Based on the play of the same name by Dion Boucicault, it was originally written for the 1948 Varsity Show at Columbia University, with music by Chodosh and Philip Springer and book by Alan Koehler and Joseph Meredith.
Due to its success, a new book was written for it by Gael, also a student at Columbia, while Chodosh added new music to it.
[1] The play was a "critical and popular hit", with nearly unanimously favorable reviews.
[2] Howard Taubman praised the production in The New York Times, writing that "Barry Alan Grael's lyrics are nimble and occasionally witty, and Richard B. Chodosh's music sustains the mood of well-bred spoofing," though he criticized the Boucicault story the musical was adapted from.
[1][5] In December 1963, it became the first musical and the first off-Broadway production to be taped and aired on pay television.