The musical had a pre-Broadway try-out at the
Shubert Theatre in Philadelphia. It opened on
Broadway on March 8, 1960, at the
Alvin Theatre, and closed on May 28, 1960, after 97 performances. The director was
George Roy Hill and choreographer was
Joe Layton; with orchestrations by
Don Walker, scenery by Peter Larkin and costumes by
Alvin Colt. The cast included
Anthony Perkins as Gideon Briggs,
Cecil Kellaway,
Pert Kelton, Ellen McCown as Dorrie Whitbred,
William Chapman,
Marian Mercer and
Tommy Norden.
Greenwillow was being rehearsed in New York while Perkins was filming
Psycho (1960) in Los Angeles. Because Perkins had a stand-in for the film's shower scene, Hitchcock allowed him to attend rehearsals for the musical in New York. The show received mixed reviews.
The New York Times described it as "an enchanted fable" with "an ideal libretto [and a] warm and varied score that captures the simple moods of the story ... [a] winning cast [and] joyous ballets." Ward Morehouse wrote in the
Long Island Star-Journal, "Frank Loesser retains his standing as a composer but he is lost as a librettist ... the book that he has written in collaboration with Lesser Samuels is hopelessly stodgy." Morehouse praised the cast, sets and choreography, but concluded, "
Greenwillow is a lost cause." The
Philadelphia Inquirer excerpted opening-week reviews from several New York papers: "The new musical is do-it-yourself folklore, which means that it is spun right out of someone’s head instead of out of somebody else’s past. ...
Greenwillow is [not] good Broadway ... a mélange" (
Walter Kerr,
New York Herald Tribune). "[It] has moments of fresh charm, but it also turns out to be upsettingly flat, stodgy and lacking in emotional effectiveness ... scenes and characters that possessed touching or humorous charm in the novel become excessively whimsical and uncomfortably coy, when not simply dull, on the stage" (
Richard Watts, Jr.,
New York Post). "[It] brings heart and hope. ... It is not, perhaps, what the trade regards as a 'sockoo success' ... but it is musically more ambitious, and is loaded with the sort of homespun pathos and humor which should keep it running until the scenery quietly comes apart" (John McClain,
New York Journal-American). The musical was presented in 2004 by the
off-Broadway York Theatre Company in its "Musicals-in-Mufti" series.
Peter Filichia described the score as "grand". == Original cast and characters ==