Orphaned at ten, Patrick Dennis’ life has undergone drastic change when he travels from Des Moines, Iowa, all the way to New York City to live with his Auntie Mame. His nanny, anxious Agnes Gooch, leads him to expect a dear grey-haired old aunt baking a cherry pie. But instead, Agnes and Patrick wander into a wild party, a raging prohibition-era shindig starring the fantastic, flamboyant, eccentric, charismatic, one-and-only Mame Dennis. Auntie Mame, shocked but delighted to find herself in the role of a guardian, buys Patrick every toy imaginable, shows him the town from high life to low back streets, teaches him how to mix a martini, and showers him with love.
After Patrick’s trustees take him away to a conservative boarding school, and the stock market crash leaves her penniless, fearless Mame tries to keep caring for her nephew, even as she reinvents herself: from party girl to working girl, Southern belle, world traveler, wealthy widow, and literary autobiographer. When grown-up Patrick brings home his WASP-y debutante girlfriend, and introduces Mame to his world of preppy prejudice, Mame finds the one culture in which she cannot make herself at home, and fears that she has lost her nephew to the Knickerbocker Bank. But with a little help from a pretty interior decorator, a very pregnant Agnes, and the wildly diverse crowd of her dearest friends, Mame wins the battle for Patrick’s soul. Featuring one of the most dynamic and lovable heroines of the Broadway stage, Mame is a wildly optimistic –and just plain wild– ode to a colorful, unconventional, well-lived life. Jerry Herman’s famous score includes the poignant pathos of “If He Walked Into My Life,” the catty duet “Bosom Buddies,” and the life-is-a-banquet vigor of “Open a New Window.”
