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#101

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 10/11/17 at 2:50am

Sorry to hear about Joan Jett left RHS due to that. I thought she was good and I've always thought she was on the recording doing some of the guitar riffs on the soundtrack.

I believe I saw RHS with Kristen Lee Kelly as Janet (sl*t). I thought she was good. I thought she worked well with Luke Perry, Sebastian Lacause, Dalphe Rubin-Vega, Ana Gasteyer, Tom Hewitt and rest of the cast but she was no Alice Ripley.

#102

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 10/11/17 at 8:22am

There were a couple controversies that erupted during Joan Jett's time in Rocky Horror. I remember hearing that the reason she didn't do the cast recording was because she insisted it be produced by the person who produced her solo albums. It was also confirmed that she never joined Actor's Equity.

She stayed with the show for a few months after the cast recording debacle, then left the show abruptly. Kristin Lee Kelly was her understudy and played the part for a couple weeks, then Ana Gasteyer came in during SNL's summer break. After Gasteyer left, Kelly went back to playing Columbia for a month -- then when Alice Ripley left, Kelly switched to playing Janet full time. I had a friend who worked on the production and said it was regularly a chaotic workplace.

"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

#103

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 10/11/17 at 9:27am

Sherie was the first replacement for Idina around 1997, and was only with the show for a few months. I'm not sure what exactly went down. I recall Sherie saying that RENTheads loyal to Kristin Kelly treated her with hostility; I believe she even said she was booed on several occasions (fans booed instead of mooing). But that's just my admittedly cloudy memory of something that happened 20 years ago.

I don't really believe Kristin Lee Kelly would have been a pain in the ass enough to make Jett leave. There were bigger things going on.

This, I do know, is correct. Kelly replaced Jet, but there was no correlation/causation with her leaving. Jett had plenty of other reasons why she left when she did.

#104

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 10/11/17 at 9:53am

"When Spider-Man was rewritten, the actors playing the "Geek Chorus" left the show as the characters had been cut entirely. T.V. Carpio, who had originally been part of the Geek Chorus, had already replaced Natalie Mendoza as Arachne."

Gideon Glick was one of the Geeks and said they had to pay their paychecks for their full year's contract so he got paid every week for the remaining 9 months or so and just went to Europe for a long long vacation.

Carole Demas has talked about how they had to keep paying her as long as the Baker's Wife ran (not as long, obviously) and Merrick kept trying to force her into already-running shows because he was paying her anyway.

#105

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/14/20 at 1:31am

HighFlyingAdored97 said: "Samantha Hill replacing Charlotte Maltby as Cosette in Les Mis"

I apologize for bumping an old thread, but I digress. I found it odd that they were so quick to replace Charlotte considering who’s in her immediate family.

My father (AIDS) My sister (AIDS) My uncle and my cousin and her best friend (AIDS, AIDS, AIDS) The gays and the straights And the white and the spades

#106

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/14/20 at 9:29pm

So, Steve Kazee just implied on Twitter that there was more, besides his father that why he left Pretty Woman...

https://twitter.com/SteveKazee/status/1260060851110703106

#107

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/14/20 at 9:44pm

It was very obvious why he left that show. And she just had his baby. Nothing to do with his trailer or dogs.

#108

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/14/20 at 10:18pm

Wait, what was the main reason?? The reviews he got? I know his dad’s house had caught on fire that time and his fiancé just had the baby last month.

#109

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/14/20 at 10:24pm

Santino Fontana left the 2010 revival of "A View from the Bridge" during previews. He was replaced by Morgan Spector.

#110

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/14/20 at 10:34pm

Does anyone know the story behind Krysten Cummings abrupt exit from Rent? Or why Amy Spanger suddenly left Rock of Ages?

#111

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/14/20 at 10:54pm

disneybroadwayfan22 said: "Wait, what was the main reason?? The reviews he got? I know his dad’s house had caught on fire that time and his fiancé just had the baby last month."

The reviews for the out of town tryout in Chicago we’re not kind to him - or the show in general. The producers panicked and replaced him with the beloved Andy Karl, whose reception proved that the problem was never Kazee’s performance, it was just a poorly written role in a bad show.

#112

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/15/20 at 12:18am

Disneyfan,

There was no chemistry with Samantha, but he met Jenna when she was in Chicago seeing the show, and there was a spark. That Summer he moved to LA, started dating her and has barely done a thing since.

I was really looking forward to seeing him back on Broadway again. Oh well.

#113

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/15/20 at 12:29am

Sutton Ross said: "Disneyfan,

There was no chemistry with Samantha, but he met Jenna when she was in Chicago seeing the show, and there was a spark. That Summer he moved to LA, started dating her and has barely done a thing since.

I was really looking forward to seeing him back on Broadway again. Oh well."

He’s had a kinda strange MT career in a way. Before he got Once and won the Tony for it, he didn’t have a lot of theatre credits, and then it was a full 5 years since lost that he got cast in Pretty Woman, which ultimately didn’t work out for him, and like you say, he hasn’t done much since.

#114

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/15/20 at 12:30am

Valerie Harper was fired from the out-of town tryouts of “ Thieves” and replaced by Marlo Thomas, who opened on Broadway in the mid 1970s. Harper said she was fired because the producer was romantically involved with Marlo, and wanted to give her a job.

#115

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/16/20 at 7:29am

I bet Betsy Wolfe is sn*ing at the news from FROZEN.

"Charlotte, we're Jewish"

#116

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/17/20 at 4:04pm

Louis Gossett Jr. played 6 performances as Billy Flynn in Chicago before departing due to asthma.

