Promises, Promises

a comedy musical about love and a career

This musical was created on the basis of famous 1960 comedy The Apartment by Billy Wilder. In 1968, it was re-written as a musical libretto by legendary American comediographer Neil Simon. He reinforced the cabaret features of the work, adding narratorial monologues for Chuck as well as some dream scenes of the type ever-popular with theatre audiences in which Chuck´s fantasies about a successful life and career take material form. When the team was joined by Burt Bacharach, the author of the music for the film Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid and tens of other clever hits, and Bacharach’s laureate text writer Hal David, the triumphant 1281 Broadway reprises came as no surprise. Promises, Promises is an unambiguous classic among musicals and can be expected to find its well-deserved place among the Brno City Theatre repertoire.

The events of the story revolve around an ordinary clerk at an insurance company in New York. Chuck Belloc is just one cog in a huge corporate machine who longs to climb up the career ladder. However, he has one ace up his sleeve – he has an apartment. An apartment which he lends, with success, to his colleagues and (mainly) to his superiors - even to the director of the insurance company, Sheldrake - for their love affairs and philandering. The fun at Chuck’s apartment grinds to a halt for Chuck’s promiscuous boss when he brings charming Fran Kubelik there. Chuck loves her secretly – and therefore decides to intervene in matters without any regard for the consequences for his career…