Lemon Sky was developed at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Playwrights Conference in 1968, with Michael Douglas in the cast.[1] It was then produced off-off-Broadway at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in the East Village of Manhattan in 1970.
The play was then produced at the Studio Arena Theater in Buffalo, New York, then off-Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre, running from May 17 to May 31, 1970. Directed by Warren Enters, the off-Broadway cast featured Charles Durning as Douglas, Christopher Walken as Alan, and Bonnie Bartlett as Ronnie.[2] Walken won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance.
Clive Barnes, in his The New York Times review of the 1970 production, wrote: "On many levels Lemon Sky is a play very well worth seeing. It has the immediacy of the way we live, and something of the smooth-spoken hysteria."[3]
A revival was produced off-Broadway at the Second Stage Theatre in December 1985, starring Jeff Daniels as Alan, Wayne Tippit as the father, Cynthia Nixon as Carol, and Jill Eikenberry, and directed by Mary B. Robinson.[4] Eikenberry won the 1986 Obie Award for Performance.[1]