Jeremy Piven abruptly left Speed the Plow due to... sushi

My favorite coincidence is Craig Bierko in Matilda and Jeffrey Tambor in La Cage. Both left abruptly, and were first replaced by their understudy, Chris Hoch, before being permanently replaced by Christopher Sieber.

Additionally, I saw Joan Jett in Rocky Horror, she was at best underwhelming and miscast. If I recall correctly Daphne said in an interview somewhere that she had to teach Joan backstage etiquette, including tipping her dresser. I do however love the lowered keys for Columbia on the cast recording with Kristen Lee Kelly.

"Grease," the fourth revival of the season, is the worst show in the history of theater and represents an unparalleled assault on Western civilization and its values. - Michael Reidel

#117

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/17/20 at 4:42pm

If I recall correctly Daphne said in an interview somewhere that she had to teach Joan backstage etiquette, including tipping her dresser.

I've worked in theater for thirty-plus years. To be fair, I doubt this is common knowledge among people who have little/no theater experience, as Jett did when she was in ROCKY HORROR.

#118

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/17/20 at 6:52pm

In recent history, the whole Sophia Caruso thing comes to mind.

That Annie with Barbara Walters interview is really sad and brings to mind LIFE AFTER TOMORROW. What a horribly depressive, yet utterly fascinating film. There's two other examples of young girls being replaced notably that come to mind as well--Annette Ferra in LOLITA, MY LOVE out of town and Audrey Bennett was let go from FROZEN on Broadway according to someone I know because she had trouble paying attention in rehearsals.

This doesn't totally count, but Nikki Blonksy was fired from Lisa Lampenelli's STUFFED Off-Broadway, and according to a friend who worked on the show, it was because she was chilidsh, immature and didn't know how to even get to rehearsals from Long Island. Apparently her mom even wrote letters to put in her lunch. Most people know this already but she's very emotionally stunted.

#119

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/17/20 at 6:54pm

evic said: "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."

Also would love to know if there's any truth of this. If it were, it would seem deeply ironic considering the subject material.

#120

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/17/20 at 7:01pm

alex814 said: "Does anyone know the story behind Krysten Cummings abrupt exit from Rent? Or why Amy Spanger suddenly left Rock of Ages?"

Same question re Amy Spanger (totally bizarre situation) but Krysten Cummings could not sing the score, sadly.. She joined the Broadway cast in June of 1999, but could not do 8 shows a week due to vocal problems and was performing 50% of shows in July and August. She got her voice back towards the end of her run (and I am thrilled I got to see her), though, and she left weeks before her replacement (Maya Days) took over, so maybe something else was going on as well...

#121

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/17/20 at 7:08pm

Plannietink08 said: "I bet Betsy Wolfe is sn*ing at the news from FROZEN. "

Was Betsy Wolfe ever in consideration for one of the leads? (Forgive me, I didn't really follow the show that much)

Also, in restrospect do we know anything more about what happened with Kimiko Glenn in Waitress?

#122

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/17/20 at 7:29pm

One point that I feel I need to add to this thread:

Actors getting fired/replaced happens more frequently than we hear about. We only really hear about it at the Broadway level, but it happens at ALL levels of professional theatre. And in many cases the reasons are clear to all involved. I personally have been replaced twice:
-The first time, I had initially been given one role, but a couple days before rehearsals was switched to a different role since the creative team was having trouble casting it, and my initial role was given to another actor. Lo and behold, it was immediately clear at the first rehearsal that I was not right for the role I was switched to, so the team continued the casting search and kept me on as an understudy for both roles.
-The second time, I was recovering from a serious injury I had a few months before the show. I made it through most of the rehearsal process, but was replaced right before tech week since I was still unable to safely execute fight choreography.
I have since been hired to work for/with people from both of these companies, which goes to show that this is a more common occurrence than one would expect and is often not personal.

#123

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/17/20 at 8:05pm

JuneJune said: "Plannietink08 said: "I bet Betsy Wolfe is sn*ing at the news from FROZEN. "

Was Betsy Wolfe ever in consideration for one of the leads? (Forgive me, I didn't really follow the show that much)

Also, in restrospect do we know anything more about what happened with Kimiko Glenn in Waitress?"

Re Betsy: Betsy was in serious consideration for Elsa and actually had the part during the initial workshops with Alex Timbers as the director. I believe when Michael Grandage was brought on he kept her for one workshop and then replaced her with Caissie by the next.

Re Kimiko: I always assumed she left because of her filming OITNB

My father (AIDS) My sister (AIDS) My uncle and my cousin and her best friend (AIDS, AIDS, AIDS) The gays and the straights And the white and the spades

#124

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/17/20 at 8:07pm

disneybroadwayfan22 said: "Wait, what was the main reason?? The reviews he got? I know his dad’s house had caught on fire that time and his fiancé just had the baby last month."

Steve Kazee was the worst part about Pretty Woman, easily. (If you don’t count Jason Danieley who was severely wasted in his part).

My father (AIDS) My sister (AIDS) My uncle and my cousin and her best friend (AIDS, AIDS, AIDS) The gays and the straights And the white and the spades

#125

Actors being fired / replaced

Posted: 5/17/20 at 9:18pm

When "Wicked" played its tryout at the Curran, San Francisco, Robert Morse was the Wizard, Kirk McDonald was Boq, and John Horton was Dr. Dillamond. All three were replaced for Broadway: Joel Grey took over as the Wizard, Christopher Fitzgerald became Boq, and William Youmans was the new Dr. Dillamond.

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