Galveston Island Outdoor Musicals

This was a summer stock company that I was a part of for a few seasons. Some broadway and national tour performers were leads in the show and some people made it to Broadway and national tours after. It's pretty much a place where someone know someone who did shows there for at least one summer.

Here are some of the people who got to Broadway or were already on Broadway -

Robert Gallagher - Javert in Les Miserables, Forbidden Broadway
Marie Danvers - Christine in "Phantom of the Opera"
Skip Harris - Original company of "Sweeney Todd"
Ann Sanders - Belle in "Beauty and the Beast", currently Christmas Eve in "Avenue Q"
Dontee Kiehn - 42nd Street revival, Gypsy w/ Bernadette Peters
Michelle Potterf - Chicago
Mark Arvin (RIP)- Chicago, Fosse, Swing, Moving Out

There's probably more I'm forgetting. But does anyone know anyone who worked at GIOM?

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Very good talent there. I saw "South Pacific" there in the 90s.

Real planes flying over head was an unusual special effect. I am not sure if it was just coincidence.

Thanks, Chevtriss! Hope you are doing well. I forgot about Jeanne and Michelle. Also, Robert Ari, who played Tevye in Fiddler, played Inspector Barnes in the recent revival of Bells Are Ringing.

ErinDillyFan, I did the second summer they did "South Pacific" in the 90's - so you might have seen me play in the pivotal role of Henri, the polynesian butler of Emile DeBeque (played by Jack Dabdoub - another Broadway veteran).

Calvin - Yeah, all the GIOM actors had the same opinion as you. It was hard to perform with a sea of people walking around getting popcorn and drinks. Talent was always good, but as time went on - the talent declined. I no longer performed and snuck in to see shows and was really disappointed in the talent and production values pretty much sucked!

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Great! That was a great production and fit the venue very well. Unfortunately, the theatre was in major debt and that was the reason for the decline. I heard they were not paying chorus people and just offering comp tickets.

They moved the theatre to an indoor theatre in the Moody Gardens, but the talent and production values have not improved. I hear "Mary Ellen" from the Waltons is direction a musical revue that I think she wrote herself.

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You know I stand corrected, TxTwoStep. I really only saw the shows a couple summers after I stopped auditioning there. But I do know that a certain director/choreographer did shows there and so I know that the talent would have improved with him there. Certainly in the part of casting great dancers!

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since they moved indoors, I think they are back on the clicktracks, or synthesizer keyboard. For a couple of years toward the end of the outdoor productions (maybe two or three years ago) the orch was live and was mainly college students, just as the cast was. The shows were pretty good, not great production values, but energetic dancing particularly and some fine singing. The student pit seemed to have no trouble with staying in tune.

I do recall hearing that "back in the day" GOM spent a lot of money on symphony recordings of the golden musicals to use as accompaniment, maybe even the London Symphony. They may have been relying on those lately for the "chestnut" productions of things like FAIR LADY and DOLLY last season; not really familiar with titles this season, though I heard maybe 42nd STREET was among them. The crowd that now seems drawn to the Convention Center for the shows is fairly older and conservative, so war horse titles and musical revues around themes (like country music, movie music, or patriotic music) seem to play well. Very Branson-esque.

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