Production history
Off-Broadway (2023)
The show debuted in New York at Atlantic Theater Company's Linda Gross Theater. in 2023, with previews beginning on May 5 and a premiere on June 5. It ran for a limited engagement through July 16. [6] It is directed by Michael Greif with choreography by Sergio Trujillo and Karla Puno Garcia. The production also features scenic design by Lizzie Clachan, costumes by Dede Ayite, lighting by Ben Stanton, sound by Kai Harada, hair & make-up design by David Brian Brown and orchestrations by Guettel and Jamie Lawrence. [7]
On July 25, it was announced that the production had made a cast recording. [8] The cast recording was released digitally on December 15.
Broadway (2024)
The musical's transfer to Broadway was announced on September 13, 2023. The production began previews on January 6, 2024, with an official opening on January 28. The show was scheduled for a sixteen-week limited run at Studio 54. O'Hara and Brian d'Arcy James reprised their roles in the Broadway production, as well as the entire original production team. [9] Olivia Hernandez, Byron Jennings, Bill English, David Jennings, and Sharon Catherine Brown reprised their respective roles from Off-Broadway with Tony Carlin and Tabitha Lawing joining the company for the transfer. [10]
Due to low ticket sales and attendance, the production closed 4 weeks early on March 31, 2024. [11]
Synopsis
The following is taken from the Days of Wine and Roses CD pamphlet [12]
Joe Clay, public relations man and Korean War Veteran, meets lovely secretary Kirsten Arnesen, daughter of Norwegian immigrant farmers, at an office party (“Magic Time”). He’s buzzed. She’s first bemused, then game. Part of what drives their click (“The Story of the Atlantic Cable”) is that Joe introduces Kirsten to alcohol. A farm girl from a chilly upbringing intrigued by her new life in the city, she takes to drink immediately (“There Go I”) and she and Joe connect exuberantly through it (“Evanesce”). They marry. And during her pregnancy and the early months with their daughter, Lila, Kirsten is happy and sober (“Sammen i Himmelin”). Kirsten only abstains briefly, though, before joining Joe in the bottle (“As the Water Loves the Stone”).
Joe’s drinking gets him demoted to an account in Houston, away from his family. Both keep drinking alone, nevertheless (“Are You Blue?”), and one night Kirsten, taking care of Lila alone (“Underdeath”), passes out with a lit cigarette and nearly burns down their apartment building. Joe and Kirsten quit drinking and move in with Kirsten’s austere father on the farm where she had grown up, relieved to be healthy again (“First Breath”). But Joe has smuggled in alcohol, with a spare bottle hidden in Arneson’s greenhouse, ending up in a drunk ward (“435”).
They now move back to the city, and Joe begins working with Jim Hungerford, his sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous (“Forgiveness”). But that night on her father’s farm, Kirsten had also begun to drink again, and her morning-after take on the matter is different from Joe’s. The only happiness she has known are the early years of their marriage, which included drinking. Joe’s association with A. A. feels like a shaming (“Morton Salt Girl”). She leaves on an open-ended bender, hoping but struggling to rejoin being a mother to Lila, as Lila hopes for her mother’s return (“The Letters”). Kirsten manages to put together five days without alcohol (“Forgiveness (Reprise)”). Joe and Lila nurse a wan hope that Kirsten will eventually rejoin them (“Lila Hangs the Moon”), but the best Kirsten can do is stop by briefly to leave Lila a present (“There Go I (Reprise)”). “The world looks so dirty to me when I’m not drinking,” she pleads – and with this ends the story of Kirsten and Joe.
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