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The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is a musical written by David Spencer and Alan Menken (eight-time Oscar-winning composer). It is based on Mordechai Richler's 1959 novel of the same name. The musical is "a morality tale" set in 1950s Montreal, about 19-year-old Duddy Kravitz, from the working class Jewish inner city, desperate to make his mark and prove himself to his family and community." After his grandfather tells him that "A man without land is nobody", he works and schemes to develop a lakefront property, but his "compulsive ambition ... threatens his relationships with those who love him, among them a French Canadian girl he meets while working at a Summer resort". At the same time, he is also fiercely loyal to those whom he loves." Duddy "must ... ultimately, decide what kind of man he's going to be."
The authors worked on a previous adaptation, Spencer serving only as lyricist, book and direction by Austin Pendleton that opened in 1987 in Philadelphia. They subsequently decided to reinvestigate the material and Spencer took over as librettist, starting his adaptation from scratch (he would refer to it as "an altogether different musical with the exact same title"). Approximately 3/4 of the original score was dropped, and most of the rest revised in favor of the new structure, and the piece went through costant refinement as it was worked on in the intervening years. In June 2015, the new version had its world premiere in Montreal, Quebec at the Segal Center for Performing Arts. This production was directed again by Austin Pendleton and featured a cast headed by Ken James Stewart (Duddy Kravitz), George Masswohl (Max Kravitz) and Marie-Pierre de Brienne (Yvette Durelle) and including Howard Jerome, Adrian Marchuk, Victor A. Young, David Coomber, Sam Rosenthal, Michael Rudder, Kristian Truelsen, Albane Chateau, Gab Desmond, Julia Halfyard, Michael Esposito II and Michael Daniel Murphy.
The sold-out engagement received mostly positive-to-rave reviews and was twice extended. An original cast album was released in December 2016 on the Ghostlight label.