I would love to see Laurette Taylor in The Glass Menagerie. There has been so much written about her legendary performance and no tape (that I have seen).
Original Broadway Cast of: Rent Wicked Evita The Phantom of the Opera Gypsy Anything Goes Funny Girl Into the Woods Les Miserables The Lion King Thoroughly Modern Millie West Side Story 42nd Street Sunset Boulevard Spring Awakening The Sound of Music The Producers Oklahoma! Dreamgirls
Agree with all the above. Never saw Merman in GYPSY but did see Ann Sothern as Rose about five years later. I've seen all the Broadway Roses since and she was still my all time favorite.
I did get to see Lansbury three times in MAME (twice on Broadway and once in stock at Westbury) and to this day her performances were not only consistent and mesmerizing but the best I've ever seen. And she was so glamorous in her day.
Another moment I'd like to relive again was seeing Barbara Harris on stage in THE APPLE TREE. She was another one of a kind performer.
My Mom had a friend in the theatre who did see Laurette Taylor in GLASS MENAGERIE (she just turned 90). She's the only person I've ever spoken to who actually saw her on stage. One thing she said she's never forgotten about her performance that stayed with her all these years was her delivery of the simple line, "Rise and shine" off stage. She said in those few words there was such a pain, sadness and weariness in her speech pattern that told you so much you needed to know about her character in such a short moment.
Shows I'm sorry I missed or would have loved to have seen:
ONE TOUCH OF VENUS LADY IN THE DARK CANDIDE (1956) I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE SHE LOVES ME (1963) ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER 110 IN THE SHADE (1963) ANYONE CAN WHISTLE REDHEAD NEW GIRL IN TOWN HOUSE OF FLOWERS
And I'd love to go way back in time and see some of the Gershwin (OH KAY), Porter (LEAVE IT TO ME), Berlin (AS THOUSANDS CHEER), Kern (SALLY) and Rodgers and Hart (BABES IN ARMS) shows from the past.
It would be to go to 1935 and see Helen Hayes as Queen Victoria in Victoria Regina. I saw Ms. Hayes only once in the 1960s as Mrs. Candor in School for Scandal and I immediately knew what "radiant on stage" meant. The feeling was overwhelming and it remains perhaps as my most outstanding theatre memory.
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My favorite comment so far? "Madeline Kahn in "On The Twentieth Century", on a good night" with the last part of that sentence being the important part! Good one, Jay Lerner.
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