Olney Theatre Finds Success in 'How to Succeed...'

I don’t think anyone wants to return to the time when the workplace was rife with sexism and sexual harassment was a normal occurrence.  Nor does anyone want to see a business setting where the only upward mobility for a woman is limited to being a secretary to the highest male executive in the corporate hierarchy. 

#HoCoArts

Photo by Stan Barough

But the hilarious musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying currently playing at the Olney Theatre Center takes us to that place in the early 1960’s, and for nearly three hours, we can laugh aloud and appreciate the fact the era is relegated to the dustbin of history. 

While those sexist days may be gone in most places, the office in-fighting, politics, back-biting and ruthlessness cloaked in ambition, as exhibited in the show’s fictional New York City-based Worldwide Wicket Company, alas, remains in the real world even today.  

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying is a musical by Frank Loesser with a superb book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert that is based on Shepherd Meade’s bestselling book with the same title.  The show opened on Broadway in 1961 and the next year captured seven Tony Awards including Best Musical.  The success of the show spawned winning revivals in 1995 and 2011 and a film adaptation in 1967.

For full review, visit MD Theatre Guide.