Good morning, all! I have another day at the Columbia library. I had a great time there yesterday looking over press clippings, a City Opera program, set designs, reviews, several drafts of the libretto, and letters between Jerome Moross and Edward Eager.
Gentlemen, Be Seated! was begun in 1955 for producer Roger Stevens and the Playwrights Company following The Golden Apple. The 1955 press releases say they were looking at Gene Kelly or someone like him to play Mr. Interlocutor. Stevens couldn't get the backing, and the 1963 City Opera production was the result of a grant from the Ford Foundation
In the earlier drafts, the framework seems a bit more realistic; one number, "What Has Become of Beauty?" was about the battle at Gettysburg, but in the final draft, it's the penultimate number, so I suppose in an abstract way it's more a comment on Lincoln's assassination and the Restoration. I got the impression that several critics felt that the City Opera production was too often not realistic enough.