Nash's book is faithful to his original play, although all the interior scenes were moved outdoors to allow for the addition of townspeople for ensemble numbers and dances.

The original score was almost operatic in scope, and when the show's running time in Boston proved to be too long, the creative team began trimming numbers,[1] eventually discarding nearly as many as were heard in the finished product.

After two previews, the production, directed by Joseph Anthony and choreographed by Agnes de Mille, opened on October 24, 1963, at the Broadhurst Theatre, where it ran for 330 performances.

The cast included Robert Horton as Starbuck, Inga Swenson as Lizzie, and Stephen Douglass as File, with Will Geer, Lesley Ann Warren, and Gretchen Cryer in supporting roles.

[3][4] A 1992 New York City Opera production, directed by Scott Ellis and choreographed by Susan Stroman, starred Karen Ziemba as Lizzie.

[2] In 1999, a concert version was staged at the Fortune Theatre in London by Ian Marshall Fisher for the Discovering Lost Musicals Charitable Trust, with Louise Gold as Lizzie.

Audra McDonald brings such breadth of skill and depth of feeling to the Roundabout Theater Company revival of '110 in the Shade' that she threatens to burst the seams of this small, homey musical.

In June 2010, McDonald reprised her Tony-nominated role in a two-week fundraising production of the show for the Hale Center Theater in Orem, Utah.

It's the Fourth of July in 1936, in the small town of Three Point in the Southwestern U.S., where a blistering heat wave has the local sheriff, File, and the other townsfolk forever eyeing the sky ("Another Hot Day").

Elsewhere in town, on the ranch of widower H.C. Curry, the air is also charged with anticipation, due to the imminent arrival of H.C.'s daughter ("Lizzie's Coming Home"), who's been off visiting friends of the family (pseudo-relatives "Uncle" Ned and "Aunt" Marabelle and their sons) in [Sweetwater].

His mind is more on "some sort of outlaw" heading into town, a fellow named Tornado Johnson; besides, he knows a fix-up when he sees one, and as he puts it, "I can mend my own shirts."

File appears unexpectedly at the picnic grounds and, still insistent that he has a right to be alone, nonetheless reaches out to Lizzie, coming clean about his past and, almost despite himself, revealing old wounds ("A Man and a Woman").

Back at the picnic area, Jim is boasting of his own Fourth of July adventures ("Little Red Hat") when File arrives to tell the Curry clan that he's on the lookout for Tornado Johnson—aka rainmaker Starbuck.

Noah is shocked that his father is willing to leave Lizzie alone with a conman, but H.C. understands his daughter's needs, "even if it's only one minute—with a man talkin' quiet and his hand touchin' her face."

And as the townspeople revel at the heavy downpour ("The Rain Song" reprise), Lizzie and File rejoice in the promise of hope and renewal that rainfall brings.