No, No, Nanette
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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No, No, Nanette is a musical comedy with lyrics by Irving Caesar and Otto Harbach, music by Vincent Youmans, and a book by Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel, based on Mandel's 1919 Broadway play My Lady Friends. The farcical story involves three couples who find themselves together at a cottage in Atlantic City in the midst of a blackmail scheme, focusing on a young, fun-loving Manhattan heiress who naughtily runs off for a weekend, leaving her unhappy fiancé. Its songs include the well-known "Tea for Two" and "I Want to Be Happy".
During its 1924 pre-Broadway tour, No, No, Nanette became a hit in Chicago, and the production stayed there for over a year. In 1925, the show opened both on Broadway and in the West End, running 321 and 665 performances respectively. Film versions and revivals followed. A popular 1971 Broadway revival, with a book adapted by Burt Shevelove, led to the piece becoming a favorite of school and community groups for a time.
A popular myth holds that the show was financed by selling baseball's Boston Red Sox superstar Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, resulting in the "Curse of the Bambino."<ref name="Shaughnessy"/> However, it was My Lady Friends, rather than No, No, Nanette, that was directly financed by the Ruth sale.
