"[3] Following tryouts in Philadelphia, Boston, and Detroit, the production opened Broadway on February 24, 1955 at the Imperial Theatre and closed on April 14, 1956 after 478 performances.

[5] Directed by Cy Feuer and choreographed by Eugene Loring, the cast included Hildegard Knef (Ninotchka), Don Ameche (Steve Canfield), Gretchen Wyler (Janice Dayton), George Tobias, David Opatoshu, Julie Newmar, and Onna White.

[9] Hildegard Knef (original German spelling) gave a vivid backstage account of the casting, rehearsals, tryouts and Broadway opening of Silk Stockings in her autobiography The Gift Horse: Report on a Life (McGraw Hill, 1971) pages 281 through 342.

The musical involves special envoy Nina Yaschenko, who is dispatched from the Soviet Union to rescue three foolish commissars from the pleasures of Paris.

Other characters include Peter Boroff, Russia's greatest composer, who is being wooed by Janice Dayton, America's swimming sweetheart, to write the score for her first non-aquatic picture, a musical adaptation of War and Peace.