She Loves Me

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Photo by HuthPhoto

Michael Maliakel and Jenny Latimer in She Loves Me

Don’t get too hung up if you don’t immediately recognize the title of PlayMakers Rep’s upcoming musical, a critical hit (but box-office dark horse) in the 1960s that gained more ground in a Tony-winning 2016 Broadway revival. If you saw the 1998 Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan comedy You’ve Got Mail—or two certain films from the forties with Jimmy Stewart or Judy Garland—you know the story, because they all came from the same source material: Polish playwright Miklos Laszlo’s 1937 play, Parfumerie. In it, Amalia and Georg are competing clerks getting on each other’s nerves in a tony Budapest perfume shop. Unbeknownst to either, both have responded to the same lonely-hearts ad in the personals section of the city paper, and love is blossoming—on paper, at least. But what will happen when they finally realize the love of their life is their workplace nemesis? Kirsten Sanderson directs a cast including Jenny Latimer and Michael Maliakel; Mark Hartman leads the band. —Byron Woods