42nd Street National Tour

Last night I was lucky enough to go see 42nd Street with my Grandma's senior citizen group (anything for Bway!). I am not too good at writing reviews, so I will just tell you the basics, lol. The cast was excellent...once again I have not seen any other cast, so I have nothing to compare it to, but they were great! My favorite cast members were Alana Salvatore (Annie), Tina Johnson (Maggie Jones), Shannon O' Bryan (Peggy Sawyer) and Daren Kelly (Julian Marsh). Daren has a voice just like the man on the recording. The sets were very limited...almost all painted scrims. Even the lighted marquees were 2-D. I understand they had to cut them down for the tour, but from what I heard, they were really cut down. Nice, big orchestra. The show curtain was beautiful...nice, ruby curtain. Overall, the show was great and I had a good time.

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Yeah I thought the cast was super for being a Non-Equity tour, but I was just horrified at how the sets were so downsized and it seemed like everything was painted! That sort of ruined the show for me to see how a big splashy production turned into as splash of paint with a mirror flying down.

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Well last season when the tour first opened and came to TPAC in the spring it was a non-equity national tour. The producers made it that way so that they could still have a butt-load of tap dancers on the stage without downsizing from the broadway production due to costs. Non-equity actors are cheaper to pay so they could hire more of them (about 40ish) for the road production. There are still some Equity members in the lead roles, but most of the chorus members are not part of the union.

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