This document provides information about the musical My Fair Lady, including a 3 paragraph plot synopsis, descriptions of the main characters, and background on the playwrights Lerner and Loewe. It discusses how Lerner and Loewe met in 1942 and went on to collaborate on several highly successful Broadway musicals including Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon, My Fair Lady, Camelot, and Gigi. It also provides context about the time period the musical is set in and phonetic concepts central to the story.

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Kamaya Jane & Diane Zeps in honor of Elaine Lipinsky
Teresa and Merle Fischlowitz
County of San Diego
SAN DIEGO | OLD TOWN 619.337.1525 • WWW.CYGNETTHEATRE.COM
TEACHER STUDY GUIDE
Written and Researched by Taylor M. Wycoff
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THE BELOVED
CLASSIC MUSICAL

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About this Guide
This Study Guide contains a variety of resource material to accommodate different classes and levels.
Teachers need not use all the material found here but rather choose the most appropriate materials
given their current curriculum. Topics may be used separately or in any combination that works for you.
Table of Contents page(s)
About the Play………………………………………………………………………………………….….………...3
Play Synopsis………………………………………………………………………………………….….…….3
Characters ………………………………………………………………………………………………….…..4
Glossary of Terms……………………………………………………………………..……..………………...5
Our Production…………………………………………………………………………………………...………….6
The Artistic Team…………………………………………………………….…………………………….......6
The Cast……………………………………………………………………….………………….……….…….6
The Band………..….………..………………………………………….……………………….…..………….6
About the Playwrights: Lerner and Loewe…………………………………….………….…………….….….….7
Adaptations: The Myth, The Play, The Musical…………………………………………………………………..9
The Story of Pygmalion and Galatea……………….……….…………………………………………..…...9
Shaw’s Pygmalion………………………………………………………….…………………………………10
“The Perfect Musical”………………..………………………………………………………………………..11
Setting the Scene: 1930s England……...………………………………………………………………….……12
Language and Social Class………………………………………………………………………………….12
British Women in the 1900s………………………………………………………………………………….12
Flower Girls and Dustmen: London’s Working World…………………………………………………..…12
Wouldn’t it be Loverly: The Early Feminist in England……………………………………………………14
On Speaking…………………………………………………………………..……………………………………16
Bell’s Visible Speech………………………………………………………………………………………….16
The International Phonetic Alphabet………………………………………………………………………..16
Theatre Etiquette…………………………………………….……………………….…….………………..........17
Recommended Resources………………………………………………………………………………….…….18
Cygnet Theatre Company values the feedback of teachers on the content and format of its Study Guides. We would appreciate
your comments or suggestions on ways to improve future Study Guides. Comments may be directed to Taylor M. Wycoff by
email at taylor@cygnettheatre.com.

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About the Play
When Professor Henry Higgins wagers he can transform a Cockney flower girl into an aristocratic lady,
he never guesses that Eliza Doolittle will in turn transform him. Lerner and Loewe’s classic musical
features such enduring favorites as “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly,” “On the
Street Where You Live,” and “Get Me to the Church on Time.”
Sean Murray and Allison Spratt Pearce in Cygnet's
production of My Fair Lady. (Photo credit: Darren Scott)
Plot Synopsis
The play begins in Covent Garden during a rainstorm. Seeking shelter under the columns of St. Paul’s
Church, Professor Henry Higgins, author of Higgins’ Universal Alphabet and a phonetic specialist, encounters the
cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle. He makes a wager with his friend and fellow phonetic scholar Colonel Pickering,
declaring that in three months, with lessons and tutoring from him, he could pass off Eliza as a duchess.
Eliza comes to live at Higgins’ residence on Wimpole Street, and over the course of the next few months,
Higgins works to transform her from a common, ill-spoken flower girl into a well-mannered beautifully eloquent Lady.
He puts Eliza through countless grueling exercises in phonetics and diction. To test her knowledge and progress,
Higgins brings Eliza first to Ascot where she meets his mother and her friends, and ultimately to the Embassy Ball
where he attempts to pass Eliza off as royalty amongst the guests. She is beautiful, elegant and well-spoken and
proves to be an enormous success particularly with the young gentleman Freddy Eynsford-Hill who falls desperately
in love with her.
Afterwards, seeing Higgins and Pickering celebrate the success at the ball with no regard to her feelings,
Eliza feels dejected and hurt. When she slips out of the house, unnoticed, to wander the streets, she encounters
Freddy and lets her anger out on him. Eliza then seeks comfort in Higgins’ mother. Higgins comes searching for
Eliza at his mother’s home, but Eliza refuses to return to Wimpole Street with him.
Back at home, Higgins realizes that he has become accustomed to Eliza, but cannot seem to admit it, even
to himself. Suddenly Eliza appears in his study and, having forgiven Higgins and his curt nature, she decides to
return.

