How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock, and Willie Gilbert, based on Shepherd Mead's popular 1952 book of the same name

Playwright Willie Gilbert and neurosurgeon Jack Weinstock created a dramatic interpretation, but it had gone unproduced for five years. Agent Abe Newborn brought the work to the attention of producers Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin, with the intention of retooling it as a musical. Feuer and Martin had great success with the 1950 adaptation of Guys and Dolls and brought in the creative team from that show to work on How to.... Abe Burrows and Frank Loesser set to work on the new adaptation, with rehearsals beginning in August 1961.

In 1961, the show opened on Broadway, initially running for 1,417 performances. The show won seven Tony Awards and the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 1967, it was produced as a film by United Artists, with many of the original cast recreating their roles. A highly-regarded 1995 revival starring Matthew Broderick and Megan Mullally garnered a Tony for Broderick's performance.

Ambitous young window cleaner J. Pierpont Finch buys a book describing how to get ahead in the business world and sets out to try the methods shown. Written by Col Needham

J. Pierpont Finch, a young but bright window-cleaner buys a book - "How To Succeed In Business" and following its advice joins the multi-national but poorly-connected "World-Wide Wicket Company". Starting from the mail-room he rises to Vice-President in Charge Of Advertising using sneaky and dubious ways so that the person above him gets either fired or moved to another section of the company. He also starts slowly falling in love with secretary Rosemary Pilkington. Meanwhile, the president of the WWWC, J.B. Biggley, tries to have an affair with drop-dead gorgeous bubble-head Hedy LaRue, but she becomes a weapon used both by Finch and Bud Frump, Biggley's brattish and annoying nephew who believe that he should get all the breaks and not Finch. Can Finch rise to the top or will it all go down in flames... Written by Lee Horton