The original Broadway production of "Of Thee I Sing" by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind opened on December 26, 1931 at the Music Box Theatre, ran for 441 performances and won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 1932. Music by George Gershwin and lyrics by Ira Gershwin.
Original stars were William Gaxton (Wintergreen), Lois Moran (Mary), Grace Brinkley (Diana), Victor Moore (Throttlebottom) and George Murphy ( Jenkins).
The original Broadway musical play "Of Thee I Sing" won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1932. Only nine musicals have won the Pulitzer Prize in drama - one per decade from the 1930s to the 2020s. They are as follows: "Of Thee I Sing" in the 1930s, "South Pacific" in the 1940s (movie version: South Pacific (1958)), "Fiorello" from in 1950s, "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" in the 1960s (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967)), "A Chorus Line" in the 1970s (A Chorus Line (1985)), "Sunday in the Park with George" in the 1980s (Sunday in the Park with George (1986)) "Rent" in the 1990s (Rent (2005)), Next to Normal (2009), Hamilton (2016), and A Strange Loop (2020).
The musical play was actually written for the The Marx Brothers, but they had to bow out because at the time the musical was running on Broadway (1932), they were reaching the peak of their motion picture success.