Hot Mikado

Hot Mikado is a musical comedy, based on Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, adapted by David H. Bell (book and lyrics) and Rob Bowman (orchestrations and arrangements). After researching the 1939 Broadway musical, The Hot Mikado, and being disappointed at the amount of surviving material that they could find, Bell and Bowman created a new adaptation, Hot Mikado. "Not much remains, however, of the 1939 show’s African-American emphasis, save the cool hipster style which even then was beginning to be eagerly pre-empted by Americans of every ethnicity."

Their original production ran from March 18–July 27, 1986 at Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC, where Bell was artistic director. Bell directed and choreographed the production. The musical also had an early Chicago production, among other revivals and ran in London's West End in 1995. It has enjoyed many additional productions in North America and the UK since then. In 2010, it ran at the New Repertory Theatre in Watertown, Massachusetts. and the Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace Theatre in Chicago. International productions have included a long-running Prague staging and a run in Dublin.