1776 (musical)

1776
Original Production Logo
Music	Sherman Edwards
Lyrics	Sherman Edwards
Book	Peter Stone
Productions	1969 Broadway 1972 Film 1997 Broadway revival
Awards	Tony Award for Best Musical

1776 is a musical with music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards and a book by Peter Stone. The story is based on the events surrounding the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It dramatizes the efforts of John Adams to persuade his colleagues to vote for American independence and to sign the document.

It premiered on Broadway in 1969, earning warm reviews, and ran for 1,217 performances. The production was nominated for five Tony Awards and won three, including the Tony Award for Best Musical. In 1972 it was made into a film adaptation. It was revived on Broadway in 1997.

In 1925, Rodgers and Hart had written a musical about the American Revolution, called Dearest Enemy. Additionally, in 1950, a musical about the Revolution had been presented on Broadway, titled Arms and the Girl, with music by Morton Gould, lyrics by Dorothy Fields, and a book by Herbert Fields, Dorothy Fields and Rouben Mamoulian, the show's director.

Sherman Edwards, a writer of pop songs with several top 10 hits in the late 1950s and early '60s, spent several years developing lyrics and libretto for a musical based on the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Edwards recounted that "I wanted to show [the founding fathers] at their outermost limits. These men were the cream of their colonies. ... They disagreed and fought with each other. But they understood commitment, and though they fought, they fought affirmatively." Producer Stuart Ostrow recommended that librettist Peter Stone collaborate with Edwards on the book of the musical. Stone recalled,

The minute you heard ["Sit Down, John"], you knew what the whole show was. ... You knew immediately that John Adams and the others were not going to be treated as gods or cardboard characters, chopping down cherry trees and flying kites with strings and keys on them. It had this very affectionate familiarity; it wasn't reverential.