. The orchestra also sounds fantastic, and the music always has an appropriate 1930s sound, all of it completely immersing you in the era. I do want to give a very special shout-out to the sound crew as well as Loehr, Kordell, Ellis-Gaston and the orchestra, who managed to navigate a complete loss of audio on opening night, bringing the show to a halt just as Sugar was about to start singing ‘A Darker Shade of Blue’. The actors continued until a stage manager led them off, but less than five minutes later the show resumed and the actors, musicians and sound, lighting and stage crews picked up from the moment they left off without missing a beat or letting it affect their performances. And best of all was the way the audience showed them their appreciation with a round of applause both when they exited the stage and when the curtain went back up. It was an unusual incident, but how everyone came together was just a really nice moment. However, let me admonish audience members once again — leaving your seats during the final number to beat the traffic is simply rude, to the other audience members you’re distracting and to the performers working their tails off for your entertainment. Show some respect and give the performers the accolades they deserve during the curtain call instead of running out early.
If you’re a fan of the movie Some Like It Hot, you will almost certainly enjoy the musical, even though it does have a very different character trajectory for Jerry/Daphne. If you just like classic Broadway musicals, this is also a show you will enjoy with its great songs and multiple group dance numbers. Top that off with solid production values and an outstanding cast that makes Some Like It Hot the can’t miss musical of the year.
Some Like It Hot runs about 2 hours and 45 minutes with one intermission. Some Like It Hot is recommended for ages 12 and up.
Some Like It Hot runs through May 11 at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre. Other cities on the schedule include Philadelphia, Richmond, Durham, Denver, Los Angeles, Portland OR, Sacramento, Seattle, Columbus, West Palm Beach, Boston, Toronto, Nashville, Washington DC and more. Visit the official website for more information. Use our Ticketmaster link to purchase tickets.
Some Like It Hot – North American Tour 2025
Some Like It Hot Musical
Check our Ticketmaster link for ticket availability.
