The production was originally scheduled to open on February 21, 1978, after previews starting on February 13. The previews started on schedule, but the opening was postponed by a week to February 28.
The production featured many sets and was very complex. The opening number, there were four full stage settings (Market Street, Chinatown, Nob Hill and the Barbary Coast). The sets moved more than the actors. The show ended after the Earthquake and fire of 1906 with a modern San Francisco rising from the ashes, with the Transamerica pyramid and the Golden Gate bridge rising behind the ruins. One of the scenes took place at a cable car turntable in "old San Francisco" but the set designer made a mistake and used modern railings and markings for the cable cars (much to the audience's amusement).
The Orpheum Theatre was a 2200-seat theatre and the show played to almost empty houses. One audience member remembers there being 50-60 people in the audience one night.