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Characters
ELIZA DOOLITTLE- A young cockney woman in her early twenties who sells flowers in England’s Covent Garden
whilst dreaming of owning her own flower shop.
PROFESSOR HENRY HIGGINS- A middle-aged confirmed bachelor and scholar of phonetics and an expert
elocutionist. He is abrupt of manner, impatient with high society, forgetful in his public graces, and inconsiderate of
normal social niceties.
ALFRED P. DOOLITTLE- Eliza’s father and a dustman who enjoys drinking. He has a very unique ‘morality’ in that
he is content to be a freeloader.
COLONEL HUGH PICKERING- A kindly middle-aged gentleman and expert on Indian dialects. Pickering is always
considerate and genuine.
FREDDY EYNSFORD-HILL- A young man and aristocrat, although he has no income of his own.
MRS. HIGGINS- Henry Higgins’ mother. She is a gracious woman in her sixties and a very refined lady of the upper-
middle class.
MRS. PEARCE- Higgins’ housekeeper.
MRS. EYNSFORD-HILL- A middle-aged aristocratic woman, Freddy’s mother, and friend of Mrs. Higgins.
ADDITIONAL CHARACTERS: Bystanders, Hoxton Man, Selsey Man, Constermongers, Flower Girls,
Bartender, Jamie, Harry, Mrs. Hopkins, Butler, Servants, Maids, Mrs. Higgins, Lordy Boxington, Lady
Boxington, Policeman, Footman, Angry Woman, Angry Man
Bryan Banville Katie Whalley Banville Ron Choularton Charles Evans, Jr.
Ralph Johnson Linda Libby Sean Murray Allison Spratt Pearce
Tom Stephenson Debra Wanger

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Glossary of Terms
(in order of appearance)
Covent Garden: A district in London on the easter
fringes of the West End, between St. Martin’s Lane
and Drury Lane, associated with the former fruit and
vegetable market in the central square. In the
beginning of the 20th century, the Covent Garden
square flourished as a vegetable, fruit and flower
market.
Covent Garden Market c1910
Early British Monetary System: Before decimalization
in 1971, there was a bewildering set of money
notes and coins. Here’s a quick look at the
breakdown:
2 farthings = 1 halfpenny
2 halfpence = 1 penny (1d)
3 pence = 1 thruppence (3d)
6 pence = 1 sixpence (a 'tanner') (6d)
12 pence = 1 shilling (a bob) (1s)
2 shillings = 1 florin ( a 'two bob bit') (2s)
2 shillings and 6 pence = 1 half crown (2s 6d)
5 shillings = 1 Crown (5s)
Row: A heated, noisy argument.
Bloomin’: A word used as an intensifier in British slang,
often used as an alternative to “bloody” so as not
swear. Ex. “…not blooming likely.”
Tec: Short for “a detective.”
Blimey: An exclamation of surprise.
Brogue: A strong dialectal accent; English spoken with a
strong Irish accent.
Higgins’ Universal Alphabet: The role of Henry Higgins
was based on the Oxford philologist Henry Sweet
who wrote on phonetics (his History of English
Sounds being regarded as a landmark in the field).
Governor: Used to describe a person in a managerial
position.
Fancy: To want something.
Phonograph: An early sound-reproducing machine that
used cylinders to record as well as reproduce sound.
Bell’s Visible Speech: A writing system developed and
used by Alexander Melville Bell, who was known
internationally as a teacher of speech and proper
education. The system is composed of symbols that
show the position and movement of the throat,
tongue, and lips as they produce the sounds of
language.
Ascot: An affluent small town in east Berkshire, England.
It is most notable as the location of Ascot
Racecourse, home of the prestigious Royal Ascot
meeting.
Busker: A person who entertains in a public place for
donations.
Guttersnipe: A scruffy and badly behaved child who
spends most of their time on the street.

