Skip to main content
My Shows
News on your favorite shows, specials & more!

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities — Page 2

Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.

#26

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities

"The only character Judy Garland ever played was Judy Garland."

I assume you mean on Broadway . . .
#28

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities

Vanessa Williams in a revival of IRMA LA DOUCE

Harry Connick Jr in PAL JOEY

Joe Mantegna as Billy Flynn in CHICAGO
2016 These Paper Bullets (1/02) Our Mother's Brief Affair (1/06), Dragon Boat Racing (1/08), Howard - reading (1/28), Shear Madness (2/10), Fun Home (2/17), Women Without Men (2/18), Trip Of Love (2/21), The First Gentleman -reading (2/22), Southern Comfort (2/23), The Robber Bridegroom (2/24), She Loves Me (3/11), Shuffle Along (4/12), Shear Madness (4/14), Dear Evan Hansen (4/16), American Psycho (4/23), Tuck Everlasting (5/10), Indian Summer (5/15), Peer Gynt (5/18), Broadway's Rising Stars (7/11), Trip of Love (7/27), CATS (7/31), The Layover (8/17), An Act Of God (8/31), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (8/24), Heisenberg (10/12), Fiddler On The Roof (11/02), Othello (11/23), Dear Evan Hansen (11/26), Les Liaisons Dangereuses (12/21) 2017 In Transit (2/01), Groundhog Day (4/04), Ring Twice For Miranda (4/07), Church And State (4/10), The Lucky One (4/19), Ernest Shackleton Loves Me (5/16), Building The Wall (5/19), Indecent (6/01), Six Degrees of Separation (6/09), Marvin's Room (6/28), A Doll's House Pt 2 (7/25) Curvy Widow (8/01)
#30

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities

John Cullum as Sweeney Todd

Kathy Bates as Rose in Gypsy

Anne Hathaway as Anne Egerman in A Little Night Music
"It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg." -- Thomas Jefferson

Updated On: 7/18/11 at 09:29 AM

#31

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities

Wasn't Harry Connick Jr rumored, at one point, to be interested in playing Pal Joey?
"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
#32

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities

Sutton could still do Mattress, she's barely into her early 30s and still reads in her 20s.

She's 36. As much as I love her, I don't think looks in her 20s.
#33

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities

Kelly Bishop as Joanne in Company
"It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg." -- Thomas Jefferson
#34

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities

Sutton's 36? Well she still reads as young, and Winnifred doesn't have to be a 25 year old. Carol Burnett certainly wasn't pretty, just funny and charming.

Bishop could probably still play Joanne regionally.
http://www.youtube.com/huskcharmer
#35

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities

Cyndi Lauper as Princess Winnifred
Lady Gaga as Fanny Brice (not actually a missed opportunity yet!)
Gwyneth Paltrow as Nellie Forbush
Mickie Rooney as Peter Pan
#36

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities

For some reason, I believe Robert Morse would have made a pretty good Buddy in FOLLIES. That's all.
#37

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities

Two major revivals of rock musicals were planned in the Eighties that never got off the ground. The billing for one always made me smile:

DIVINE
in
THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW

She's the sweetest transvestite of them all!

The producer was about to start talks with Mr. Milstead's manager, but the day they were to meet, Divine turned up dead.

Also apparently booted about was a major revival of JCS in the Eighties with Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson as the leads, but that's only ever been heard as rumor*. (I think it would've been great, personally.)

* I can confirm the Divine casting, as I work for/with the producer in question.
"There is no problem so big that it cannot be run away from." ~ Charles M. Schulz
#39

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities

The 1994 Central Park production of KISS ME KATE with Kevin Kline that never happened.


And my fantasy - what if in 1997, after the closing of STEEL PIER, Karen Ziemba and Kristin Chenoweth could have reunited for a revival of WONDERFUL TOWN?

Updated On: 9/4/11 at 01:28 PM

#42

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities

"Sutton could still do Mattress, she's barely into her early 30s and still reads in her 20s."

"She's 36. As much as I love her, I don't think looks in her 20s."

Sutton always reads younger to me. She'd be a great Winnifred, but I'd rather see it go to Leslie Kritzer. Also, I feel she kinda already played the part in SHREK.

Also, she's NOT too old! Tracy Ullman did the movie, and she's was in her forties. Denis O'Hare was Prince Dauntless. They don't have to be young kids, it can be played either way.
#43

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities

Liza as Mama Rose about the time Daly did it.
Or 30 years ago, Chita as Mama Rose and Liza as Louise.
Or how about when Lupone is ready to exit Evita, Meryl Streep agrees to a 6-month run before she films the movie.
#44

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities

Nathan Lane as Hanratty -- I loved Butz but Lane would've been excellent as well. he did it in workshops.

Angela Lansbury as Phyllis or Carlotta

Natasha Richardson & Vanessa Redgrave as Desiree and Mme Armfeldt (in a full production)

Norm Lewis as Coalhouse

Chita in Dear World

Beth Leavel as Mrs. Meers

Rachel York as Victor/Victoria --- coming full circle!
#46

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities

Liza would have made a terrific Madame Rose back in the day. Her "Some People" and "Rose's Turn" are sensational!

It still hurts me that they didn't end up getting Judy Garland and Ann Margret for Rose and Louise for the 60's film version.

Kelly Bishop as Joanne? Where do I sign? I love that woman. It could still happen, right? Please?

The Kevin Kline/Julie Andrews Sweeney Todd film I once heard about simply fascinates me. Mary Poppins as Mrs. Lovett? Once again...where do I sign?
#47

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities

Going with the songs/parts we can only lament Judy not singing/playing - "I'm Still Here"/Carlotta. I also think Ann Margret would have knocked that part out of the park at one point.

I would have loved to see Alice Playten take on Hattie in the current revival of Follies. She would have been a bit younger than most other Hattie's, but she truly was a Broadway baby (look up her performance of "Poor Little Person" on the Ed Sullivan show).

Going along with the current production of Follies, Eartha Kitt as Solange. Would love to have heard that throaty growl of hers on "Ah, Paris!"
#48

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities

Vanessa Williams as Phyllis Rogers Stone or Desiree Armfeldt
Donna Murphy as Maria Callas (MASTER CLASS)
Natasha Richardson and Liam Neeson in ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

It doesn't warrant a full production, but I've always been surprised that Encores! or some other limited revival company never mounted HALLELUJAH, BABY! for Audra McDonald.
"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
#49

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities

It doesn't warrant a full production, but I've always been surprised that Encores! or some other limited revival company never mounted HALLELUJAH, BABY! for Audra McDonald.
It could still happen, couldn't it?


I was thinking that Victoria Clark could've have made a fantastic Amalia Balash.
When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain. -Kad
#50

Brilliant Missed Casting Opportunities

I want to get back to the anecdote about Elvis's career getting saved by taking the role of - I guess Tony - in West Side Story? Huh? Leaving aside how successful he would have been in the role, his film career certainly didn't die in the early 60s. In fact most of his movie successes - Viva Las Vegas et all - were after West Side Story. Not before it.

BroadwayWorld TV


Ticket Central
Hot Show
Tickets From $59
Hot Show
Tickets From $71
Hot Show
Tickets From $71
Hot Show
Tickets From $95