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A performer's longest connection to a show prior to a broadway debut?

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#1

A performer's longest connection to a show prior to a broadway debut?

Posted: 12/23/09 at 4:13pm

I read a review of a Linda Eder recording where the critic postulated that her 7 year commitment to Jekyl & Hyde prior to it finally opening on broadway may be a record. She had different relationship to the composer than most performers, which certainly gives her an edge in this category.

So are their other performers that have stayed connected to a show through the entire development process until the broadway debut for a longer period of time?

#7

re: A performer's longest connection to a show prior to a broadway debut?

Posted: 12/24/09 at 2:34am

There was also Kristin with Wicked. I believe she was with the show from the very first reading and of course the out of town San Fransisco production as well as opening the show on Broadway.

I know that at least Rick Lyon, and maybe a couple of other puppeteers that were in Avenue Q were with the show from the very first reading and various incarnations of the show including doing the show on Broadway.
"If you try to shag my husband while I am still alive, I will shove the art of motorcycle maintenance up your rancid little Cu**. That's a good dear" Tom Stoppard's Rock N Roll
#8

re: A performer's longest connection to a show prior to a broadway debut?

Posted: 12/24/09 at 2:47am

"Natalie Toro, Nick Wyman...about 6 years before "A Tale of Two Cities" made it to Bway.

(and I am almost sure I am missing some more...) "

..9 years for Broadway. They were part of the workshops in 1999 if I'm not mistaken. Craig Bennett was involved for a while too!

Eder was involved with Jekyll also for over 9 years!!

This is sort on topic, but I believe it was Elizabeth Ward Land who stayed with every reincarnation of the Scarlet Pimpernel!
#10

re: A performer's longest connection to a show prior to a broadway debut?

Posted: 12/24/09 at 3:06am

Chad did as well. There was an article in the NY Times I think this past week talking about how they were with the show since day one.
"If you try to shag my husband while I am still alive, I will shove the art of motorcycle maintenance up your rancid little Cu**. That's a good dear" Tom Stoppard's Rock N Roll
#11

re: A performer's longest connection to a show prior to a broadway debut?

Posted: 12/24/09 at 8:04am

Jenn Damaino took over the role of Natalie damn early in the reading process (and is rumored to be leaving with her contract ending...supposedly Allie Trim has auditioned for the role).

Lea Michele was with Spring Awakening for a freakishly long time, even though I know she was not the original Wendla.
If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it? These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.
#12

re: A performer's longest connection to a show prior to a broadway debut?

Posted: 12/24/09 at 11:16am

"Lea Michele was with Spring Awakening for a freakishly long time"

That is impossible since "Spring Awakening" had a relative smooth trip to broadway. And since, she was only 20 when it opened on broadway. I think we have established that "freakishly long" is somewhere around 7-9 years. No one in SA was involved with it, when Lea was 13 yrs old.
#13

re: A performer's longest connection to a show prior to a broadway debut?

Posted: 12/24/09 at 12:02pm

Once it got to the Atlantic it was relatively an easy move...but there were many workshops and readings. And I'm fairly sure she was only 14 when she was first working on the show.


And I didn't mean to imply it was AS long as the example in the original post....were we just trying to top or match that or talk about long connectitons in general?
If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it? These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.

Updated On: 12/24/09 at 12:02 PM

#14

re: A performer's longest connection to a show prior to a broadway debut?

Posted: 12/24/09 at 12:15pm

Yeah, Lea herself said that she was fourteen when she began playing Wendla. That would have been in 2000. So, six years between her first reading with the show and the initial run at the Atlantic. And during that period there were many workshops and a ton of rewriting.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body

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