The production was to open on May 26, 1956 at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York. The top ticket price was to be $8.80 for evenings and $5.25 for matinees, the highest price on Broadway.
A new edition of The Ziegfeld Follies was rumored as far back as early 1954. J.J. Shubert and Stanley Gilkey were said to be involved. Menasha Skulnik, Mae West and Bobby Clark were sought for leading roles in late 1954. This version seems to have stalled. Charles Sherman was interested in staging a Follies in early 1955. But the idea was taken up again in May 1955 by Richard Kollmar and James W. Gardiner.
Auditions were to be held in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and Houston to make sure that they, according to producer Richard Kollmar, would get "the ten most beautiful, king-size show girls alive."
Kollmar and Gardiner were prepared to pay the highest salaries ever paid to dancers on Broadway in order to get the best.
Richard Kollmar and James W. Gardiner went to London to oversee the London production of Plain and Fancy (which they had produced on Broadway) and looked for acts that he might use in The Ziegfeld Follies.
Originally Mitzi Gaynor was to star alongside Tallulah Bankhead. Kollmar and Gardiner also negotiated with Henri Salvador, a Parisian singing comedian (and called "the Danny Kaye of France", and Yana, a London nightclub singer.
Tallulah Bankhead was signed in November 1955.
Morton da Costa was sought as director.
The show was budgeted at $400,000.
Rehearsals began on March 5, 1956.
According to an understudy slip in Philadelphia, when Miss Haney was unable to perform, her duties were split between three people:
- Dancing - Beryl Towbin
- Sketches - Dorothy Stinette
- Song - Larry Kert
