Elliott Styles as Bill Snibson and Sophie Madorsky as Sally in the U-M Department of Musical Theatre’s production of Me and My Girl playing at the Power Center April 12-15. (Photo by Peter Smith Photography)

It feels a bit like director/choreographer Linda Goodrich, a professor in U-M’s musical theater department, has long had a date with destiny regarding the 1937 British musical Me and My Girl.

For although the show had long been one of Britain’s biggest home-grown stage musical hits, it didn’t make its Broadway debut until 1986 — the same year Goodrich moved to New York.

“I remember seeing it on a marquee, but I never did see it,” said Goodrich. “In fact, I’d never seen it on stage before we started rehearsals. I’d always been familiar with the music and been curious about the show, but it just never crossed my path again.”

For the 1986 Broadway production, Stephen Fry (with contributions by director Mike Ockrent) revised Douglas Furber’s and L. Arthur Rose’s original book for the show and added composer Noel Gay’s song “Leaning on a Lamppost” to the catchy score.

The show tells the story of an aristocratic family seeking a legitimate male heir to become the next Earl of Hareford. The search unearths a Hareford man’s secret, brief past marriage to a Cockney girl, which yielded a son named Bill Snibson. To claim his inheritance, though, Bill must satisfy the executors by adopting aristocratic speech and manners — and possibly leave behind his beloved Cockney girlfriend Sally. READ THE REST HERE