[1] The show is described as a "parable of Southern Negro Life with echoes of Ferenc Molnár's Liliom (which would be turned into the musical Carousel) and Marc Connelly's The Green Pastures.

Lynn Root wrote the libretto and brought it to George Balanchine, "who was anxious to do it as his first assignment as director of an entire Broadway production.

(Gershwin was working on Lady in the Dark and Harburg thought the composer was "incapable of writing the kind of score the play required.

[5] The two wanted to absorb aspects of the local black culture but "decided to stay away from pedantic authenticity and write our own kind of 'colored' songs.

"[4] The rehearsals for the show were rather interesting between the Russian trio (Duke, Balanchine and Boris Aronson - the designer) and the all-black cast.

In his book Passport to Paris, Duke quotes George Ross' description from the Telegram: "Pit a threesome of turbulent Russians against a tempestuous cast of Negro players from Harlem and what have you got?

At least half a dozen times at the rehearsal of Cabin in the Sky, Ethel Waters, Todd Duncan, Rex Ingram, J. Rosamond Johnson, Katherine Dunham and her dancers have paused in puzzlement while the argumentative trio of Muscovites disputed a difference of opinion in their native tongue.

Both are let into Heaven as their deaths caused Georgia Brown to reform and join the church (Finale Act II).

Gerald Bordman wrote "Wisely, everyone involved in the show rejected the easy excesses and crassness so many musicals resorted to.

This rare display of integrity made Cabin in the Sky an attractive enough evening to keep ticket buyers coming for 20 weeks.

"[6] Brooks Atkinson wrote "Vernon Duke has written racy music in several veins from song hits to boogie-woogie orgies.

As scene and costume designer, Boris Aronson has done his finest work, giving to pure imagination many vivid shapes and flaring colors.

"[10] Thomas S. Hischak wrote, "With enthusiastic reviews, an outstanding score, and a powerhouse cast of some of the finest African Americans in the business, it was surprising the musical did not run longer than twenty weeks.

Critic Richard Watts, Jr. wrote in his review that the show was "merely a white man's self-conscious attempt to write a pseudo-folk fable of another race.