After a tryout at Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut,[1] Man of La Mancha opened in New York on November 22, 1965, at the ANTA Washington Square Theatre.
According to academic research by Cervantes scholar Howard Mancing, these lines and a few others were originally written for the now-forgotten 1908 play Don Quixote by Paul Kester.
Wasserman himself noted that he had tried to cut the impossible dream speech from the teleplay due to a need to fit the performance into the 90 minute slot, but that Lee J. Cobb, who played both Miguel de Cervantes and Don Quixote, had insisted it go back in.
[6] I, Don Quixote starred, in addition to Cobb, Colleen Dewhurst (in her first major role) as Aldonza/Dulcinea, Eli Wallach as Cervantes' manservant as well as Sancho Panza, and Hurd Hatfield as Sanson Carrasco as well as a character called The Duke.
In the dungeon, a mock trial is staged, with its intention being that the prisoners rob Cervantes of all of his possessions, including a precious manuscript that he refuses to give up.
[7] The cynical prisoner known as "The Duke", who plays Dr. Sanson Carrasco in the Don Quixote scenes, is here identified as being British, not Spanish, a fact that places him in considerably more jeopardy with regard to his fate (Spain and England were mortal enemies at the time).
I, Don Quixote was highly acclaimed, but did not win any Emmy nominations, although Dale Wasserman received a Writers Guild of America award for his work.