Composer Brendan Padgett and book and lyric writer Rouse first created and performed the original musical Transforming Jimmy Dalton at La MaMa E.T.C. in 2002. Jimmy Dalton has also been performed at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and at Brown University's Stuart Theater in Providence, Rhode Island in 2003.

The story of Jimmy has continued to evolve throughout its production history. The show was created out of a one-woman performance art monologue Rouse developed about Marilyn Monroe and the complicated issues surrounding the marketing of pharmaceuticals in contemporary society. The piece evolved to include Jimmy Dalton, a regular but repressed young man, whose encounter with a faded Marilyn serves as the catalyst for his re-discovery of a dormant part of himself, his dead mother, who happens to be Ethel Merman.

On one level, Transforming Jimmy Dalton is an affectionate parody of classic musical theatre styles; a fun and campy romp that queerly skewers the sacraments of modern culture, such as beauty pageants, patriotism, and capitalism. On a deeper level, the story handles the mysteries of loss and death, the deep sorrow of grief, and both the dangers and magic of transformation and self-discovery.