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The Artistic Team
Director..…………….………...…..……….Sean Murray
Music Director…………………….……...Patrick Marion
Choreographer………………….……….David Brannen
Stage Manager………...…….....Jennifer Kozumplik°*
Scenic Designer...……………………….…Andrew Hull
Lighting Designer………..…….……....... Chris Rynne°
Sound Designer………….………Matt Lescault-Wood°
Properties Designer………………...……. Syd Stevens
Costume Designer….….….…………….Jeanne Reith°
Wig & Makeup Designer……...….…....Peter Herman°
Dramaturg..…………………….….……...Taylor Wycoff
Assistant Stage Manager……….........Marie Jahelka°*
Assistant Director………………………Patrick McBride
Assistant Choreographer/
Dance Captain………..Katie Whalley Banville
Assistant Scenic Designer..…….Gabrielle Heerschap
Assistant Lighting Designer….……..Kyle Montgomery
Production Assistant……………….Marguerite Sugden
Dresser & Wardrobe Maintenance……..Sarah Marion
Wig Maintenance…………..………………..Katie Knox
Charge Artist……………………………..Ashleigh Scott
Artistic Director…………….………………Sean Murray
Executive Director…………………………..Bill Schmidt
Production Manager………..……..….…..Jenn Stauffer
Technical Director…………….....……....…Sam Moore
Lighting & Sound Supervisor……………....David Scott
*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, °Cygnet Resident Artist
The Cast
(in alphabetical order)
Bryan Banville ………...…………Busker, Hoxton Man,
Harry, Servant,
Chauffer, Ascot
Gentleman, Mrs.
Higgins Tea Server
Katie Whalley Banville……………Busker, Bystander,
Costermonger,
Servant, Lady
Boxington, Flower
Girl, That One, Mrs.
Higgins Maid
Ron Choularton*…………………..Alfred Doolittle,
Constable
Charles Evans Jr………………...Freddy Eynsford-Hill,
Jamie, Servant, Angry
Man, Ensemble
Ralph Johnson…………………..A Bystander, Selsey
Man, Third Cockney,
Head Butler, Lord
Boxington, George the
Bartender
Linda Libby°*…………………….Mrs. Higgins, Mrs.
Hopkins, Bystander,
Costermonger,
Servant, Angry Man,
Man Leaning Forward
Sean Murray……………………..Henry Higgins
Allison Spratt Pearce*……….....Eliza Doolittle
Tom Stephenson°………………Colonel Pickering
Debra Wanger…………………..Mrs. Pierce, Mrs.
Eynsford-Hill,
Costermonger, Angry
Woman, 1st Man
The Band
(in alphabetical order)
Billy Edwall………………………………………Trumpet
Amy Kalal………………………..…………..Woodwinds
Sean LaPerruque……………..Keyboard2, Violin, Viola
Patrick Marion……………...…….Keyboard, Conductor
Sharon Taylor……………………………………….Cello
Tom Versen…………………………………..Percussion
*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, °Cygnet Resident Artist
Our Production

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About the Playwrights: Lerner and Loewe
Frederick Loewe, an unheralded Vienna-born composer, and Alan Jay
Lerner, the lyricist-playwright son of the proprietors of an American chain
of women's clothing shops, with sketches and lyrics for two Harvard Hasty
Pudding shows among his major credits, met by chance at New York's
Lambs Club in 1942. Had they not, Brigadoon would never have emerged
from the mists of the Scottish Highlands to make the world feel "Almost
Like Being in Love" . . . no one would have been there to "Paint Your
Wagon" . . . My Fair Lady would still be a less than lyrical English girl from
George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion who couldn't sing a note. . . we might
never have thought to "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" like "Gigi" . . .
and Camelot would most likely have stayed within the pages of Arthurian
legend.
When the two, who were destined to enrich the American musical theater
with some of its most poignant, rousing, and memorable lyrics, engaging
books and powerful musical scores, had that chance meeting more than
50 years ago, neither was widely known. Loewe's Great Lady had had a
brief run on Broadway in 1938. Lerner had added radio scripts to his
Hasty Pudding Club show credits. But later collaborations after one brief
failure, What's Up? (1943), and the moderately successful The Day
Before Spring (1945), which ran five months on Broadway, made musical history.
Alan Jay Lerner was one of three sons of Joseph J. Lerner, who founded Lerner Stores, Inc. He was educated in
England and at the Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut, before entering Harvard. He studied at the Juilliard
School of Music during vacations from Harvard. After graduating in 1940 with a B.S. degree, he wrote advertising
copy and radio scripts for such programs as the "Philco Hall of Fame."
Frederick "Fritz" Loewe was the son of Edmund Loewe, an eminent
operetta tenor. When he was two, Frederick accompanied his father
on a tour of the United States. The youngster played piano at four
and, at nine, composed the tunes for a music hall sketch in which
his father toured Europe. At 15, he wrote "Katrina," a popular song
that sold 3,000,000 copies in Europe. He had begun his own
concert career as soloist with some of Europe's leading symphony
orchestras at the age of 13 after having studied with the noted
European musician Ferruccio Bustoni and Eugene d'Albert. In 1923,
young Loewe was awarded the Hollander Medal in Berlin and
studied composition and orchestration with Nickolaus von Reznicek.
The following year, the younger Loewe accompanied his father to
America. Since neither a concert he gave at New York's Town Hall,
nor a subsequent week's engagement at the Rivoli Theater led to
further concert engagements, he tried teaching music and playing at
Greenwich Village night clubs. When music failed to earn him a
living, he worked as a busboy in a cafeteria and as a riding
instructor at a New Hampshire resort. He took up flyweight boxing
and failed, then went West, cowpunching, gold mining, and carrying
FREDERICK LOEWE
ALAN JAY LERNER

