Actors being fired / replaced- Page 2

[LarryD2]

Posted: 12/11/14 at 5:27pm

Dunaway never should have been hired in the first place. They set her up for failure, then blamed her when she failed. As it was with Patti's firing, it was a very poorly handled situation.

(The first person who was approached to replace Glenn Close in LA was also a non-singing film star, like Dunaway. She wisely turned down the part, knowing that vocally she couldn't do the role justice. Perhaps Dunaway should have done the same--but the fact remains that neither should have been offered the role in the first place.)

[Sondheimite]

Posted: 12/11/14 at 5:35pm

Andrew Lloyd Webber has a history of doing this..
-Dunaway was fired and the production canceled.
-LuPone was fired and replaced with Close.
-Ben Vereen was one of the only aspects of the original Broadway production of Jesus Christ Superstar to get a Tony nomination and he got fired halfway through the run and replaced with Carl Anderson.
-Steve Harley was fired and replaced with Michael Crawford.
-When Jesus Christ Superstar came back to Broadway in 2000, Jason Pebworth played Judas for a few previews and was replaced first with temporarily with Manoel Felciano and permanently replaced by Tony Vincent. A TINY clip of Jason is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLVFTxv_zfM
-Judy Dench was set for the original production of CATS and had to drop out due to a torn Achilles tendon. She was replaced by Paige. (Not ALW's fault.)

He just has a huge history of blaming cast for his poor material.

Updated On: 12/11/14 at 05:35 PM

[Sondheimite]

Posted: 12/11/14 at 5:36pm

LarryD2, I'm curious. Who was the original star approached?

[LarryD2]

Posted: 12/11/14 at 6:16pm

Sondheimite, check your PMs.

[evic]

Posted: 12/11/14 at 6:28pm

Laine Kazan-Seesaw
Laine Kazan- The Women
Elizabeth Seal-A Chorus Line-London

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 12/11/14 at 6:34pm

Madeline Kahn, On The Twentieth Century, 1978.

[Sondheimite]

Posted: 12/11/14 at 6:35pm

Richard Dreyfuss was set to open The Producers in London but was fired in rehearsal. Nathan Lane stepped in and saved the day.

Henry Goodman replaced Nathan Lane in The Producers on Broadway and was very publicly fired after about a month of performances.

Updated On: 12/11/14 at 06:35 PM

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 12/11/14 at 7:10pm

-Ben Vereen was one of the only aspects of the original Broadway production of Jesus Christ Superstar to get a Tony nomination and he got fired halfway through the run and replaced with Carl Anderson.

Correction, from Ellis Nassour's Rock Opera, interviews with the cast, and my own speculation:

According to cast members we interviewed, Ben knew his voice could hit the notes, but wasn't cut out for doing Judas' material eight times a week. (This led him to lead a loner lifestyle trying to preserve his voice, staying quiet, spending most of his time in his dressing room.) Ben was a last-minute audition because Tom O'Horgan had this vision of Ben in the role and Ted Neeley as Jesus, whereas the producers preferred Carl and Jeff Fenholt from the concert tour; the final compromise was Ben and Jeff (with Ted getting chorus and Jesus understudy, Carl getting the L.A. opening, and both Carl and Ted getting screen tests for the film).

This made the backstage situation tense, according to Nassour's book. Lines were drawn between Fenholt on one side and Vereen on the other; Ben felt he was being held back, and he had no problem complaining about things he didn't think were going well. He apparently didn't take kindly to the producers "creating an unhealthy atmosphere" by hiring/firing at will and being so engrossed in making money that they didn't care about hiring/firing the right people. The situation became even more tense when the Tony nominations came in: Ben made quite a stink about his (and, to his credit, Fenholt's) name not being given above-the-title billing, and nothing being done in the way of a promotional campaign to win the Tonys (they didn't even mention the nominations in the ads).

The producers apparently got their chance to react as they chose when Vereen developed polyps on his throat, went in for major surgery (during which time an understudy, I believe it was Kurt Yahjian, filled in), and when he got back, Ben was willing to do eight shows a week, but the management felt it was too strenuous and didn't want him to blow his voice out again, so they arranged a split-week performance schedule where Ben did four shows a week and Carl did four shows a week. When Carl left to play Judas in L.A., the management said, "Okay, Ben, time to do eight shows a week." But Ben now agreed with the management's original feeling that eight shows a week was too strenuous. Saying they were "only thinking of the good of the show," they fired Ben, who got the last laugh by going right into rehearsals for Pippin. He was replaced not by Carl, who was in L.A., but by Patrick Jude.

