Burlington resident designs the sets that bring Wellesley Players' My Fair Lady to Life

The hummable, quotable, wonderfully enjoyable musical for the whole family!

The story, the songs, the characters -- you know and love them. A Broadway hit when it debuted in 1956, this fan-favorite musical has gone on to win Tony Awards, launch careers and be adapted into the Oscar-winning beloved film. The Wellesley Players brings together an award-winning team to present this beautiful musical in a manner that speaks to today’s audiences. When Professor Henry Higgins bets he can transform a Cockney flower girl into an aristocratic lady, he doesn’t anticipate that Eliza Doolittle will end up transforming him. Based on George Bernard Shaw’s delightful social satire Pygmalion, Lerner and Loewe’s charming and beloved musical features such unforgettable numbers as “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “The Rain in Spain,” and “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” it’s no wonder everyone — not just Henry Higgins — falls in love with Eliza Doolittle. This show is the standard by which all others are measured. The production will feature the sparkling two-piano orchestration, crafted with the approval of Lerner and Loewe by the show’s original arranger of dance music.

Elegant ladies with giant hats and parasols at the races in Ascot and dirty-faced cockney flower peddlers amid the pillars of Covent Garden are some of the images that are ingrained in the minds of theater and movie audiences when they think of “My Fair Lady”.

The artistic team for the upcoming production of Wellesley Players was challenged with creating something fresh and different, conceptual and yet evocative of the period and the story.

Award winning set designer and Burlington resident, Ruth Neeman, brings to this project decades of experience designing sets for professional and community theatre in the greater Boston area.

Thanks to her strong working relationship with Celia Couture, director of My Fair Lady, she was asked to join the Wellesley Players creative team.

Ruth’s set design achievements were recognized by EMACT (Eastern Massachusetts Association of Community Theaters) annual festivals and DASH (Distinguished Achievement Special Honors) program, winning awards for Best Set & Set dressing in a play, for productions such as ‘On the Verge’ ‘Three Days of Rain’ ‘Lettice and Lovage’, ‘True West’, and Piece of My Heart. Many images of these plays can be viewed on Ruth’s website – www.setbyruthneeman.com.

As a practicing architect Ruth brings to the stage of the Mosesian Theater at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown, period architectural imagery. Large ornate windows reminiscent of the glass and iron structures of the Victorian era serve as the backdrop to the action, and a single stone pillar stands for the famous façade of Covent Garden St. Paul Church.

The representational set pieces, double as interior and exterior elements, which minimizes disrupting scene changes. The time and place of each scene is established through the use of historical images of 1912 London projected on a large screen.

The show will be directed by Celia Couture with music direction by Art Finstein and choreography by Kelly Murphy. Director Celia Couture has taken shows to the National Drama Festival three times, including once with the Wellesley Players. Her Radium Girls with the Burlington Players won the National Best Show Award in 2013.

My Fair Lady will be performed at the Arsenal Center of the Arts, Mosesian Theatre in Watertown from April 10-19. Don’t miss it! To reserve tickets please visit: www.wellesleyplayers.org. Discounts for groups are available. Order early as seating is reserved.