Paint Your Wagon: A Musical Play in Two Acts

by Alan Jay Lerner

Book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. The music of Paint Your Wagon, which is not included in this book, was composed by Frederick Loewe.

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 52-8019.

Genres: Plays, Westerns

140 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Alan Jay Lerner was an American lyricist and librettist whose work helped define the golden age of musical theatre, on stage and on screen. Born in New York City to a cultured and well connected family, he was educated in England and the United States, studying at Bedales School, Choate, and Harvard, where his lifelong love for musical theatre took shape through the Hasty Pudding productions. Like several of his contemporaries, Lerner began his professional path while still a student, combining literary wit with an instinctive feel for character and song. An accident during his Harvard years left him blind in one eye, preventing military service during World War II and redirecting him toward writing for radio before he entered the theatre world full time. His career changed decisively after meeting composer Frederick Loewe in the early 1940s, a partnership that would become one of the most celebrated in musical theatre history. Together they created works that blended romance, intelligence, and emotional clarity, beginning with early efforts and achieving major success with Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon, and later the landmark My Fair Lady. Their adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion became a cultural phenomenon, breaking box office records and later winning multiple Academy Awards in its film version. The Lerner and Loewe collaboration continued with the film musical Gigi and the Arthurian epic Camelot, whose themes of idealism and loss came to resonate far beyond the stage. Outside this partnership, Lerner worked with composers such as Kurt Weill, Burton Lane, André Previn, Leonard Bernstein, and Charles Strouse, experiencing both triumphs and notable disappointments. His career was marked by ambition, perfectionism, and frequent personal turmoil, including health struggles and financial instability. Lerner also played an important role as an advocate for writers’ rights, serving as president of the Dramatists Guild of America in the early 1960s. He received numerous honors, including multiple Tony Awards, Academy Awards, and induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In his later years he reflected on his career in books that combined memoir, criticism, and affectionate insight into the art of musical theatre. Despite professional decline and personal difficulties, his influence endured. Alan Jay Lerner died in 1986, leaving behind songs and stories that remain central to the musical theatre repertoire, admired for their elegance, emotional honesty, and enduring humanity.

Reviews

[Rod Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Growing up on a farm outside a small Wisconsin town, I never had much exposure to Broadway musicals. But, due to the fact that it featured Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin and was set during the California Gold Rush, the movie version of Paint Your Wagon was in regular rotation on a local TV station's Saturday afternoon Western matinee, an annual event at least. Due to that, even today, I have probably seen Paint Your Wagon more than any other musical in my life, though Jesus Christ Superstar and Rent may be slowly catching up. Paint Your Wagon probably launched a lifelong love of Broadway musicals that eventually became a way of bonding with my musical-loving daughter (thanks, Disney and Barbie!), and culminated last year with a daddy/daughter trip to New York City where I actually saw three Broadway musicals on Broadway for the first time in my life: Avenue Q, Come From Away, and Wicked. (All were amazing, by the way.)

So imagine my joy when I came across this original edition of the Broadway script for $1 at a library book sale a few days ago.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the Broadway play bears hardly any resemblance to the film.

The stage version is less raunchy and rowdy and has several characters that Hollywood saw fit to ditch, including the star-crossed Romeo and Juliet pair whose relationship takes up a major section of the storyline. The film added the character of Pardner and the whole polygamous marriage between him and the Mormon wife who is auctioned off to the highest bidder. The Broadway version is a little more melancholy and doesn't feature a big action set piece at the end that destroys much of the town. And yet, I find it almost as enjoyable as the movie and found myself singing out loud the songs that I was familiar with because they had made it into both productions.

Bonus: Lerner's introduction to this 1952 book is an apparently timeless rant about Broadway's over-reliance on adaptations, the overuse of the same small pool of composers and lyricists, and over-priced tickets that cause a vicious circle of audiences only wanting to attend shows with which they have brand familiarity. The more things change, eh?

[Brian McCann · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few good songs, but all in all PAINT YOUR WAGON is a mediocre musical filled with stereotypic characters, some which would be offensive in 2021.