The cast included Edith Day as Irene, Walter Regan as tycoon Donald Marshall, Eva Puck as Helen Cheston, Gladys Miller as Jane Gilmour, and Bobby Watson as 'Madame Lucy', a flamboyant male dress designer.

The show made a star of Day, who departed the cast after five months to recreate her role at London's Empire Theatre, where it ran for 399 performances.

Its producer, Harry Rigby, deciding to cash in on the nostalgia craze by reviving another vintage show with another glamorous movie star as its centerpiece, zeroed in on Irene, engaging Debbie Reynolds to make her Broadway debut in the title role.

Reviews in Toronto were mixed, and when Reynolds was stricken with a throat ailment, the producers, rather than cancel the sell-out performances, had her mime her dialogue and songs on stage to Gielgud's reading of them from the wings, much to the dismay of angry audiences.

Philadelphia critics were brutal, and Gielgud, an odd choice for a lightweight musical comedy, was replaced by Gower Champion, who had helmed a Los Angeles revival of Annie Get Your Gun with Reynolds.

Peter Gennaro was hired to restage the musical numbers, and Joseph Stein was brought in to doctor the book, which now had Irene posing as a countess in cahoots with couturier Madame Lucy (the former Liam O'Dougherty) in a scheme to promote his fashions.

"[3] "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows", which had been cut during the pre-Broadway try-outs (although Reynolds' rendition was included in the cast album), was restored to the score.

[7] Irene O'Dare is a humble but ambitious, hard-working Irish girl from the West side of Manhattan, who runs a little music store with her widowed mother.

Donald's ne'er-do-well cousin Ozzie wants help to jump-start a fashion business to be run by his friend, "Madame Lucy", a flamboyant male artiste, who pretends to be a famous French couturier.

Irene and her pretty best friends, Helen McFudd and Jane Burke, are recruited to model Madame Lucy's gowns, and Donald provides financing.

Irene agrees to pose as a society girl to convince everyone to shop at Madame Lucy's, but she becomes angry with Donald when he asks her to continue the ruse.