Juno is a hardworking matriarch who strives to hold her family together in the face of war, betrayal, and her worthless husband's drinking.

[3] The musical was produced Off-Broadway by the Vineyard Theatre in 1992, directed by Lonny Price, and featuring Anita Gillette and Malcolm Gets.

[4] The New York Times reviewer wrote: "Despite alterations, the musical has not markedly improved in its newly revised version.

The savage ironies of that scene are not evoked in other aspects of the musical, which focuses on the latent sentimentality within the family relationships and the comic interplay among the characters.

presented a semi-staged concert production of Juno in March 2008 directed by Garry Hynes, starring Victoria Clark and John Schuck using the original orchestrations.

Even the most buoyant love songs and ensemble numbers are inflected with an underlying grimness, as if hope could never be expected to fly free in the rotting tenements of Dublin.

Blitzstein's score was preserved by Columbia Records, which released the original cast album in both monaural and stereo editions.

Steven Suskin, in his review in Playbill, noted: "Time and again in the score, I sense that Blitzstein is reminding himself to write Irish music – and that hampers his creativity.

The score ranges from exceptional to mundane; the weaker portions make it very clear to us, today, that Juno simply couldn't have worked.