The musical comedy “42nd Street,” which opens the 2007‑2008 season for Fountain Hills Community Theater this weekend and runs three weeks, is rife with true stories that exude an air of the legendary (for ticket information call 480‑837‑9661).

The most famous concerns the death of Gower Champion, director/choreographer of the original 1980 Broadway stage version, mere hours before opening. Producer David Merrick walked out on stage after the curtain rang down that night and told a cheering, laughing audience the news. He’d kept it secret from everyone, including the actors. Suddenly, an ebullient cast and an exuberant house were reduced to tears and shouts of “No!”

A happier story concerns a matter of life imitating art in the London production of the show. “42nd Street” tells the clichéd, backstage tale of a chorus girl in a Broadway musical who goes on at the last minute as a replacement for the star, and ends up a star herself. The real‑life star of the London “42nd Street” became ill one night, and had to be replaced by one of the production’s chorus girls. The replacement was so good that producers gave her the job fulltime. The real‑life chorus girl’s name: Catherine Zeta‑Jones.

Then there’s the story of Merrick and Harry Warren. Merrick you know about. The producer of “Gypsy” and “Hello Dolly!” was one of Broadway’s biggest guns for decades, and “42nd Street” would prove to be his last big hit. But Warren? Who’s that?

It was Harry Warren’s lifelong curse to remain virtually unknown, while his work achieved enormous popularity. Born Salvatore Antonio Guaragna in 1893 Brooklyn, he trained as a serious composer, but turned to popular songwriting (and a more colloquial name) when the Depression hit. Hollywood was the place to find work, and Warren answered the call. From 1930 to the mid‑1950s, Warren wrote the music, with words by a variety of lyricists, for songs that are now a part of American history: “That’s Amore;” “On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe;” “You’ll Never Know;” “I Found a Million Dollar Baby (In a Five and Ten‑Cent Store);” “The More I See You;” “Chattanooga Choo Choo;” “At Last;” and “Jeepers Creepers.” His music and Al Dubin’s lyrics comprise the score of “42nd Street.”

Despite this, when the so‑called Golden Era of American popular song is invoked, the names Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and the Gershwins are mentioned, with Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein and sometimes Harold Arlen close behind. Warren is rarely thought of.

Merrick thought of him, but only as a means to an end. In the late 1970s, a nostalgia craze swept Broadway, with hit revivals of such ancient shows as “Irene” and “No, No, Nanette.” Ever the profit‑driven showman, Merrick wanted to cash in on it. He got the idea of converting “42nd Street,” a movie musical from the 1930s, for the Broadway stage, but he needed the rights to the songs. So he looked up Warren and invited him to dinner at a posh restaurant.

Over an expensive meal, Merrick offered Warren a certain percentage of the box‑office gross in exchange for the right to use his music in the stage version of “42nd Street.” Warren replied modestly that he appreciated the offer, but that he and Dubin had written the songs under contract to the studio that made the film. It was the Depression, after all, and Warren had been happy to receive a salary to write the songs. The rights, however, remained with the studio.

Upon hearing this, Merrick rose from the table, left the restaurant–and stuck Warren with the check.

But there’s a happy ending: A contract was devised that paid both the studio and Warren, and Warren lived long enough to see his music a part of a gigantic Broadway hit. He died in 1981, a year after the show opened.

Warren’s tunes drape the show’s silly plot in dramatic emotions: The breezy and irresistible “Shuffle Off to Buffalo;” the yearning “I Only Have Eyes for You;” the ecstatic “Lullaby of Broadway;” and the wistfully playful “You’re Getting to Be a Habit with Me.” Most of all there’s that dark‑hued title song, with its vague feeling of sleaze. Warren’s tune is one of very few Broadway title tunes in a minor key.

When you see the Fountain Hills production, you’ll walk out remembering the dance routines, the story, the singing and the acting and the set. Give a moment as well to American popular song’s forgotten tunesmith, Harry Warren.