Produced by Edgar Lansbury, Joseph Beruh, and Ivan Reitman, it opened on Broadway on May 28, 1974 at the Cort Theatre in Manhattan, and ran for 1,920 performances, closing on December 31, 1978.

It originally began life as Spellbound, produced by Ivan Reitman with a book by David Cronenberg and music by Howard Shore.

"[2] The setting for the show is a seedy nightclub, the Top Hat, where an aging alcoholic magician, "Feldman the Magnificent," chews the scenery in his overly grand performance.

In One More Kiss, his book surveying Broadway musicals of the 1970s, Ethan Mordden wrote that the show's success was "first, because Henning really did have a wonderful act, and, second, because the frame was amusing enough.

Director-choreographer Grover Dale gave it atmosphere, David Ogden Stiers as the cast-off magician was a wily piece of camp, and Schwartz's score is capable and surprising."

[5] In 2001, a filmed performance staged especially for the cameras in 1980, directed by Norman Campbell at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Toronto, was issued on DVD by Image Entertainment.