Miguel de Cervantes is renowned for writing Don Quixote in the last years of his life. His work was so admired that it was translated into a plethora of different languages and even a teleplay named I, Don Quixote which became the premise for Man of La Mancha. Wasserman took the teleplay and with the help of Darion and Leigh created the successful musical we now know. The story is a play within a play. Cervantes and his servant, Sancho, are thrown in a dungeon for their tax collecting, where he pleads for mercy from his fellow prisoners by performing a play of his own writing. We see him transform into Don Quixote, a mad man in search of knighthood. Through a variety of comedic adventures they reach a “castle” in which he finds his lovely “lady” and is promised his knighthood. In reality, this is just an inn and his lady, Aldonza, is a wench we see get thrown around and abused by the men at the inn. At first she finds his adoration absurd but eventually she grows to love him, that is until they battle the muleteers and she’s entranced by Quixote’s kindness and says she’ll take care of bandaging these muleteers which leads her to being beaten and raped. After a heartbreaking thrash from Aldonza, Quixote and Sancho go about their ways and end up fighting the Knight of Mirrors and being defeated. We're taken back to the dungeon where Cervantes is about to be taken by the Inquisition but the prisoners ask him to finish the story. We  see Quixote on the verge of death become Alonso as he gains sanity, thinking his knighthood was a dream. Adolanza comes and sings to him trying to bring her Quixote back. And just moments before his imminent death, he is once again the Quixote we know and love. Back in the dungeon, the prisoners and Inquisition find Cervantes not guilty, allowing him to continue on with his manuscript, the infamous Don Quixote.

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The musical is filled with music from beginning to end with little dialogue to no dialogue in between. It feels much like an opera in the style of music and the way the music intertwines with the story. “Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion made every conscious effort to integrate their songs into the texture of action and character” (Taubman, NYT). It doesn’t follow the usual trope of musicals with big opening numbers and chaotic dance numbers dispersed between ballads. Most of the music actually consists of solos and some instrumentals for action heavy dance sequences, similar to the structures we see in European operas. Though the music sounds very traditional, it does have a Spanish feel to it with the typical spanish guitar strumming that is very prominent throughout the score.