Archy & Mehitabel is a musical with a book by Mel Brooks and Joe Darion, music by George Kleinsinger, and lyrics by Darion. It is based on an extremely popular news column of the same name that appeared in the New York Tribune starting in 1916. The column talked of a poetic cockroach and his alley cat friend; the articles themselves served as allegories for New York City society in the 1910's and 1920's.
Archy & Mehitabel first came together as a 45-minute album in 1954, which featured performances from Carol Channing as Mehitabel and Eddie Bracken as Archy. George Kleinsinger, known for his work on the children's musical Tubby The Tuba, worked on the music, while Joe Darion, who would later go on to write the song "The Impossible Dream," wrote the lyrics.
The musical was presented in a concert version at Town Hall in New York City in December 1954. In the two years that followed, Kleinsinger and Darion reworked the piece and added a new member to the creative team, a young humor writer by the name of Mel Brooks.After Mel Brooks became a book writer for the musical, they changed the name to Shinbone Alley and premiered it as a full-scale Broadway musical on April 13, 1957 at the Broadway Theatre. It closed on May 25 of the same year after 49 performances.
After almost 50 years, productions of Archy & Mehitabel began to reemerge in the 21st century. The musical made its international premiere in 2005 in Melbourne, Australia. In November 2006, the "Musicals Tonight!" series presented a staged concert version.