Chances are, this weekend, you’ll have at least one chance on at least one network to see the movie version of 1776, one of Broadway’s greatest musicals.

In March, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the opening of the original production, I replicated some of the diary that Ingrid Edwards, the widow of Sherman Edwards, the show’s songwriter and conceiver, kept during the long and torturous road to Broadway. It started on June, 1966, at a time when it looked as if the show would never get on, almost three years before the triumphant Broadway opening. (If you’d care to take a look at that column, turn the electronic pages on the calendar to the right to March 23, and see what happened between the many stops and starts.)

I left the diary on June 14, 1968, after Peter Stone had been signed to refurbish Edwards’ original book, but after superstar director Gower Champion asked for too much, and producer Stuart Ostrow told him to forget it. But many readers – starting with Ron Fassler, Scott Linn, and Bob Stempin – asked for more of the diary. So, on this Independence Day weekend, here’s a bit more of what Ingrid Edwards reported over the next nine months:

June 16, 1968 – “Sit Down, John” now incorporates parts of “Sextet in Revolutionary Time, “Tea Party, Concord, Lexington, and Bunk,” etc. Worked out great, and now “Piddle, Twiddle” follows after Adams is told, “Will someone shut that man up!” followed by Peter Stone’s new scene.

June 17 – Stu said he never liked “Sextet,” and thought its content a bore and a cliché compared to the rest of the score. It is out.

June 20 – A bombshell letter. Letter from Gower made Stu out a villain. Gower seemed dumbstruck by fantastically unacceptable contract. Still loved the score and Sherman, though.

June 21 – I feel Gower really wanted to do the show, but as a prestige artistic hobby piece in his sunny California. When it got to be for real in New York, he ran scared. Bob Fosse not interested.

Middle of July – Read fourth scene of Peter’s. So sad. The humor has fled. John Adams has been whittled down to a foolish man, dependent on Ben Franklin, who is too strong, serious, and talks too much. Play is becoming too real.

July 27 – Went to see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead for Derek Goldby as possible director. Incredible bore!

August 16 – Derek Goldby as director got a good bill of heath from (esteemed David Merrick associate) Biff Liff. Derek is becoming more desirable to all. Sherm is ignoring Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Stu can afford him. He is young, new, has ideas, thoughtful, unmannered, and to some extent malleable. He’s also been called to Boston to see what he can do with the floundering Her First Roman.

August 18 – Sherm is on his way with a new song for Act One, Scene Four, “A Letter from Silas Deane,” translated into song for John Adams, to do “Why the urgency for a Declaration now?” (Goldby’s question.) Colonies must declare themselves a country first, an idea that Sherman played with two years ago, but never felt that necessary and never resolved. It’s good now.

October – Her First Roman got clobbered. Exit Derek, enter (eventual director) Peter Hunt.

November -- Auditions started. Sherm disappointed at first at turnout. Such poor talent.

Late November – Howard Da Silva called Stu and Sherm personally rather than via agent to say he wants Franklin.

December 21 – Flora (Roberts, superagent) had to fight for Sherman’s Dec. 1 money, which arrived today. But then, if producers instantly obeyed their contracts, who would need lawyers and agents?

Dec. 28 – Last audition. Everyone is cast. Bill Daniels is Adams with strong endorsement from Maxine Marx (Groucho’s daughter). Only person not gotten but desired was Roundsville. He had too great a set-up and security with La Mancha.

Dec. 29 – The four Peters have established the framework: Stone, writer; Hunt, director; Howard, musical director; Stern, stage manager. Eddie Sauter (the orchestrator) is great! So is (set designer Jo) Mielziner. The ad in the Sunday Times came out; it has a light stylish touch with bite. A reading was held. Wives not allowed. I will never forgive Stu for this mental anachronism.

Dec. 30 – First day of rehearsal. All went well.

Jan. 2, 1969 – Strange rumblings. Seems the company manager didn’t tell quite a few actors that they were also to play soldiers in New Brunswick scene. Peter Hunt said he’d smooth it out. Sherm working hard with everyone, even understudy Gretchen Cryer. Then he auditioned for the “Ladies of the Evening” -- meaning the theater-party ladies.

Jan. 5 – Sherm, Peters Hunt and Stone went in to watch Rhoda (Levine, choreographer)’s staging of “Sit Down, John.” After a few bars, Sherm just got up and left. A little later, the two Peters came in to see him. All were of one mind – seems Rhoda had misconceived the idea of a large, hot, sluggish congress as contrasted to a peppery, aggravated, badgering Adams. After discussion, Hunt went in and restaged the whole thing. Then Sherm and two Peters unhappy with Rhoda’s staging of “The Lees of Old Virginia.” Hokey. Took “Cakewalk” instruction literally. N.G.

Jan. 6 – Peter H. feels Rhoda has lost face and so of course authority. All got flu shots.