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mail on horseback over the Montana mountains before returning to New York where he found work as a piano
player. In 1935, Loewe's song "Love tiptoes Through My Heart" was accepted for the musical Petticoat Fever. His
own musical, Salute to Spring, was presented in St. Louis in 1937. The next year, his Great Lady reached
Broadway, but ran for only 20 performances.
The first Lerner-Loewe collaboration was a musical adaptation of Barry Connor's farce The Patsy for a Detroit stock
company in 1942. They called it Life of the Party and it enjoyed a nine-week hit that encouraged them to continue
with the musical comedy What's Up? which opened on Broadway in 1943. Lerner wrote the book and lyrics with
Arthur Pierson, and Loewe composed the music. It ran for 63 performances and was followed in 1945 by their The
Day Before Spring
It was when the curtain went up to the haunted strains
of bagpipes on the night of March 13, 1947, and the
mist-shrouded Scottish Highland village
of Brigadoon first appeared, that the team of Lerner
and Loewe also emerged as potentially legendary. The
musical, which after its original 581 performances on
Broadway, toured extensively and has been revived
frequently, won the "best musical" award from the New
York Drama Critics Circle the year it opened and was
hailed as having "evoked magic on Broadway."
Between Brigadoon and Paint Your Wagon, the next
team effort by Lerner and Loewe, Lerner wrote Love
Life, with music by Kurt Weill, which was selected as
one of the best plays of the 1948-49 Broadway season,
plus the story, screenplay and lyrics for the films Royal
Wedding and Brigadoon and the story and screenplay
for An American in Paris, for which he won an Oscar in
1951.
Paint Your Wagon rolled in in 1951, and then, five years later, on March 15, 1956, My Fair Lady opened and
became one of the most spectacular successes--artistic and financial--in the history of the American theater.
Playing a record 2,717 performances on Broadway alone, it went on to break all other existing world records. This
musicalization of Shaw's classic Pygmalion was named "outstanding musical of the year" by the New York Drama
Critics Circle--and by millions of theater goers.
Lerner and Loewe's next collaboration was on the film adaptation of the Colette novel Gigi, another success filled
with songs destined to become standard.
There was more collaborating to come--the film version of the Antoine de Saint-Exupery fable The Little Prince in
1972, but the 1960 Broadway hit Camelot which brought Arthurian England to life for its most shining hour, rang the
curtain down on the phenomenon of Lerner and Loewe. Loewe, who had suffered a heart attack in 1958, went into
retirement.
In tribute to his long time former partner, Lerner wrote, "There will never be another Fritz. . . . Writing will never
again be as much fun . A collaboration as intense as ours inescapably had to be complex. But I loved him more
than I understood or misunderstood him, and I know he loved me more than he understood or misunderstood me."
Source: The Kennedy Center, http://www.kennedy-center.org/explorer/artists/?entity_id=3753&source_type=A

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Adaptations: The Myth, The Play, The Musical
My Fair Lady is a beloved classic that has been called a masterpiece of musical comedy (New
York Daily Mirror), the perfect show (BBC), and even one of the greatest musicals ever written
(The Daily Mail). But did you know that this timeless musical is actually based on George Bernard
Shaw’s play Pygmalion. Shaw wrote Pygmalion in 1912, but he took its name from something
even older: an Ancient Greek myth.
The Story of Pygmalion and Galatea
by Heather Julian
“If you gods can give all things, may I have as my wife, I pray…one like the ivory maiden.” ~Pygmalion
Pygmalion, the mythical king of Cyprus, had many problems when dating women. He always seemed to accept
dates from the wrong women. Some were rude, others were selfish; he was revolted by the faults nature had placed
in these women. It left him feeling very depressed. He eventually came to despise the female gender so much that
he decided he would never marry any maiden. For comfort and solace, he turned to the arts, finding his talent in
sculpture. Using exquisite skills, he carved a statute out of ivory that was so resplendent and delicate no maiden
could compare with its beauty. This statute was the perfect resemblance of a living maiden. Pygmalion fell in love
with his creation and often laid his had upon the ivory statute as if to reassure himself it was not living. He named
the ivory maiden Galatea and adorned her lovely figure with women’s robes and placed rings on her fingers and
jewels about her neck.
At the festival of Aphrodite, which was celebrated with great relish throughout all of Cyprus, lonely Pygmalion
lamented his situation. When the time came for him to play his part in the processional, Pygmalion stood by the
altar and humbly prayed: “If you gods can give all things, may I have as my wife, I pray…” he did not dare say “the
ivory maiden” but instead said: “one like the ivory maiden.” Aphrodite, who also attended the festival, heard his plea
and she also knew of the thought he had wanted to utter. Showing her favor, she caused the altar’s flame to flare
up three times, shooting a long flame of fire into the still air.
After the day’s festivities, Pygmalion returned home and kissed Galatea as was his custom. At the warmth of her
kiss, he started as if stung by a hornet. The arms that were ivory now felt soft to his touch and when he softly
pressed her neck the veins throbbed with life. Humbly raising her eyes, the maiden saw Pygmalion and the light of
day simultaneously. Aphrodite blessed the happiness and union of this couple with a child. Pygmalion and Galatea
named the child Paphos, for which the city is known until this day.
Pygmalion by Jean-Baptiste RegnaultPygmalion et Galatée by
Étienne Maurice Falconet
Depiction of Ovid’s narrative
by Jean Raoux.

