The Boss was first produced at the World Assembly for Moral Re-Armament at Caux, Switzerland, in September, 1953. Since then it has been presented by different casts in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Sweden, in Southern Rhodesia, South Africa, Nigeria and the Gold Coast, in the United States and in Brazil.
In Europe, The Boss has been given in some of the key steel and coal centres of the continent. It was invited to Aachen by Mr. Helmuth Burckhardt, then Chairman of the Advisory Council to the High Authority of the Schuman Plan. Sub- sequent performances in the State Opera House at Hamburg were introduced by Mr. Ole Bjorn Kraft, recently Foreign Minister of Denmark and Chairman of NATO, who said, "Today the unity of Europe is a question of life and death. MRA is a force capable of uniting all people and first of all the peoples of Western Europe." M. Robert Schuman attended showings of the play in French in the steel centre of Thionville, and later it was given in both French and German in Luxem bourg where it was attended by members of the Cabinet and many of the leading personalities of the Schuman Plan High Authority. As a result, The Boss was invited to the Saar by the Prime Minister and other leaders.
The German cast of The Boss was twice invited to Holland. At the first showings in Delft in March, 1954, given on the invitation of the Mayor and other distinguished leaders of the Resistance, the audiences of a thousand rose spontaneously to their feet to applaud the cast. The Dutch Invitation Committee said, "This play demonstrates in an impressive way the solution to the ideological struggle in the world. It is a positive con- tribution to the unity of Europe." The play was later given in Amsterdam and Utrecht.
In Southern Rhodesia, the African premiere of The Boss took place in Salisbury on the eve of the opening of the new Central African Federal Parliament. It was attended by the Prime Minister, Sir Godfrey Huggins, and more than half the members of the new Parliament, European, African and Indian, the first time the theatre had been used for a multi-racial audience. The Boss was presented in the City Hall of Capetown before an inter-racial audience of 2,000 people, and also played to inter-racial audiences in many other parts of South Africa. In Great Britain The Boss has been played in many of the industrial centres, as well as in London and Edinburgh. It has been given in the South Wales mining valleys, in Birmingham and other Midland cities, in Bristol, on Merseyside, Liverpool and Manchester and on Clydeside.
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