Dames at Sea

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Original off-Broadway cast recording

Dames at Sea is a musical with book and lyrics by George Haimsohn and Robin Miller and music by Jim Wise.

The play is a spoof of large, flashy 1930s Busby Berkeley-style movie musicals. Dames at Sea is set in New York City, where a Broadway musical is in rehearsal with leading lady Mona, chorus girl Joan, and stage manager Hennesy. Ruby, determined to be a Broadway star, arrives from Utah and promptly meets Dick, a sailor and aspiring song writer. Ruby gets a job in the chorus, but Hennesy informs the cast that the theater must be torn down and they must find another place for the show. Dick and Lucky, another sailor and former boyfriend of Joan, persuade their captain to volunteer the use of their ship. Mona recognizes the captain as a former boyfriend. While rehearsing on the actual ship, Mona becomes sea sick; Ruby steps in to save the show and becomes a star. The three couples decide to marry and all live happily ever after.

After the original "Ruby" withdrew during rehearsals, choreographer Don Price recommended newcomer Bernadette Peters for the role. The show opened in May 1966 as Dames At Sea, or Golddiggers Afloat at the Caffe Cino, a small coffee house-performance space in Greenwich Village, where it ran for 148 performances (Stone, Wendell (2005). Caffe Cino: The Birthplace of off-off-Broadway. Southern Illinois University Press, pp. 121-122. ISBN 0-8093-2644-2.)

Retitled simply Dames at Sea, it opened at the Bouwerie Lane Theater on December 20, 1968, and transferred to the larger Theater de Lys on April 22, 1969, running for a total of 575 performances. Peters reprised the role of "Ruby" and David Christmas co-starred as "Dick". In his December 22 review in the New York Times, Clive Barnes wrote, "Dames At Sea is a real winner, a little gem of a musical. The show is wonderfully helped by its cast. The star I suppose is Bernadette Peters as the wholly sweetly silly small-town chorine who taps her way from the bus station to stardom in 24 hours. Miss Peters is adorable." On January 5, 1969, Walter Kerr of the same paper added, "You'll find the show cheerful and ingratiating, I think...Miss Peters is a real find...She is extremely funny, and endearing on top of that."

The play opened on August 27, 1969 at London's Duchess Theatre, where it ran for 127 performances. Peters appeared in a regional production at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey in early 1973. Subsequent revivals have been staged at the Lamb's Theater in Manhattan (1985) and at the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester, London (1989).

A 1971 NBC television adaptation starred Ann-Margaret as Ruby, Ann Miller as Mona, and Anne Meara as Joan, with Harvey Evans as Dick and Fred Gwynne as the Captain/Hennesy.

The original off-Broadway Cast Recording was released in 1969 by Columbia Masterworks Records and issued on CD by Sony. The Original London Cast Recording also is available on CD.