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Shaw’s Pygmalion
Myths such as Pygmalion are fine enough when studied through the lens of the centuries and the buffer of
translations and editions, but what happens when one tries to translate such an allegory into Victorian England?
That is just what George Bernard Shaw does in his version of the Pygmalion myth. In doing so, he exposes the
inadequacy of myth and of romance in several ways. For one, he deliberately twists the myth so that the play does
not conclude as euphorically or conveniently, hanging instead in unconventional ambiguity. Next, he mires the story
in the sordid and mundane whenever he gets a chance. Wherever he can, the characters are seen to be belabored
by the trivial details of life like napkins and neckties, and of how one is going to find a taxi on a rainy night. These
noisome details keep the story grounded and decidedly less romantic. Finally, and most significantly, Shaw
challenges the possibly insidious assumptions that come with the Pygmalion myth, forcing us to ask the following: Is
the male artist the absolute and perfect being who has the power to create woman in the image of his desires? Is
the woman necessarily the inferior subject who sees her lover as her sky? Can there only ever be sexual/romantic
relations between a man and a woman? Does beauty reflect virtue? Does the artist love his creation, or merely the
art that brought that creation into being?
Famous for writing "talky" plays in which barely anything other than witty repartee takes center stage (plays that the
most prominent critics of his day called non-plays), Shaw finds in Pygmalion a way to turn the talk into action, by
hinging the fairy tale outcome of the flower girl on precisely how she talks. In this way, he draws our attention to his
own art, and to his ability to create, through the medium of speech, not only Pygmalion's Galatea, but Pygmalion
himself. More powerful than Pygmalion, on top of building up his creations, Shaw can take them down as well by
showing their faults and foibles. In this way, it is the playwright alone, and not some divine will, who breathes life
into his characters. While Ovid's Pygmalion may be said to have idolized his Galatea, Shaw's relentless and
humorous honesty humanizes these archetypes, and in the process brings drama and art itself to a more
contemporarily relevant and human level.
-Source: http://www.bestreferat.ru/referat-209494.html

