Man of La Man­cha pre­miered in 1965 with music by Mitch Leigh, and lyrics by Joe Dar­i­on. It is adapt­ed from Dale Wasserman’s non-musi­cal 1959 tele­play I, Don Quixote, which was in turn inspired by both Miguel de Cer­vantes life, and his 17th-cen­tu­ry nov­el Don Quixote — con­sid­ered by many to be among the great­est nov­els of all time. It tells the sto­ry of the “mad” knight Don Quixote as a play with­in a play, per­formed by Cer­vantes and his fel­low pris­on­ers as he awaits a hear­ing with the Span­ish Inquisition.

The orig­i­nal 1965 Broad­way pro­duc­tion ran for 2,328 per­for­mances and won five Tony Awards, includ­ing Best Musi­cal. The musi­cal has been revived four times on Broad­way, becom­ing one of the most endur­ing works of the musi­cal the­atre canon. The cli­mac­tic song, “The Impos­si­ble Dream”, has become a standard.