Man of La Mancha is a 1965 musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, music by Mitch Leigh, and lyrics by Joe Darion. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay I, Don Quixote, which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cervantes and his 17th-century novel Don Quixote. It tells the story of the "mad" knight Don Quixote as a play within a play, performed by Cervantes and his fellow prisoners as he awaits a hearing with the Spanish Inquisition.'Man of La Mancha' synopsis guidetomusicaltheatre.com. Retrieved January 27, 2010
The work is not and does not pretend to be a faithful rendition of either Cervantes's life or Don Quixote. Wasserman complained repeatedly about people taking the work as a musical version of Don Quixote.Don Quixote as Theatre", Cervantes (journal of the Cervantes Society of America), vol. 19, number 1, 1999, pp. 125-30 . Retrieved September 25, 2014."A Diary for I, Don Quixote", Cervantes (journal of the Cervantes Society of America), vol. 21, no. 2, 2001, pp. 117-123, on page 123 . Retrieved September 25, 2014.
The original 1965 Broadway production ran for 2,328 performances and won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. It has been revived four times on Broadway, becoming one of the most enduring works of musical theatre.'Man of La Mancha' Broadway listings, 1965, 1972, 1977, 1992, and 2002 Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved January 26, 2010
"The Impossible Dream", the principal song in the show, became a standard. The musical has played in many other countries around the world, with productions in Croatian, Dutch, French (translation by Jacques Brel), German, Hebrew, Irish, Estonian, Japanese, Korean, Bengali, Gujarati, Uzbek, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Serbian, Slovenian, Swahili, Swedish, Finnish, Chinese, Ukrainian, Turkish, and nine distinct dialects of the Spanish language."La Mancha" history theatre-musical.com. Retrieved January 27, 2010
Man of La Mancha was first performed at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut in 1965 and had its New York premiere on the thrust stage of the ANTA Washington Square Theatre in 1965.Abbe A. Debolt: Encyclopedia of the Sixties: A Decade of Culture and Counterculture. ABC-CLIO, 2011, , pp. 389-390 ()
History Man of La Mancha started as a non-musical teleplay written by Dale Wasserman for CBS's DuPont Show of the Month program. This original telecast starred Lee J. Cobb, Colleen Dewhurst (who replaced Viveca Lindfors), and Eli Wallach and was performed on a television sound stage. The DuPont Corporation disliked the title Man of La Mancha, thinking that its viewing audience would not know what La Mancha actually meant, so a new title, I, Don Quixote, was chosen. The play was broadcast live on November 9, 1959, with an estimated audience of 20 million.Wasserman, Dale. The impossible musical (2003). Hal Leonard Corporation. , pp. 48–53 The New York Public Library at Lincoln Center, Billy Rose Collection, has a rare tape recording of this broadcast.
Years after this television airing and after the original teleplay had been unsuccessfully optioned as a non-musical Broadway play, director Albert Marre called Wasserman and suggested that he turn his play into a musical. Mitch Leigh was selected as composer, with orchestrations by Carlyle W. Hall. Unusually for the time, this show was scored for an orchestra with no violins or other traditional orchestral stringed instruments apart from a double bass, instead making heavier use of brass, woodwinds, percussion and utilizing flamenco guitars as the only stringed instruments of any sort.Synopsis and song lyrics AllMusicals.com. Retrieved January 27, 2010
The original lyricist of the musical was poet W. H. Auden, but his lyrics were discarded, some of them considered too overtly satiric and biting, attacking the bourgeois audience at times. Auden's lyrics were replaced by those of Joe Darion.www.Broadway.tv article "Broadway Hidden Treasures Revealed"
Productions The musical first played at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut in 1965. Rex Harrison was to be the original star of this production, but although Harrison had starred in a musical role in the stage and film versions of My Fair Lady, the musical demands of the role of Don Quixote were too heavy for him. Richard Kiley instead became Don Quixote.
After 22 previews, the musical opened off-Broadway at the experimental thrust-stage ANTA Washington Square Theatre in Greenwich Village on November 22, 1965. The show moved to Broadway to the Martin Beck Theatre on March 20, 1968, then to the Eden Theatre on March 3, 1971, and finally to the Mark Hellinger Theatre on May 26, 1971, for its last month, a total original Broadway run of 2,328 performances. Musical staging and direction were by Albert Marre, choreography was by Jack Cole, and Howard Bay was the scenic and lighting designer, with costumes by Bay and Patton Campbell.
Richard Kiley won a Tony Award for his performance as Cervantes/Quixote in the original production, and it made Kiley a bona fide Broadway star.Gussow, Mel."Richard Kiley, the Man of La Mancha, Is Dead at 76",The New York Times, March 6, 1999 Kiley was replaced in the original Broadway run by first Jose Ferrer on Broadway and in the 1966 National Tour, and then by operatic baritone David Atkinson. Atkinson also performed Cervantes/Quixote in the 1968 National Tour and for all of the matinee performances in the 1972 Broadway revival, which also starred Kiley.
The original cast also included Irving Jacobson (Sancho), Ray Middleton (Innkeeper), Robert Rounseville (The Padre), and Joan Diener (Aldonza). John Cullum, Hal Holbrook, and Lloyd Bridges also played Cervantes and Don Quixote during the run of the production. Keith Andes also played the role.