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“The Perfect Musical”
In the mid-1930s, film producer Gabriel Pascal acquired the rights to produce film
versions of several of George Bernard Shaw's plays, Pygmalion among them.
However, Shaw, having had a bad experience with The Chocolate Soldier, a
Viennese operetta based on his play Arms and the Man, refused permission
for Pygmalion to be adapted into a musical. After Shaw died in 1950, Pascal
asked lyricist Alan Jay Lerner to write the musical adaptation. Lerner agreed, and
he and his partner Frederick Loewe began work. They quickly realized, however,
that the play violated several key rules for constructing a musical at the time: the
main story was not a love story, there was no subplot or secondary love story,
and there was no place for an ensemble. Many people, including Oscar
Hammerstein II, who, with Richard Rodgers, had also tried his hand at
adapting Pygmalion into a musical and had given up, told Lerner that converting
the play to a musical was impossible, so he and Loewe abandoned the project for
two years.
During this time, the collaborators separated and Gabriel Pascal died. Lerner had
been trying to musicalize Li'l Abner when he read Pascal's obituary and found
himself thinking about Pygmalion again. When he and Loewe reunited,
everything fell into place. All the insurmountable obstacles that stood in their way
two years earlier disappeared when the team realized that the play needed few
changes apart from (according to Lerner) "adding the action that took place between the acts of the play". They
then excitedly began writing the show. However, Chase Manhattan Bank was in charge of Pascal's estate, and the
musical rights to Pygmalion were sought both by Lerner and Loewe and by MGM, whose executives called Lerner
to discourage him from challenging the studio. Loewe said, "We will write the show without the rights, and when the
time comes for them to decide who is to get them, we will be so far ahead of everyone else that they will be forced
to give them to us". For five months Lerner and Loewe wrote, hired technical designers, and made casting
decisions. The bank, in the end, granted them the musical rights.
Lerner settled on the title My Fair Lady, relating both to one of Shaw's provisional titles for Pygmalion, Fair Eliza,
and to the final line of every verse of the nursery rhyme "London Bridge Is Falling Down". Recalling that the
Gershwins' 1925 musical Tell Me More had been titled My Fair Lady in its out-of-town tryout, and also had a
musical number under that title as well, Lerner made a courtesy call to Ira Gershwin, alerting him to the use of the
title for the Lerner and Loewe musical.
Noël Coward was the first to be offered the role of Henry Higgins, but turned it down, suggesting the producers
cast Rex Harrison instead. After much deliberation, Harrison agreed to accept the part. Mary Martin was an early
choice for the role of Eliza Doolittle, but declined the role. Young actress Julie Andrews was "discovered" and cast
as Eliza after the show's creative team went to see her Broadway debut in The Boy Friend. Moss Hart agreed to
direct after hearing only two songs. The experienced orchestrators Robert Russell Bennett and Philip J. Lang were
entrusted with the arrangements and the show quickly went into rehearsal.
The musical's script used several scenes that Shaw had written especially for the 1938 film version of Pygmalion,
including the Embassy Ball sequence and the final scene of the 1938 film rather than the ending for Shaw's original
play. The montage showing Eliza's lessons was also expanded, combining both Lerner and Shaw's dialogue. The
artwork on the original Playbill (and sleeve of the cast recording) is by Al Hirschfeld, who drew the playwright Shaw
as a heavenly puppet master pulling the strings on the Henry Higgins character, while Higgins in turn attempts to
control Eliza Doolittle.
-Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Fair_Lady#Background
Poster of the original Broadway
production

12. 12
Setting the Scene: 1930s England
Though typically staged during Edwardian England (the period from 1901-1910 that marked King
Edward VII’s reign) director Sean Murray decided to set Cygnet’s production of My Fair Lady in
1937. So what does this mean for Eliza Doolittle’s story and what was going on at that time?
These pieces from Arena Stage’s study guide and website are extremely helpful in shedding light
on life in early- twentieth century London.
The operas and horse races of London’s high society give the world of My
Fair Lady its elegance and luxury, but the musical’s streets are full of their
own energy and character. A basket of flowers for sale, a rowdy dance
outside a pub, crowded tenements in the distance—these memorable
images from the script are classic elements of working class life in London
of the early 1900s. In the face of harsh poverty, the members of London’s
lower classes worked long hours in tiring conditions simply to provide food
and basic necessities for the families. Read on to learn more about the
work that defined their days.
Language and Social Class
There was a chasm between classes in England in the early
1900s with little chance of social mobility. The upper class was a
world of gracious manners, garden parties, fashion, balls and
diversions like horseracing. Membership came with many
advantages, especially education in which students cultivated
“The Queen’s English” and mingled with those who shared that
dialect.
Where Eliza grew up, just streets away, language education was
almost non-existent because desperate poverty meant children
worked. The working class lived in slums and was nicknamed
“The Great Unwashed” because of the scarcity of clean water
and soap.
One of the easiest ways to tell a person’s class was the way they
spoke. For example, people in lower class regions might drop
the “h” sound (such as a “’urricanes ‘ardly ‘appen”), while higher
classes dropped the “r” sound (“proper” sounds almost like “prop-
ah”). Prejudice based on speech was common and still exists
today.
British Women in the Early 1900
Women’s roles in British society were slowly
changing. In 1869, the first petition for women
suffrage (voting rights) was presented to
Parliament, and from 1911 10 1915 the
movement reached a frenzy. Suffragists did
radical things like smashing windows, planting
bombs and going on hunger strikes to get
attention.
The movement was mostly led by women who
had the ability (money) to do so. Women like
Eliza, who made only 38 pounds a year, could not
afford to get an education. This paralyzed them
in a low social class and made them dependent
on marriage. Becoming a lady in a flower shop
would mean Eliza could make 300 pounds a year,
but how could she make this transition? How
could poor women assert their independence? In
what ways were upper-class women also
trapped?
Flower Girls and Dustmen: London’s Working World
By Addie Mahmassani

