“It’s almost everybody’s favorite musical – everybody who knows it,” says Martin, “and it’s time for a new generation. I wanted to do something commemorative about my last show at the Huntington as Artistic Director. I wanted to do something with humor, love and hope in it, and I couldn’t think of a better musical than this. And it’s a very close ensemble piece. Every character gets to have his or her moment. And that’s unusual in musicals.” It also boasts a 13-piece orchestra and 27 songs.
  Set in 1930s Budapest, it revolves around Georg and Amalia, two feuding shop clerks who find solace in anonymous pen pals, who turn out to be, well, each other. This musical is the third adaptation of the play “Parfumerie” by Miklos Laszlo; it was also the basis of the 1998 movie, “You’ve Got Mail.”
     Martin has not updated the play to include e-mail, text messaging or mobile phones. “No,” says Martin, “although we’re doing kind of an unconventional set. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s not old Eastern European – it’s a lot more contemporary. It’s set in its period, but designed with today in mind.” He’ll be taking the play with him to Williamstown upon leaving the Huntington. (This is excerpted from a longer piece on Martin and his successor at the Huntington, Peter DuBois, which is in the May issue of Where Magazine in Boston. It can be accessed on line at www.wheremagazine.com and then click on "Boston." ) Tickets: $75 - $15, Sunday's final show is at 2.

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