Directed by John Murray Anderson, the cast included Flavia Arcaro as Mary, Helen Spring as Jane, John Seymour as Captain Harry Tryon, Helen Ford as Betsy Burke, Charles Purcell as Captain Sir John Copeland, Alden Gay as Caroline, Marian Williams as Annabelle, Jane Overton as Peg, Andrew Lawlor Jr. as Jimmy Burke, William Eville as General Henry Clinton, Harold Crane as General William Howe, Detmar Poppen as General John Tryon, Arthur Brown as Lieutenant Sudsby, Percy Woodley as General Israel Putnam, James Cushman as Major Aaron Burr, Jack Shannon as Private Peters, Mark Truscott as Private Woods, Percy French as Private Lindsay, Frank Lambert as Envoy, and H. E. Eldridge as George Washington.
[6] In 2002, for the Richard Rodgers centennial, New York's amateur Village Light Opera Group (VLOG) produced the show conducted by Ron Noll with an orchestration reconstructed by Larry Moore.
[7] A television musical special featuring Cyril Ritchard, Anne Jeffreys, Robert Sterling, and Cornelia Otis Skinner as Mrs. Murray, in an adaptation by Neil Simon, was broadcast on November 26, 1955, and the soundtrack is still available.
[9] The story is based on an American Revolutionary War incident in September 1776 when Mary Lindley Murray, under orders from General George Washington, detained General William Howe and his British troops by serving them cake, wine and conversation in her Kips Bay, Manhattan home long enough for some 4,000 American soldiers, fleeing their loss in the Battle of Brooklyn, to reassemble in Washington Heights and join reinforcements to make a successful counterattack.
Mary's flirty daughter Jane leads British General Tryon's son Harry to her house; she finds him charming.
Mary instructs the houseful of beautiful young ladies to discourage the British soldiers, but the girls are eager to engage the enemy in more than just conversation.
Mary's feisty, feminist Irish niece Betsy Burke comes home wearing only a barrel after a dog steals her clothes while she is swimming.
The British soldiers are happy to spend time consuming refreshment and indulging in music, dancing and flirtation at the Murray mansion.
"[2] The Telegram reviewer wrote that "We have a glimmering notion that someday they will form the American counterpart of the once great triumvirate of Bolton, Wodehouse, and Kern.