6 / / WAT E R T O W E R T H E AT R E . O R G
Production History: Harvey premiered on Broadway on November 1, 1944, at the 48th Street Theatre and closed on January 15, 1949, after 1,775 performances, making it the fifth longest-running Broadway show up to that point.
The play also had a production in 1949 at London’s Prince of Wales Theatre starring Sid Field and Athene Seyler then, after Field’s death, Leslie Henson.
Dooley Wilson starred as Elwood in the 1951 Negro Drama Guild production, which also featured Butterfly McQueen as Myrtle Mae.
A Broadway revival at the ANTA Theatre ran from February 24, 1970, to May 2, 1970, and starred James Stewart and Helen Hayes. In 1975 Stewart appeared in a West End revival at the Prince of Wales Theatre, with Mona Washbourne in the role of Veta.
According to theatre historian Jordan Schildcrout, the reputation of the play, which had become a staple of amateur theatre groups, improved in the late 1980s because of critically esteemed professional revivals at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, D.C., in 1987 and the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis in 1989. Other major productions at regional theatres followed at the Steppenwolf Theatre (1990), Cleveland Playhouse (1991), Seattle Rep (1993), and La Jolla Playhouse (1994).
A further West End revival played at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 1995 starring Gorden Kaye and Rue McClanahan.
The Roundabout Theatre Company production of the most recent Broadway revival opened in previews on May 18, 2012 (officially on June 14), at Studio 54. Directed by Scott Ellis, Jim Parsons starred as Elwood, with a cast that featured Jessica Hecht, Charles Kimbrough, Larry Bryggman, Morgan Spector, and Carol Kane.
FU N FACT : Before starring in the film, James Stewart played Elwood P. ( P L AY B I L L . C O M A R C H I V E S )
Dowd on stage during the role’s originator, Frank Fay’s, vacation.