13. 13
Shops
A common way to make a living was to set up shop on one of London’s busy streets.
Those lucky enough to own their own shops were on the highest social level of the
working world. In an era before supermarkets, small shops that specialized in one or two
specific goods were the order of the day. From the baker to the butcher, shop owners
often lived in flats above their shops and employed their family members, making the line
between home and work difficult to discern. A typical workday was also infused with a
good deal of gossip and small talk, as socializing was an expected element of the
shopping routine. Gathering household items was considered women’s work, but mothers
sometimes sent their children to run quick errands.
With the pawnbroker, the ironmonger, the cobbler, and countless others in one space,
there was no shortage of variety in a London street market. The sights and sounds on a
typical day were surely exciting, if not slightly chaotic. Making for a long day of buying and
selling, shops stayed open until about 8:00 PM. Very few items were pre-packaged, so a
flurry of weights and scales could be heard clanking and sliding at every corner. Bakers
walked around their shops in white caps and aprons while butchers swept sawdust
around the floor. Glass bottles of colorful liquid decorated the display windows of chemist
shops where all sorts of medicines could be found. Meanwhile the corn-chandlers, who
sold animal food, ladled various feeds into paper bags according to their customers’ specifications.
On a much lower social level than shop owners were merchants who did not have permanent workplaces. Peddlers added to
the noise of the town with street cries, which they sang to draw customers in. In simple rhymes bellowed at the top of their
lungs, these men and women offered everything from live goldfish, to fruits, to knives.
Flower Girls
Joining the ranks of London’s hawkers were the flower girls, who moved up and down the streets
with heavy cane baskets full of violets, lavender, and carnations. Though old gypsy women
sometimes sold flowers, most flower girls were quite young, ranging in age from six to twenty
years old. These girls bought their flowers at large open-air markets like Covent Garden and then
arranged them into small bouquets to sell at higher prices.
In an 1861 report on the London Poor, author Henry Mayhew described
“two classes of flower girls.” According to his notes about the flower
sellers who took to the street later in the night, some women used this
profession as a pretense to meet men for “immoral purposes.” Their
activities led many Londoners to regard flower girls as licentious, a
negative perception that Eliza does her best to counter in My Fair
Ladywith her cries of, “I’m a good girl, I am!”
A “better class of flower-girls” certainly existed, many of them coming
from Eliza’s neighborhood, Lisson-Grove. With innocent intentions, these girls sold their flowers in the
West End, the suburbs, and other business hubs. The money they made often went right to their
parents. According to Mayhew, “They [were] generally very persevering, more especially the younger
children, who [ran] along, barefooted.”
Servicemen
Outside of the shops, the working class also included an array of servicemen. Traveling from house to house and street to
street, they delivered milk and coal, carried the mail, swept chimneys, and even offered knife and scissor sharpening services.

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Among this cohort of servicemen were dustmen like Alfred
Doolittle, charged with collecting garbage throughout the city on a
weekly basis. Ringing a bell to announce their presence, they went
from one silver dustbin to the next on horse-drawn dustcarts. Since
their work was inevitably dirty, they wore hats with leather flaps to
keep as much of their skin covered as possible. Refuse collection
was far from glorious, but dustmen at times had the good fortune of
finding profitable trash. In fact, the potential for discovering
“treasure” at the bottom of dustbins was so great that William
Pyne, a writer on everyday life in England, described the job as a
coveted position in 1805. Though perhaps overly-optimistic, his
account reads,
Time has brought to light, that industry, aided by experiment, can turn everything to advantage, and that rubbish and filth, the
former pests of the city, are now become a source of utility and wealth. The people who perform the duties of scavenger, and
dustman, now pay a sum of money for the contract, and for being allowed the exclusive privilege of carting away rubbish.
After Work
Though work dominated the lives of London’s poor, there were, of course, other elements of lower class culture. At night,
many men gathered in pubs around the town for beer and socialization. They also sometimes met in the newsagents —small
shops that carried newspapers and tobacco— to talk over the day’s news. Children played games in the streets; families went
to church on Sundays; women worked on sewing projects, and much more. To explore everyday life in more depth and find
more information about a typical workday, be sure to check out Florence Cole’s extensive survey of London in the 1900s.
Also, for more photos, take a look at this collection.
Addie Mahmassani is an artistic development fellow at Arena Stage. She recently graduated from Georgetown University with a B.A. in
American Studies.
Early in the first act of My Fair Lady, Eliza Doolittle strikes a courageously feminist blow. A rough-cut product of London’s
slums, she offers to pay Henry Higgins one shilling in return for an hour of English lessons. Tired of selling flowers on a
London street corner, she’s determined to “talk more genteel” to land a job in a local flower shop.
Eliza’s sincere (if paltry) offer is met with ridicule from Higgins. He does not acknowledge
her effort to make something of herself. He takes the opportunity to underscore his
superiority instead. Even so, Eliza experiences a kind of empowerment, born of pride and
backbone. She is not, after all, asking for charity, nor does she stoop to begging. In
exchange, she expects to be taken seriously and treated like a lady. Small steps, to be
sure, but, in the context of her times, meaningful all the same.
My Fair Lady represents a moment in feminist history when women had one foot familiarly
planted in the past and the other stretched eagerly toward the future. Set in 1912 but
dealing with issues that are still relevant, it is a take on women’s struggle to rise above
powerlessness in a society dominated by bull-headed and sometimes bullying males.
Though playful, the story has serious undertones. It urges us to ask how much power, if
any, did Eliza have? Living in a society that offered her no financial safety net, and no
obvious path to securing one, how was she to muster the necessary resources to better
her plight? And how were other women poised to do the same thing?
Queen Victoria’s reign ended at the dawn of the 20th century, a time when women did not
have the right to vote or own property. At least in the upper class, most women led lives
Wouldn’t It Be Loverly: The Early Feminist In England
By Karen Deans

