Let 'Em Eat Cake: History and Key Facts

Let 'Em Eat Cake is a 1933 Broadway musical with music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. A political satire, it tells the story of a fictional American president who fails to get reelected. Inspired by fascism in Europe, he and the former vice president decide to overthrow the government.

The sequel to the Pulitzer prize-winning Of Thee I Sing, a light-hearted comedy about the election of President Wintergreen, Let 'Em Eat Cake fell flat with audiences and critics when it opened in October 1933 due to its much darker tone. A review in TIME magazine panned the libretto for "[wandering] dreamily away into demented unreality" with its focus on revolution and dictatorship.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from Let 'Em Eat Cake by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.