Jan. 10 – Rhoda is out. Sherm and Stu are meeting Onna White at the Plaza, and will do full-blown version of the show for her.

Jan. 12 – Onna liked audition, but did not commit. Stu had gone all out, taking a $400 suite, table spread with food and drinks, and no one even slept there.

Jan. 13 – Onna’s in! At Columbia Records, the Banjo Barons cut “Momma, Look Sharp,” along with four other songs, one of which came from Red, White, and Maddox.

Jan. 16 – Small rumbling from DaSilva. Unhappy over one line, about the ox, the bull, and “When did you notice yours were missing?” Stone will not remove it. Give in to an actor, and he’ll rewrite the script. Line stayed in the show, and so did DaSilva.

Jan. 24 – Courier to be replaced by an older man.

Jan. 27 – First complete run-through. Two hours and 40 minutes. Stu still upset about same men in Congress being soldiers.

Feb. 2 – Talk with Sherm. Tears. Myriad problems, minute details, and frustrations. I felt a bit like Abigail Adams. Don’t know how these women stood their lives!

Feb. 3 – Sherman left for New Haven, but run-through last night didn’t seem to please him, but Rutledge, Dickinson, and Adams were great. There’s talk of taking Vestoff’s “Are You That Man?” out.

Feb. 4 -- “Are You That Man?” out.

Feb. 7 – Took bus to New Haven, watched last half of afternoon rehearsal. DaSilva’s “Increase and Multiply” is adorable and tasty.

Feb. 10 – Back home (in New Jersey) Opening night in New Haven. Sat with suitcases in the kitchen and by the phone all day. With all the snow, we couldn’t get out of the driveway. Nor could anyone else, including the New Haven critics.

Feb. 11 – Braved the results of the blizzard and managed to get to New Haven. It took us 10 hours, but it was fun, an adventure, and worth it! The show looked wonderful. “Increase and Multiply” is out. Big rumblings. Da Silva furious, of course, charged into Stu’s office raving. Stu said he’d accept Howard’s resignation.

Feb. 12 – Rex Everhart hired as Franklin. Finally getting some reviews. One horrible, one mixed with what I feel has many truths in it. The first act can do no wrong, second act sluggish and frantic, and of course the whole show is too long! (Daughter) Valerie had an interesting reaction: Once she was able to discard her preconception of what she thought the show would be like and was able to see what was actually there, she adored it. For many of us I believe.

You said it, Ingrid! It’s one of the reasons so many of us adore 1776.

More of her Diary to come at another time.

You may e-mail Peter at pfilichia@aol.com

It’s only been a little more than three weeks since the 2008-2009 Tonys were dispensed, but doesn’t it already seem like 600 years ago? The best thing about the Tony opening number was seeing that the Radio City stage could hold all those people without collapsing. I had been worried that all the producers who won for either the Best Play or Best Musical and bounded up there might be so numerous that the floor would give way. We know that June is bustin’ out all over, but we don’t want people bustin’ through the stage on a June Sunday.

Doncha think, though, that Shrek would have been better off to do “The Story of My Life” as their number? The TV viewing audience might have been charmed by seeing all those familiar fairy tale characters in one place. Sure, the show really isn’t about them, but Into the Woods proved that people like the idea of seeing fairy tale characters interact. Might have sold some tickets, a situation that, God knows, Shrek would have welcomed.

You’d know what I’d like to hear some Tony presenter say after opening up the “envelope,” just for the fun of it? “And the winner … in New York … is …” That line won’t mean much to those under 55 or so, but there was a time when the Emmys used to be broadcast from both New York and Los Angeles, when the former was still a town where many TV broadcasts originated. So when an Emmy winner was announced, his or her name was always preceded by “in New York” or “in Los Angeles.”

Sorry to see that Irena’s Vow shuttered after 103 performances. Isn’t it sad that Broadway isn’t judged by the same yardstick of success as television? You do 100 episodes of a sitcom, and you’re a syndicated smash. Do 100 performances on Broadway, and you’ve lost a fortune – no matter how good your show was.

Looks as if The Temperamentals is going to pass 100 performances with ease. Not bad for a show that opened in a tiny theater, and has now been graduated to one twice as large. And though it’s technically theater in the square – the stage is situated not unlike a gridiron in a football game, with spectators on the sidelines – everyone has a good seat because Jonathan Sliverstein has given the play pin-perfect direction.

In between those two audience sections, there’s a hardwood deck – but with a gutter-moat all around it. Silverstein has his five excellent actors go to it not only for scenes that take place in the outside world, but also when life gets particularly unbearable and they’ve nowhere else to go.

That happens quite a bit, because Jon Marans’ play tells about the primitive days of the Gay Rights Movement. Marans makes some great points: Know everything about Judy Garland, and people think you’re strange, but if you know everything about baseball, well, then you’re a boot-wearin’, beer-drinkin’ Chevy-drivin’ man.