15. 15
confined to the management of busy households and the pursuit of hobbies such as embroidery, music and volunteer work
with local charities. A woman was also expected to be chaste, pious and devoted to her children and husband.
In 1912 laws and attitudes held over from the Victorian era proscribed the reach of a woman’s ambition. At the same time,
society was changing in ways that provided openings for efforts to move beyond these limitations. The Women’s Suffrage
movement was picking up steam. There were two women's organizations devoted to women's enfranchisement: The National
Union of Women's Suffrage Society (begun in 1897) and its more militant branch, the Women's Social and Political Union
(1903-1917). It is unlikely that Eliza would have been involved in either of these groups. The majority of their members were
educated, married women with time on their hands and money to spare. Their efforts materialized slowly. When women won
the right to vote in 1918, this right was restricted to women over 30. It then took another 10 years for women to have the same
voting rights as men.
The Industrial Revolution resulted in jobs for working class women in workplaces that
traditionally had been the exclusive domain of men. The earnings and working
conditions of textile mills, mines and garment factories weren’t enough to raise
women from the ranks of the lower class. The jobs provided income to support their
families, though, laying the foundation for the fight for equal pay and equal treatment,
a struggle that continues in varying degrees around the globe today.
Neither married nor attached to a family, Eliza is a prime example of these working
women who were slowly but surely paving the way toward gender equality. She is a
young woman, single and poor, determined to pull herself up by her bootstraps. With
few resources and virtually no education, she bridles against the legacy of her
drunken father and becomes a flower girl on a street corner in downtown London.
Against this backdrop, Eliza represents both the ambitions and limitations of early
working class women in Britain. The tragedy and triumph of her plight are cast in high
relief through our modern day lens. She is a bit player in a bet between two upper
class and relentlessly chauvinistic men, with few options and scant resources. And
yet, she succeeds in rising above her station, at least for a time. By learning how to
speak proper English in a society highly stratified by class, improving one’s speech
was a ticket to a better life. Given where she began and what she had to work with,
that is no small achievement for Eliza Doolittle.
Atlanta native Karen Deans is an art history graduate from the American University of Paris and has studied theater painting at Cobalt
Studios in New York. She is the owner of an art business, Wooden Tile, and the author of two children's books. Karen lives in Bethesda
with her husband and their three children.

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Theatre Etiquette
When we visit the theatre we are attending a live performance with actors that are working right in
front of us. This is an exciting experience for you and the actor. However, in order to have the
best performance for both the audience and the actors, there are some do’s and don’ts that need
to be followed. And remember that we follow these rules because the better an audience you can
be the better the actors can be.
1. Don’t allow anything that creates noise to go off during the performance—cell phones,
watches, etc.
2. Don’t take pictures or video recordings during the performance. All of the work is
copyrighted by the designers and you could face serious penalties.
3. Don’t eat or drink in the theatre.
4. Don’t stick gum on the bottom of the seat.
5. Don’t place things on the stage or walk on the stage.
6. Don’t put your feet up on the back of the seat in front of you.
7. Don’t leave your seat during the performance unless it is an emergency. If you do need to
leave for an emergency, leave as quietly as possible—and know that you might not be able
to get back in until intermission.
8. Do clap—let the actors know you are enjoying yourself!
9. Do enjoy the show and have fun watching the actors!
10.Do tell other people about your experience and be sure to ask questions and discuss what
you experienced after the show!

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Recommended Resources
Books and Articles:
 Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
 The Making of My Fair Lady by Keith Garebian
Websites and Organizations:
 Arena Stage’s My Fair Lady Study Guide
http://www.arenastage.org/education/education-programs/student-study-guides/12-
13/STUDY%20GUIDEs-%20myFairLady%20Web.pdf
Movies and Video Clips:
 Pygmalion (1938 film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmdPj_XbF30
 My Fair Lady (1964 film)