“Hey there, Beautiful, we’re here!”

Vanities, a New Musical is based on the smash hit 1976 comedy (also called Vanities) that ran for 1,785 performances Off-Broadway.

Vanities, the musical, was originally produced at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto in the summer of 2006 and showcased at the 2006 National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) Festival of New Musicals.

History of Vanities the Play

Fun Facts:

• Opened in March 1976, Closed in 1981
• Ran for 1785 performances in NYC
• The set, props and costumes cost $200 to build
• Tickets were $6 at opening, $8 at closing
• Jack wrote the play in two days

Original Production

• Co-production of The Lion Theatre Company and Playwrights Horizon
• Directed by Garland Wright
• Designed by John Arnone (TONY award for Tommy)
• 12 workshop performances in 1975
• Moved to Westside Arts Theatre, produced by The Chelsea Theatre Center

Regional/International Productions:

There have been thousands of productions--some with black casts, some with men, some with men in drag. It has played around the world. It is still done a great deal in Japan (the only language besides English is in published in), but the first country outside the USA to do it was in Denmark...then Israel, Argentina, Mexico, Sweden and many, many more.

It was the most produced play in the USA for most of the late 1970's and the best selling play in the Samuel French catalogue.

There have been productions in every major city and at most of the top theatres in the USA. The other production that ran for a very long time was in Dallas (over a year), produced by the Dallas Theatre Center. Houston was a long run also, which was a production that moved there from The Cleveland Playhouse and the only play to this day that has ever been produced by Theatre Under The Stars (which normally does musicals).