Book by Elmer Rice, based on his play of the same name
Lyrics by Langston Hughes and Elmer Rice
Music by Kurt Weill
Weill’s “Broadway opera,” with a score that blends operatic arias and ensembles, show tunes and dance numbers, jazz and blues, and dramatic dialogue, is a passionate, emotionally charged portrait of family and communal life among the multi-ethnic working-class and immigrant inhabitants of a crowded New York City tenement. Centered on the life-changing events of one oppressively hot summer day, Street Scene illuminates the tensions, despair, hopes, and dreams of this melting-pot community. Anna, trapped in an unhappy marriage with her husband Frank, is having an affair with the milkman. Her daughter, Rose, is in love with her neighbor, Sam. He is quite happy not to go to law school in order to marry Rose, but she is not sure of what this sacrifice will entail. She makes her mind up when Frank returns home early, and finding his wife with her lover, shoots them both dead. Rose sees that she must not destroy Sam's life before he has made his way in the world, and she goes off without him.
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