One Touch of Venus

• Original Broadway Production (1943)
  New York, NY
• Film Version (1948)
• Radio Production (1951)
• Television Production (1955)
• Philadelphia Revival (1972)
  Philadelphia, PA
• New York Concert (1983)
  New York, NY
• Lost Musicals Concert (1992)
  London, England
• London Concert (1995)
  London, England
• Encores! Concert (1996)
  New York, NY
• Lost Musicals Concert (2000)
  London, England

Click on the title for info on the song.

Original score

• New Art Is True Art
• One Touch of Venus
• How Much I Love You
• I'm a Stranger Here Myself
• Forty Minutes for Lunch
  • aka Forty Minutes for Lunch Ballet [no note]
• West Wind
  • aka Westwind [no note]
• Way Out West in Jersey
• Foolish Heart
• The Trouble With Women
• Speak Low
  • aka Speak Low (When You Speak Love) [no note]
• Dr. Crippen
  • aka Doctor Crippen [no note]
• Very, Very, Very
• Catch Hatch
• That's Him
• Wooden Wedding
• Venus in Ozone Heights
  • aka Venus in Ozone Heights Ballet [no note]

Cut before pre-Broadway tryout

• Who Am I?

Cut prior to opening

• Bacchanale
• Fresh Air and Excercise
• It Must Be Ernie
• The Jersey Plunk
• Love in a Mist
• Same Time, Same Place
• Too Soon
• Vive La Difference
• Who Dealt?
• You'll Find It on the Bill

Added to film version

• Don't Look Now But My Heart is Showing

Status unknown

• Love Rhymes with You
• My Week
• The Picture on the Wall
• Venus Was a Modest Goddess
• Westwind Dance

Listed as a separate number in some productions and on some recordings

• That's How I Am Sick of Love

Recordings listed here were done in the studio specifically to release as recordings. They do not represent cast recordings of a particular production.

• Studio Cast (2013)
  Melissa Errico , Brent Barrett , Ron Raines , Victoria Clark (i) , Judy Kaye

• Composer Demo [audio]

Modern art collector Whitelaw Savory unearths a long-lost statue of Venus of Anatolia and is thrilled to display her in his New York museum. But when a naïve young barber named Rodney unwittingly brings the statue to life, Venus fixes her affections on him and pursues him all over New York. Rodney’s shrewish fiancée doesn’t like this one bit, and Savory will do anything—including framing Rodney for murder—to recover his beloved statue. Rodney keeps trying to set things right, and poor Venus can’t understand why he doesn’t respond to her seductions. After a series of comic setups and mix ups involving a couple of thugs, a nagging mother, a wisecracking secretary, some ancient Anatolians and a good dose of Olympian magic, earthly order is restored and new love found.

An earlier version, based on the same story but titled One Man's Venus, with book by Bella Spewack was offered to Marlene Dietrich. She made various constructive criticisms which were discussed with Spewack, who then withdrew from the project. Operetta and Victorian London were changed to modern New York in a new book by S. J. Perelman to become One Touch of Venus. Ogden Nash had finished the lyrics to five songs for the earlier version, but no music is known to have been written for them. The titles for the first version are: "Earthbound," "The Fates," "Flash Rounds," "Fresh Air and Exercise" (there were two versions of this lyric), and "If I Could Find Another Rhyme for Love."

• Love in a Mist (working title)
• The Tinted Venus (source material)