By Ryan Paul
One of the things that I have always loved at the Utah Shakespeare Festival is that magic minute when the lights dim and the audience and I get that brief moment of anticipation—not just for a story, but for the feeling that accompanies it. Some productions sweep in with thunder, brilliant light, and spectacle. Others arrive softly and slowly reveal themselves to be unforgettable. She Loves Me certainly belongs in that world.
This summer, the Utah Shakespeare Festival brings to our stages one of the great romantic musicals of the twentieth century paired with the broad comic energy of Something Rotten! and the farcical chaos of See How They Run. It is a reminder that repertory theatre works best not when every production shouts in the same register, but when each show deepens and complicates the others. And She Loves Me complicates everything.
At first glance, She Loves Me appears delightfully simple. There are no barricades to storm, no chandelier crashing from the ceiling, no helicopter falling from the sky. Instead, the musical asks audiences to invest in more intimate matters: a glance across a shop counter, the nervous excitement of a handwritten letter, the heartbreak of realizing one’s romantic ideal might not exist after all.
On paper, the show sounds impossibly charming: two perfume shop clerks in 1930s Budapest despise one another in person while unknowingly falling in love as anonymous pen pals. It is the kind of premise contemporary producers would probably reject for being too trite. The stakes here, however, are wonderfully human. The fear of vulnerability. The terror of being truly known. The strange realization that the person who irritates you most might also be the person who sees you most clearly.
If the plot sounds familiar, it should. Based on the same source material that inspired the movies, The Shop Around the Corner (1940), In The Good Old Summertime (1949), and a bit more recently, You’ve Got Mail (1998), She Loves Me occupies a treasured place in musical theatre history. With a book by Joe Masteroff and a score by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick—the legendary team behind Fiddler on the Roof—the musical combines sophistication with sincerity in a way few shows manage. Songs like “Vanilla Ice Cream,” “Tonight at Eight,” and “She Loves Me” have become standards not because they are flashy, but because they are truthful. They understand the awkwardness of affection, the terror of hope, and the exhilarating possibility of connection. Love here is not smooth. It is destabilizing in the best way possible.
Michael Perlman, who directed last season’s very successful production of Ken Ludwig’s Dear Jack, Dear Louise, returns to helm She Loves Me. Perlman has described the musical as one of those rare “perfect” shows with “heart, rich and recognizable characters, and gorgeous music.” That description is spot on. The musical’s perfection lies not in complexity but in its beautiful simplicity. Every supporting character matters. Every musical theme quietly returns with new emotional meaning. Every comic beat sharpens the uncertainty below.
In a moment that seems dominated by algorithms that determine our compatibility, and connections that seem built for us by data, She Loves Me insists on the radical possibility of emotional correspondence and connection. The anonymous letters at the center of the story are not gimmicks; they are acts of vulnerability. Georg and Amalia fall in love not because of profile photos or a computerized compatibility score, but because they learn how the other person thinks. That seems pretty revolutionary and timely in today’s world.
For 65 years, the Utah Shakespeare Festival has excelled at producing stories that place humanity front and center. Whether staging Shakespearean tragedy, sweeping musical spectacle, or intimate contemporary drama, the Festival consistently operates under the premise that theatre works best when audiences recognize themselves somewhere within the story. She Loves Me thrives on precisely that recognition.
Anyone who has ever rehearsed a conversation in their head before speaking it aloud will understand Amalia. Anyone who has hidden vulnerability beneath sarcasm will recognize Georg. Anyone who has longed to be seen for who they truly are will find something familiar in the shop’s employees as they stumble toward honesty, romance, and self-discovery. By the time the final scene arrives, we hope that you in the audience will realize that you have become deeply invested in the fate of these characters almost without noticing it happen.
At its best, live performance creates connection between strangers. An audience laughs together, holds its breath together, and quietly recognizes their common humanity together. She Loves Me does not demand emotional investment through spectacle; it earns it through detail. A nervous pause. A cracked voice. A hopeful smile. These are small things, but onstage, they become colossal.
In a season filled with adventure, spectacle, and classic storytelling, the Utah Shakespeare Festival’s 2026 production of She Loves Me offers something increasingly precious: tenderness without irony, romance without apology, and joy rooted not in fantasy, but in the fragile, hopeful complexity of ordinary people learning how to love one another.
And that my friends, may be the most timeless and necessary story of all.
