It was written by Steve Cosson and Jim Lewis from interviews conducted by Associate Artists Emily Ackerman, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Brad Heberlee, Brandon Miller, Stephen Plunkett, and Alison Weller, with music and lyrics by Michael Friedman, and directed by Steve Cosson.

This Beautiful City was nominated for Drama Desk, Drama League, and Lucille Lortel Awards[2] When asked why he had become interested in this topic, Artistic Director Steve Cosson said "one of the things I wanted to do was to go work on a subject that was very different from us in our company and one of the first ideas was to do something about conservative Christianity.

I mean, you're in the middle of this church with 7,000 people and the minister is talking about his relationship to George Bush and Ariel Sharon and other world leaders.

"[4] A narrative structure is built around the discovery and progression of the Ted Haggard scandal, the news of which broke during the research period for the show.

At one notable performance, Ted Haggard, whose homosexual relationship and methamphetamine scandal was depicted in the play, was a member of the audience along with his wife, Gayle, and filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi and her husband.