Photos: Look Back on the Original Broadway Production of Once Upon a Mattress

There's a new princess in town! The second Broadway revival of Once Upon a Mattress begins performances July 31 (with an opening night set for August 12 at the Hudson Theatre). But the musical comedy has a long history on Broadway, even if it's received far fewer revivals than its Golden Age counterparts.

The fairy-tale themed musical was composed by Mary Rodgers (the daughter of Richard Rodgers and the mother of Adam Guettel), with lyrics by Marshall Barer, and book by Dean Fuller, Jay Thompson, and Barer. It is based on the classic fairytale The Princess and the Pea, but with some zany twists and memorable love songs (such as "In a Little While").

It first opened at Off-Broadway's Phoenix Theatre in 1959 before transferring that year to Broadway to the Alvin Theatre (the modern Neil Simon Theatre). It then made the theatre circuit on Broadway, running from the Alvin to the Winter Garden, Cort, and St. James—it ran a total of 460 performances on Broadway. Mattress closed in 1960. As Carol Burnett once told Playbill contributor Seth Rudetsky, Neil Simon once said, "Have you seen Once Upon a Mattress? Don't worry. It'll soon be coming to a theatre near you."

The show made a star of Burnett, who was a relative unknown at the time. The skilled comedian was not the first choice to play Princess Winifred—Barer and Thompson had originally written the role for Nancy Walker. At the time, Burnett had just pivoted from journalism to singing and was working at the Blue Angel nightclub. Mattress was her Broadway debut. But director George Abbott wanted a fresher face for the role, and Burnett was his pick. It was a smart decision—after Burnett left the show in 1960, it closed shortly after.

During her run as Princess Winifred, Burnett was pulling double duty—she was a player on the variety TV show The Garry Moore Show at the same time as leading Mattress. On nights after staying up late filming Garry Moore, she would fall asleep during Mattress (so it seems those mattresses were comfortable).

Though Mattress would become a popular title in schools and community theatres, the musical wouldn't be seen on Broadway again until its 1996 revival, a fact that didn't escape Rodgers. As she told Playbill in a 1996 interview: "People, I suspect, thought, 'Where will we find another Carol?' Which was a mistake in thinking because Carol wasn't Carol when we did the show."

Of her show, Rodgers also told Playbill: "It's really a darling show—not scenically complicated, not emotionally complicated—but it has its own little subtleties that I don't take any responsibilities for at all, wonderful moments between the father and the son, a lot of delicious family subtext with the aggressive mother. It's just a very true piece. It was always directed that way. George, in his way, felt that, too. He said, 'If you play it for comedy, it'll never work. If you play it for real, it will.'"

Mattress was nominated for two Tony Awards: Best Musical and for Burnett's performance. And Burnett didn't leave the show far behind—she starred in three TV adaptations of the musical. Below, see photos from the original production.