Charles B. Cochran, the producer, bought the stage rights in 1933 to the book by James Laver, who was then a young author, poet, and Keeper at the Victoria and Albert Museum (and was to become a major curator of art and costumes).
Gertrude Lawrence convinced Cochran to turn the novel into a musical rather than a straight play, his initial intention.
When Noël Coward turned down the offer to write the music, Cochran asked Porter.
The musical opened in the West End at the Adelphi Theatre, London on 6 October 1933 and ran for 154 performances.
The cast featured Gertrude Lawrence as Evangeline Edwards, Elisabeth Welch as Haidee Robinson, Moya Nugent as Miss Pratt, and David Burns as Constantine.
Directed by Christopher Renshaw, the concert cast included Kaye Ballard, Lisa Kirk, Maureen McGovern, and Patricia Hodge.
[10] The Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario staged the musical for a short late-season run in 1989; it proved popular and was revived the following year as part of the regular season.
San Francisco's 42nd Street Moon produced the U.S. West Coast premiere in October, 1998.
The tea ends with Pither promising to find a young, attractive, and virginal Englishwoman, who has made such a trip, to parade in front of Edith.
Lausanne, Switzerland Evangeline joins her friends (Joyce Arbuthnot-Palmer, Bertha, Henrietta, and Madeleine) in her dormitory, to pack up for her trip home after having completed her time at the Pensionnat Bellevue, a finishing school in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Lausanne, Switzerland Evangeline meets André de Croissant, a French theatrical producer, in a railway carriage as she travels back to Oxford.
André begins to seduce Evangeline, offering to take her to France and to make her a star in his next Folies.
After some prodding, Alexei admits that he is in love with an English girl, a friend of de Croissant, Evangeline.
They enter the café, hoping to find work and food, and overhear an American and a British woman discussing a soirée featuring Olga Barshka, a Hungarian lesbian.
Olga enters and performs ("Georgia Sand") in a dinner jacket, with two other women dressed the same way.
Joyce left Lausanne, started performing with Olga, and met a painter named Pierre, a man nothing like her father, but just like her mother.
When the truth is revealed, that she and Alexei are penniless party crashers, Joyce offers to lend her some money.
Venice, Italy The house staff of the Palazzo Mantalini are busy cleaning and preparing for the visiting American's next party ("They're Always Entertaining").
Evangeline realizes the duplicity of men ("Nymph Errant"), and resigns herself once again to a new journey, this time with Constantine.
Smyrna, Turkey Evangeline is stranded alone in Constantine's house, as fighting between Turks and Greeks erupts and there is the sound of gun-fire outside.
Haidee begins to improvise a song based on the wife's chant ("Solomon") and then exits.
Evangeline comes back into the Harem as a young American plumber, Ben Winthrop, breaks in to free Haidee.
Arabian Desert Evangeline and Ben settle under some palm trees and read a newspaper, wondering if this isn't better than civilization ("Back to Nature with You").
Croissant is happy to see Evangeline again and is tired of Madeline's tantrums, so he offers her the starring role.
Evangeline expresses disbelief at her own station: a year of travels with a plethora of men, and she is still "a girl no man wants".
Pither picks up on this instantly, and remembering his bet with Edith Sanford realizes that Evangeline is the niece of Ermyntrude Edwards.
Now alone, she hums a bit and remembers Miss Pratt's advice ("Experiment" - Reprise), just as a young and good-looking gardener, Joe, offers her an apple.
‡ Cut before the London opening, with Cochran agreeing to drop the nude scene if the censor permitted the other "racy" songs to remain.