The musical was performed on a single set that suggested a dungeon. All changes in location were created by alterations in the lighting, by the use of props supposedly lying around the floor of the dungeon, and by reliance on the audience's imagination. More recent productions, however, have added more scenery.Guernsey, Otis L. Curtain times: the New York Theatre, 1965–1987 (1987). Hal Leonard Corporation, , p. 36Prideaux, Tom.'Man of La Mancha'Life Magazine, April 8, 1966
The original West End London production was at the Piccadilly Theatre, opening on April 24, 1968, and running for 253 performances. Keith Michell starred, with Joan Diener reprising her original role and Bernard Spear as Sancho.1968 listing guidetomusicaltheatre.com. Retrieved January 26, 2010
The play has been revived on Broadway four times: 1972 – with the three leads of the original 1965 cast: Richard Kiley as Cervantes/Quixote, Irving Jacobson as Sancho Panza and Joan Diener as Aldonza/Dulcinea, running for 140 performances 1977 – with Richard Kiley as Cervantes/Quixote, Tony Martinez as Sancho Panza and Emily Yancy as Aldonza/Dulcinea, running for 124 performances 1992 – with Raul Julia as Cervantes/Quixote and Sheena Easton as Aldonza/Dulcinea, running for 108 performances. Easton was replaced late in the run by the original Dulcinea, Joan Diener. 2002 – with Brian Stokes Mitchell as Cervantes/Quixote, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Aldonza/Dulcinea, and Ernie Sabella as Sancho Panza, running for 304 performances; Marin Mazzie took over as Aldonza (Dulcinea) on July 1, 2003. This production featured Scenic and Costume Design by Paul Brown, Lighting Design by Paul Gallo, Sound design by Tony Meola and Projection design by Elaine J. McCarthy.
In the film Man of La Mancha (1972), the title role went to Peter O'Toole (singing voice dubbed by Simon Gilbert), James Coco was Sancho, and Sophia Loren was Aldonza.'Man of La Mancha' movie listing Internet Movie Database. Retrieved January 26, 2010
Hal Linden played Quixote in the show's 1988 U.S. National tour,"Listing: 'Man of La Mancha' – stars Hal Linden, July 19–31", Texas Monthly, July 1988 and Robert Goulet played Quixote in the 1997–98 U.S. National tour.Theater, Orange Coast Performing Arts Center, Through January 5, 'Man of La Mancha', starring Robert Goulet" Orange Coast Magazine, January 1997
A studio recording of the score was released in 1996, conducted by Paul Gemignani and starring Plácido Domingo as Quixote, Mandy Patinkin as Sancho, Julia Migenes as Aldonza, Jerry Hadley as the Priest and Samuel Ramey as the Innkeeper.
In 2014, Man of La Mancha featured as part of the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario, Canada.
In 2015, the Shakespeare Theatre Company produced Man of La Mancha at the Sidney Harman Hall. The production starred Anthony Warlow as Quixote and Amber Iman as Aldonza/Dulcinea.
In 2019, the play was revived at the West End with a production at the London Coliseum. Kelsey Grammer starred as Cervantes/Quixote, Danielle de Niese and Cassidy Janson as Aldonza/Dulcinea, Peter Polycarpou as Sancho, and Nicholas Lyndhurst as the Governor/Innkeeper.Man of La Mancha - English National Opera website (2019)
Broadway’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre planned to put on a one-night only concert presentation of the piece on May 18, 2026. It was to star Rolando Villazón, Lindsay Mendez, Harvey Guillén, Patrick Page, Bonnie Milligan, Phillip Boykin, and J. Harrison Ghee, directed by Bartlett Sher.Rabinowitz, Chloe Lindsay Mendez, Harvey Guillén and More Join MAN OF LA MANCHA LCT Staged Concert BroadwayWorld, April 16, 2026
Synopsis In the late sixteenth century, failed author-soldier-actor and tax collector Miguel de Cervantes has been thrown into a dungeon by the Spanish Inquisition, along with his manservant. They have been charged with foreclosing on a monastery. Their fellow prisoners attack them, eager to steal the contents of the large trunk Cervantes has brought with him. However, a sympathetic criminal known as "the Governor" suggests setting up a mock trial instead. Only if Cervantes is found guilty will he have to hand over his possessions. A cynical prisoner, known as "the Duke," charges Cervantes with being an idealist and a bad poet. Cervantes pleads guilty, but then asks if he may offer a defense, in the form of a play, acted out by him and all the prisoners. The "Governor" agrees.
Cervantes takes out a makeup kit and costume from his trunk, and transforms himself into Alonso Quijano, an old gentleman who has read so many books of chivalry and thought so much about injustice that he has lost his mind and set out as a knight-errant. Quijano renames himself Don Quixote de La Mancha, and goes off to find adventures with his "squire", Sancho Panza. ("Man of La Mancha (I, Don Quixote)")
Don Quixote warns Sancho that they are always in danger of being attacked by Quixote's mortal enemy, an evil magician known as the Enchanter. Suddenly he spots a windmill, mistakes it for a four-armed giant, attacks it, and receives a beating from the encounter. Quixote decides that he lost the battle because he was never properly knighted. He then mistakes a rundown inn for a castle and orders Sancho to announce their arrival by blowing his bugle.
Cervantes talks some prisoners into assuming the roles of the inn's serving wench and part-time prostitute Aldonza, and a group of muleteers who are propositioning her. Aldonza fends them off sarcastically ("It's All The Same"), but eventually deigns to accept their leader, Pedro, who pays in advance.
Don Quixote enters with Sancho, asking for the lord of the castle. The Innkeeper (played by The Governor) humors Don Quixote as best he can. Quixote sees Aldonza and declares that she is his lady, Dulcinea, to whom he has sworn eternal loyalty ("Dulcinea"). Aldonza, used to rough treatment, is first flabbergasted and then annoyed at Quixote's kindness, and is further aggravated when the Muleteers turn Quixote's tender ballad into a mocking serenade.