But he has much more on his mind than that. It’s the early ‘50s, when Harry Hay and Rudi Gernreich (later a notorious fashion designer) dared to be out, almost two long decades before Stonewall. Back then, men even worried about sharing a hotel room, lest they be thought “queer.” Hay and Gernreich had to wonder if they should hold their meeting in the same place twice in a row, just in case the authorities were listening. And in those days when a homosexual was arrested, the police often used the initials “NHI” to describe the case.

That meant “No Humans Involved.”

There sure are some impressive humans on view here: Thomas Jay Ryan as Harry, Michael Urie as Rudi, as well as Tom Beckett, Matthew Schneck, and Sam Breslin Wright in multiple roles. Let’s a have a shoutout, too, for Josh Bradford’s excellent lighting that shows how these men lived in the shadows. Here’s hoping that The Temperamentals – already extended a few times -- will continue is wondrous odyssey from off-off-Broadway to far beyond.

Got a nice e-mail from Michael Korie, Grey Gardens’ super-talented lyricist who told me that Jerry, who loved Big Edie’s corn, “has been traveling around the country to see quite of number of the productions of Grey Gardens, and introducing himself to the audience. The show also inspired him to take up a life-long dream and pursue sculpture-making. He enrolled at the Art Students League and began to carve sculptures out of stone. Under his real name of Gerard Torre, he recently received an award for one of his sculptures.” All right, Jerry! Proof again that there’s enough time for all of us to succeed if we use the time wisely.

Also got an equally nice e-mail from Jim Wooley, who stage managed Exit the King, letting me know not only that Geoffrey Rush enjoyed himself at the Theatre World Awards, but also that “Geoffrey LOVES Broadway musicals, and is EXTREMELY knowledgeable about them. Before every performance while he was getting into his make-up and wig cap – a one-hour process – I would present him with a written quiz about some long-forgotten musical. I was throwing shows at him such as Happy Hunting, Golden Rainbow and Bajour. He knew ‘em all, and I rarely stumped him.”

Wow! I’m going to use an expression that I hate and never use to comment on this, but I just can’t resist, and I’m sure you all see it coming and can say it along with me: Who knew that the show’s king was a show queen?

On the PATH train, I ran into Kevin Melendez, the young actor who was so wonderful last year in New Jersey Youth Theatre’s production of 1776 in Newark. I asked him how he got interested in performing, and he told me that when he was in high school, he joined the drama club just because a girl he had his eye on had joined. He eventually wound up playing Hinesy, Petruchio, and Sky Masterson. “And the girl?” I asked. “She dropped out after about two weeks,” he replied. Hope she – and you – come to see him play Sweeney Todd. Yes – a Youth Theatre is doing Sweeney Todd, but Cynthia Meryl’s troupe does top-notch work. Her Ragtime, Carousel, and 1776 had to be seen to be believed. Get thee to Newark next month! (www.njyouththeatre.org)

And speaking of students, here’s one thing that always bothered me while I was teaching at Arlington (MA) High School lo those many years ago: The basketball team, when playing for the high school championship, used to play in Boston Garden on the same parquet floor on which the NBA’s Boston Celtics played – while the drama club, when competing for the high school championship, didn’t get to go to the Colonial, Shubert, or Wilbur, but to the far less impressive John Hancock Hall. So for its high school playwriting competition, God bless Fidelity Investments for renting no less than the Imperial for Fidelity Futurestage 2009 Finale – and for getting Queen Latifah to host the six ten-minute plays. Five were enacted by students, all of whom comported themselves as pros and belied their youth. But the winner, Mamaroneck High’s Madeline Hendricks, saw her play Driver’s Education, performed by Greg Edelman, Heidi Blickenstaff, and Heather Ayers, among other pros. What a thrill that had to be.

Much more of a thrill than I got on June 9. I was home switching channels, and came across the Ovation channel, right at the point in A Chorus Line where Alyson Reed, in her lavender leotard, was singing “What I Did for Love.” Wonder if today’s teens ever check out the film just to see what Ms. Darbus was like in years past? While I was wondering, a little graphic appeared in the upper left hand side of the screen. It said, “You are enjoying A Chorus Line.” Let me be the judge of that.

Finally, June brought Talkin’ Broadway/All That Chat’s Tony Party, where I finally met jesse21, whom I assumed was my arch-enemy given the criticisms he’s made about me on the site. But at the party, we found we had a very similar background, and came to respect and genuinely like each other. We’re even having dinner in a couple of weeks. The world has the United Nations to help countries work out difficult matters; theater has the Talkin’ Broadway/All That Chat’s Tony Party that allows us the chance to reconcile our differences in an equally peaceful matter.

You may e-mail Peter at pfilichia@aol.com