Sugar

Sugar is a musical with a book by Peter Stone, music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Bob Merrill. It is based on the film Some Like It Hot, which was adapted by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond from a story by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan.

Produced by David Merrick and directed and choreographed by Gower Champion, Sugar opened on Broadway at the Majestic Theatre on April 9, 1972 after 14 previews and closed on June 23, 1973 after 505 performances.

The plot concerns Joe and Jerry, unemployed musicians in 1929 Chicago, who inadvertently witness the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and have to run for their lives from gangster Spats Palazzo. The only way out of town they can find is to shave their legs, put on wigs, and join an all-female band, Sweet Sue and Her Society Syncopaters, heading for Miami.

Joe/Josephine soon falls in love with the gorgeous blonde singer, Sugar Kane. More than anything, Sugar wants to marry a millionaire, prompting Joe to disguise himself as the man of her dreams. Meanwhile, wealthy and elderly Osgood Fielding, Jr. is pursuing Jerry/Daphne, unaware she really is Jerry in drag. As much as he knows he needs to reveal his true gender to his over-amorous paramour, Jerry is beginning to enjoy all the expensive gifts bestowed upon him on a regular basis.

Total chaos erupts when Spats and his gang descend upon the hotel and realize who Josephine and Daphne really are.