Kopit's Oh Dad has the distinction of being a relatively rare phenomenon: an extremely successful first work staged in New York by a new and virtually unknown playwright. When Oh Dad opened at New York's Phoenix Theatre on February 26, 1962, beginning a run of 454 performances, it already had a production history, both in the United States and abroad. In fact, the play was published in 1960, the same year in which it was first staged at Harvard and then, professionally, at the Agassiz Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was during it's run at the Agassiz that it came to the attention of the staff of the Phoenix. Before the Phoenix mounted its extremely successful production, however, the work had already been staged in London, where it was directed by Frank Corsaro and starred Stella Adler as Madame Rosepettle.

In the New York staging, directed by Jerome Robbins, an...