After one preview, the original Broadway production, directed by Charles Nelson Reilly and starring Julie Harris, opened on April 28, 1976, at the Longacre Theatre, where it ran for 116 performances.

[1] The Wall Street Journal reviewer wrote "With her technical ability and her emotional range, Miss Harris can convey profound inner turmoil at the same time that she displays irrepressible gaiety of spirit.

[6] The Spanish translation of the play was done by Argentinean poet Silvina Ocampo for the Buenos Aires premiere starring China Zorrilla in January 1981.

The production ran for more than 500 performances and Zorrilla embarked on a Latin American tour that ended at New York's Hunter College[7] in 1983 and Washington's Kennedy Center.

Of Cleveland actress Sheila E. Maloney, he writes: "Her poetess, instead of suggesting the usual fragility of one of the world's most famous recluses, has the mad glee of Arsenic and Old Lace's Brewster Sisters.