For producer David Merrick, who initially presented the play on Broadway, I Do! I Do! was an ideal investment in that it had neither expensive sets and costumes nor a large cast. After four previews, the Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Gower Champion, opened on December 5, 1966 at the 46th Street Theatre, and closed on June 15, 1968 after 560 performances. Mary Martin and Robert Preston comprised the original cast. Carol Lawrence and Gordon MacRae played matinees starting in October 1967[1] and then replaced Martin and Preston in December 1967.[2]
Martin and Preston starred in a national tour, originally scheduled to play 27 cities for one year, starting in March 1968 in Rochester, New York. However, in February 1969 Martin became ill and the remainder of the tour was cancelled.[3] Carol Burnett and Rock Hudson also starred in a national tour, appearing during Burnett's hiatus from her television show in 1973[4] and again in 1974 at The Muny, St. Louis, Missouri[citation needed] and in Dallas.[5]
A film adaptation, written by Champion and starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, was announced by United Artists in 1969 but, following the commercial failure of several movie musicals, the project was abandoned in the spring of 1970.[6] A television version with Lee Remick and Hal Linden was broadcast in 1982.
A 1996 Off-Broadway revival at the Lamb's Theatre was directed by Will Mackenzie and starred Karen Ziemba and David Garrison.[7] It ran for 52 performances.[8]
The show is frequently presented by regional theatres across the United States, because of the minimal cost of mounting it. A production at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre in Chanhassen, Minnesota ran for more than 20 years with leads David Anders and Susan Goeppinger, who eventually married during their run. This set the American record for a play running with the original cast.[9]


In this Broadway musical (filmed in Los Angeles in front of a live audience), Hal Linden and Lee Remick portray Michael and Agnes, a married couple whose relationship is examined from the night before their wedding, to the day they move out of their family home five decades later. ~