Of Thee I Sing - Definition and Overview

Of Thee I Sing is a musical with music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin, to a book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. It opened on Broadway in 1931, ran for 441 performances and won the Pulitzer Prize for the best American play of 1932, the first musical comedy to win a Pulitzer, one of the signs that the American musical was coming of age. Brooks Atkinson's review in the New York Times called it "a taut and lethal satire... funnier than the government, and not nearly so dangerous."

When John P. Wintergreen runs successfully for President, his campaign platform is Love. The staged beauty contest for Miss White House ("sexy" is thymed with "Mrs Prexy") is overturned when Wintergreen falls for a simple secretary, who woos him with corn muffins. When they settle down to business in the White House at double desks, her "desk" back-to-back with his, is a fully-loaded tea-table. (See gender role.)