American Musical Productions

Dearest Enemy

Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Lorenz Hart
Book by Herbert Fields

presented in Collaboration with
the Akron Bicentennial & Akron-Summit County Public Library

Saturday, June 21, 2025 7:30 PM
Goodyear Theater
1201 E. Market St., Akron, OH 44305
free admission

DEAREST ENEMY SYnopsis AND HISTORY

Based on a true incident, Dearest Enemy is set in the Manhattan forest during the Revolutionary War. Betsy Burke, fiercely patriotic Irish niece of Mrs. Murray, falls in love with an English Captain Sir John Copeland, but is forced to trick him and the British forces to stay overnight at their house in order for the American troops to safely escape the heights of Harlem. The war separates them, but with the help of George Washington, they are reunited after America is victorious. 

Dearest Enemy had its world premiere as Dear Enemy by the MacLean Stock Company at the Colonial Theatre the week of July 20, 1925 as part of Akron’s Centennial celebrations.  The Akron Beacon Journal ads touted the production as “the biggest theatrical innovation on record here in the past 100 years.” The production, the first book musical featuring music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart and book by Herbert Fields, starred Helen Ford and after revisions moved on to Broadway, opening on September 18, 1925 running for 286 performances.

American Musical Productions’ special semi-staged concert production will feature a cast of 22 local favorites and an 19-piece orchestra, under the direction of Joseph Rubin.

The New York Times praised Dearest Enemy as “an operetta, with more than a chance flavor of Gilbert and Sullivan” featuring songs “uncommon as they are beautiful.” The score, composed by Richard Rodgers, echoes the sound of the spinet, harp and string in such numbers as “Here in My Arms,” “Where the Hudson River Flows,” and “Bye and Bye.”The team of Rodgers and Hart went on to produce some of the most famous musicals of the 1930s with Great American Songbook standards “Where or When,” “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” and “Isn’t it Romantic.”