Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad
Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad: A Pseudoclassical Tragifarce in a Bastard French Tradition was the first play written by Arthur Kopit. Background Kopit was on a postgraduate scholarship from Harvard University when he entered the play in a playwriting contest. The play won the contest and an undergraduate production at Harvard, and gained the notice of the Phoenix Theatre in New York. Kopit explained: "I had been writing short stories, and I was having a lot of trouble with the narrative point of view. When I wrote a play, I found that I lost myself as Arthur Kopit and I just wrote down what the characters said. I wasn’t anywhere in the play, and I liked that. In my fiction I was everywhere, and I didn’t like that." Productions The play opened Off-Broadway at the Phoenix Repertory Theatre on February 26, 1962. The cast featured Jo Van Fleet (Madame Rosepettle), Austin Pendleton (Jonathan) and Barbara Harris (Rosalie). The play transferred to Broadway at the Morosco Theatre on August 27, 1963, and closed on October 5, 1963. The principal roles were originated on Broadway by Hermione Gingold (Madame Rosepettle), Sam Waterston