[3] Sherman Edwards, a writer of pop songs with several top 10 hits in the late 1950s and early '60s, spent several years developing lyrics and libretto for a musical based on the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

... You knew immediately that John Adams and the others were not going to be treated as gods or cardboard characters, chopping down cherry trees and flying kites with strings and keys on them.

Stone confined nearly all of the action to Independence Hall and the debate among the delegates, and featuring two female characters, Abigail Adams and Martha Jefferson, in the musical.

Adams denounces the do-nothing Congress ("Piddle, Twiddle, and Resolve"), then reads the latest missive to his loving wife Abigail, who speaks to him in his imagination ("Till Then").

Weeks later, new delegate Dr. Lyman Hall of Georgia arrives and is introduced to many important members of Congress, including Andrew McNair, the custodian; Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island; Edward Rutledge of South Carolina; and Caesar Rodney of Delaware, among others.

A gloomy dispatch from George Washington, commander of the Continental Army, arrives by courier and is read aloud by Charles Thomson, the Congressional Secretary.

The vote is close, but debate is ultimately approved, prompting Dickinson to denounce the desire for independence as an overreaction to petty squabbles with Great Britain.

Before they adjourn, John Hancock appoints a committee of Adams, Franklin, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Robert Livingston of New York, and Jefferson (who is on the point of going home to see his wife, whom he has not seen in six months) to draft the declaration.

The next morning, Franklin and Adams return and formally introduce themselves to Martha, asking her how the deeply intellectual and usually uncommunicative Jefferson wooed her ("He Plays the Violin").

In June, with the Congress in what looks like a state of total lethargy, another gloomy dispatch from General Washington causes Adams to challenge Samuel Chase of Maryland to go with him and Franklin to the Army camp in New Brunswick, New Jersey, to check on conditions there.

Adams and Franklin arrive, delighted: an exhibition of shooting by the Continental Army has convinced Chase, and Maryland will vote in favor of independence.

Bolstered by her (and the arrival of a delivery of kegs of saltpeter she had previously promised him), Adams recovers his energy and sends Franklin to try and win the support of Pennsylvania's James Wilson and Jefferson to talk to Rutledge.

The cast included MacIntyre Dixon, Ric Stoneback, and Kevin Ligon reprising their roles from the 1997 revival as Andrew McNair, Samuel Chase, and George Read respectively.

announced the revival cast of performers who identify as female, non-binary, and trans, and that the production would transfer to Roundabout's American Airlines Theatre on September 16, 2022 (where after previews it officially opened on October 6, 2022, and ran until January 8, 2023)[20] and begin a 16-city national tour in February 2023.

[21] The cast (many of whom were making their Broadway debuts) included Crystal Lucas-Perry (later Kristolyn Lloyd) as Adams, Patrena Murray as Franklin, Elizabeth A. Davis as Jefferson, Allison Kaye Daniel as Abigail/Rev.

The show received mixed to negative reviews, with Jesse Green of The New York Times criticizing its casting, writing that it "intensifies and complicates the argument."

Green also wrote of the overall production that despite "underlining one’s progressiveness a thousand times, as this 1776 does, [it] will not actually convey it better; rather it turns characters into cutouts and distracts from the ideas it means to promote.

During this scene, dubbed "Big Three" by cast members, musicians were allowed to leave the pit, reportedly the first time in Broadway history that they were permitted to do so in the middle of a show.

"[23] Because Congress was held in secrecy and there are no contemporary records on the debate over the Declaration of Independence, the authors of the play created the narrative based on later accounts and educated guesses, inventing scenes and dialogue as needed for storytelling purposes.

[28] Dickinson, who refused to sign Adams' and Jefferson's declaration based on "rights of man" and "natural law", was seeking to avoid reopening issues from the English Civil Wars, including Oliver Cromwell's Puritan regime, and the Jacobitism cause.

[29] Although the play depicts Caesar Rodney as an elderly man near death from skin cancer (which would eventually kill him), he was just 47 at the time and continued to be very active in the Revolution after signing the Declaration.

He was not absent from the voting because of health; however, the play is accurate in having him arrive "in the nick of time", having ridden 80 miles the night before (an event depicted on Delaware's 1999 State Quarter).

First, the musical does not mention the motivation of the clause, namely the fact that, following Lord Dunmore's Proclamation, England was granting freedom to runaway slaves who joined its army.

In fact, Wilson was considered one of the leading thinkers behind the American cause, consistently supporting and arguing for independence, although he would not cast his vote until his district had been caucused.

In both the play and the film, John Adams sarcastically predicts that Benjamin Franklin will receive from posterity too great a share of credit for the Revolution.

In his review of the original 1969 production, Clive Barnes of The New York Times wrote, On the face of it, few historical incidents seem more unlikely to spawn a Broadway musical than that solemn moment in the history of mankind, the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

It makes even an Englishman's heart beat faster... the characters are most unusually full... for Mr. Stone's book is literate, urbane and, on occasion, very amusing.... William Daniels has given many persuasive performances in the past, but nothing, I think, can have been so effective as his John Adams here.

It is warm with a life of its own; it is funny, it is moving... Often, as I sat enchanted in my seat, it reminded me of Gilbert and Sullivan in its amused regard of human frailties....

[41] The New York Post noted, In this cynical age, it requires courage as well as enterprise to do a musical play that simply deals with the events leading up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Throughout the course of the third season of the Netflix original series Grace and Frankie, Robert, played by Martin Sheen, and his husband Sol, played by Sam Waterston, are persuaded to audition for a local production of 1776 by the local gay men's theater group, resulting in Robert landing the lead role of John Adams, much to the disappointment of Sol who was not cast.