The book of the musical was written by Kirsten Holly Smith, who also plays the lead role of Dusty Springfield in the originating production, and Jonathan Vankin.

Smith originated the project at the University of Southern California in 2006, where she performed a workshop version of the piece as a one-woman show after receiving a Spectrum Arts Grant from USC.

Gay and Lesbian Center co-produced the show, then entitled Stay Forever: The Life and Music of Dusty Springfield, with actress Jorja Fox (best known for her work on the TV series, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation ), Leslie Brockett and Jon Imparato as producers.

The cast now consists of five actors, each portraying multiple characters (with the exception of Smith, who plays Dusty Springfield only).

The director of the production at New World Stages is Randal Myler, whose notable previous work includes the bio-musicals Love, Janis (about Janis Joplin) and Hank Williams: Lost Highway as well as the Tony and Drama Desk Award-nominated Broadway production It Ain’t Nothin' But The Blues.

An "Author’s Note" included in the Playbill program of the New World Stages production states that the story of Springfield's life as told in Forever Dusty is true, but presented in "fictional form" for dramatic purposes, including composite characters and some alterations in "the time sequence of events."

Events depicted in Forever Dusty include the origins of Springfield's career with her brother's group, The Springfields; her controversial arrest in and expulsion from apartheid South Africa for her refusal to perform to segregated audiences; her sponsorship of the first Motown revue in the United Kingdom; her troubled recording sessions for Dusty in Memphis; her public "coming out" as a lesbian; her comeback with The Pet Shop Boys; and her battle against breast cancer.