Updated On: 12/11/14 at 07:10 PM

[broadwayboy223]

Posted: 12/11/14 at 7:29pm

LarryD2 I'm also curious who was the other star approached ?

[Dave19]

Posted: 12/11/14 at 7:32pm

There are also tons of cases about ensemble members, resident directors have a personal thing against someone, wanting to have a friend in the show as replacement, etc.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 12/11/14 at 7:36pm

Ron Ohrbach was replaced by Brad Oscar (after an injury) out of town in THE PRODUCERS.

[evic]

Posted: 12/11/14 at 7:51pm

Tons of dancers from A Chorus Line. Seems that they found out when they arrived at the theater to sign in and their names weren't on the call sheet.

[TFMH18]

Posted: 12/11/14 at 8:00pm

Stephanie J Block in Wicked is the most obvious one that comes to mind for me

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 12/11/14 at 8:35pm

Christopher Hoff injuring his foot during the previews of the recent PAL JOEY revival and quickly being permanently fired/replaced by his understudy Matthew Risch.

Diane McAfee (singer Fiona Apple's mother) was the original Eve Harrington in the original Broadway cast of APPLAUSE but was fired/replaced by Penny Fuller during previews.

SNL alumni Chris Kattan was fired/replaced during previews of THE FROGS by Roger Bart.

[theleadingplyr]

Posted: 12/11/14 at 9:04pm

The entire cast except Hunter Foster in the out of town tryout of Little Shop of Horrors.

[Broadwaynut81]

Posted: 12/11/14 at 10:09pm

I've often wondered whether producers/PR people cite an injury or vocal rest instead of saying someone is fired (it wouldn't surpise me, I guess, but I was just wondering).

For instance, the regional theater near where I live replaced two high profile leading ladies right before performances began, and both cited a "back injury" as the reason for their departure.

[Islander_fan]

Posted: 12/11/14 at 10:59pm

As it has been stated in the thread earlier. With regards to firing performers, out of town try outs do not count. When a show goes out of town there's one contract for all the actors for that run, and another one altogether for the Broadway one. It would only count as firing someone if the performer was in the middle of their contract.

For example, in American Idiot, Caplan played Tunny in the out of town tryout. His contract ended and they didn't want to sign him on for the Broadway run, so they hired Sands. No firing at all happened.

[NoName3]

Posted: 12/11/14 at 11:17pm

The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company hired Lillian Russel as a guest star to create the title role in the original production of Princess Ida. She was fired by W.S. Gilbert for repeatedly being late to rehearsal, or missing a rehearsal entirely, depending on which account you read.

[gleek4114]

Posted: 12/12/14 at 12:43am

Stephanie J. Block was not fired. She merely didn't get the part.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 12/12/14 at 5:53am

....right and REPLACED by Idina Menzel. So she falls into the "replaced" category of the threads title: "Actors being fired/replaced".

[Blockhead24]

Posted: 12/12/14 at 7:32am

"Christopher Hoff"

It's Christian

[mordav]

Posted: 12/12/14 at 7:40am

Shia LaBeouf in Orphans

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/12/14 at 8:29am

Yes, broadwaynut81, firing or quitting is often announced as leaving for health reasons. There's also the famous "creative differences".

IIRC, Dean Jones' departure by mutual consent from COMPANY was originally announced by Jones himself as "hepatitis". (Also IIRC, Larry Kert didn't get the memo or ignored it, because I remember him telling the real story on TV talk shows.)

***

I don't doubt Islander_fan's explanation that Broadway tryouts and Broadway runs have separate contracts, but I think that's a technicality (largely to protect producers from wrongful termination suits) for our purposes.

While no doubt some actors have ben hired as fill-ins while the show was waiting for the desired star, the overwhelming majority of actors who do tryouts are expecting to go on to Broadway. They FEEL "fired" if they are replaced.

[Hairspray0901]

Posted: 12/12/14 at 9:56am

pretty sure marisa perry was replaced by marissa jaret winokur back in 2008 when hairspray was preparing for its closing. marissa got bumped down to stand-by for Tracy instead of being the closing one

[CarlAlan610]

Posted: 12/12/14 at 10:10am

I am still so devastated about this!