Classic Performances You HAVE seen — Page 2

Hugh Jackman in the Royal National Theatre revival of OKLAHOMA!, which I went to see because I was a big Rodgers and Hammerstein fan -- I had no idea who he was when I saw it in London.

Original Abbey Theatre cast of Dancing at Lughnasa

Marie Mullen and Anna Manahan in The Beauty Queen of Leenane

Donal McCann in The Steward of Christendom

Sinead Cusack in Our Lady of Sligo and Our Few and Evil Days

Judi Dench in A Little Night Music

Hugh Jackman in Oklahoma!

The History Boys

Michael Ball in Hairspray

Fiona Shaw in Medea

Cillian Murphy and Eileen Walsh in Disco Pigs

Daniel Evans and Jenna Russell in Sunday in the Park with George

Elena Roger in Piaf and Passion

Ruth Negga in Duck

Anita Reeves in Sweeney Todd

Lia Williams in A Streetcar Named Desire

Andrew Scott in Hamlet

Updated On: 4/21/17 at 09:03 PM

My personal favorites that I can think of off the top of my head (in no order)...

Neil Patrick Harris - Hedwig

Sutton Foster - Anything Goes

Bette Midler - Hello, Dolly!

Michelle Williams - Cabaret

Cynthia Erivo - The Color Purple

Entire cast - She Loves Me (2016 revival)

Maggie Smith, Lettice and Lovage. Not a great play, but a thrill to see one of the greatest actors show her brilliance at comedy and comic timing. Her vocal inflections and line deliveries were priceless, and I remember how she could bring down the house just by the way she would flick a wrist as she delivered a line.

Elaine Stitch in At Liberty. One of the greatest and most joyous one-woman shows I've ever seen. She had us roaring with laughter and then suddenly tearing up. I was too young to have seen her in Company, so it was an unforgettable thrill to hear her sing The Ladies who Lunch, still spectacularly.

Liza Minnelli during her three-week run at Carnegie Hall around 1986-87. Phenomenal.

Patti in Gypsy. Spine-tingling.

Angela Lansbury, Blithe Spirit. In Toronto. I didn't see her in Mame or Sweeney, but grew up treasuring those albums, so finally seeing her was a thrill. and very moving to see her managing wonders of comedy in a secondary role, at age 90.

Christine Ebersole, Grey Gardens. One of the most beautifully sung and acted performances I've seen in a musical.

Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in The Producers. In previews in Chicago before it went to Broadway. A great comedy team, and such a thrill to feel we were getting an early look at something that everyone knew would be a huge hit. I've rarely heard an audience roar this way.

Kathleen Chalfant, Wit. Heartbreaking.

Lynn Redgrave, in Shakespeare for my Father and later in Alan Bennett's Miss Fozzard finds her Feet, part of a night of Bennett monologues at Minetta Lane Theatre. She was hilarious and sad and was able to turn on a dime in this poignant monologue, a marvel considering we had heard she was already starting to undergo cancer treatments while she was performing. A performance I'll always treasure.

Bebe Neuwirth in Chicago. One of the greatest dancers.

Chita Rivera and Brent Carver, Kiss of the Spider Woman. In Toronto at a small theatre before it went to Broadway. So excited to see Chita for the first time, bringing exactly the magnetism the show needed in that role, and Canada's brilliant Brent Carver in such a beautiful performance.

Bette Midler's Experience the Divine, 1993. Saw her in Montreal. At the opening, she made her first appearance being lowered from a kind of trapeze/swing from the rafters, and the audience roared. Two hours of brilliance. Not a theatre performance, but will have to be on my list until I manage to see Dolly! I waited in the cold for three hours in March to try to get a standing room ticket during previews, only to have the manager come out at 930 and tell us that there wouldn't be any standing tickets that night. My only chance to see the show on that trip. Made me more determined to go back.

Updated On: 4/22/17 at 11:32 AM

So, so many! Some favorites, excerpts from a long list: William Daniels (and cast) in 1776, Elaine Stritch in Company, the entire original cast of Follies, upon whom not enough praise could ever be heaped, Ben Vereen in Jesus Christ, Superstar and Pippin, Jason Robards and Zoe Caldwell* in Long Day's Journey Into Night, Jason Robards and Colleen Dewhurst in A Moon For The Misbegotten, Colleen Dewhurst and Ben Gazzara in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, George C. Scott in Death of a Salesman and Sly Fox, Chita Rivera* in Chicago, Anthony Hopkins in Equus, Al Pacino in The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, Angela Lansbury* in Sweeney Todd, Christopher Plummer* in Othello, Roger Rees and the entire magnificent ensemble of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby, Judd Hirsch* in Talley's Folly, Mandy Patinkin in Evita and Sunday In The Park With George, Patti Lupone in Evita and Anything Goes, Amanda Plummer in Agnes of God, Maggie Smith* in Private Lives and Lettice and Lovage, Jeremy Irons in The Real Thing, Kevin Kline* in The Pirates of Penzance, Delroy Lindo in Joe Turner's Come and Gone (a VERY underrated performance), Tyne Daly in Gypsy, Stockard Channing* in Six Degrees of Separation, Alan Bates and Frank Langella in Fortune's Fool, Cherry Jones* in The Heiress, Nathan Lane* in The Producers, Alex Sharp in The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Nighttime, Cynthia Erivo in The Color Purple the original cast of Hamilton, Frank Langella* in The Father -- many more, many of which have already been mentioned by others.

* were given to actors who have given many performances worthy of note.

I inexplicably left off Stephen Spinella in Angels in America, so I here give him his very own line.

Updated On: 4/22/17 at 11:36 AM