I caught Channing in the revival when her tour stopped in Providence, RI (March, 1995) before she landed on Broadway - it was a wonderful, legendary experience and Channing was in fine form.
Her stop in Providence made national headlines, which some of you may not be familiar....
On the second night of her week long engagement, our (now deceased) Mayor Cianci attended with a group of some 'very boisterous friends' of his (he was notorious for this), sitting up front in the second or third row of orchestra center. At one point, he left the show to smoke outside near the stage door. Channing's stage manager reprimanded the Mayor, and told him to move away from the stage door if he wanted to smoke, and also reminded him to tell his group 'keep their voices down' during the performance, as they were distracting Ms Channing.
Cianci, a proclaimed 'gay friendly Mayor' allegedly called the stage manager a 'homosexual slur' and refused to put out his cigarette. (Cianci denied he was smoking or had any interaction at all with the stage manager). His group did quiet down, though, when he returned. Word got back to Channing and she was furious. She held a press conference the next morningt, said how insulted she was by the mayor's behavior - and refused to accept the 'Key to the City' from him, which was scheduled for the last day of the show, before the Sunday matinee.
When the Mayor was told Channing would not be attending the ceremony and didn't want any part of the proclamation, Cianci responded to reporters: "Who cares?"
