Has this ever happened?

[James2]

Posted: 1/17/15 at 12:07am

I was thinking today about some of the shows this season that had tryouts, and a hypothetical went through my head.

Say a show does a tryout, they make changes during the interim, they begin previews on Broadway, and then they reverse one of those changes and opening night has them doing the scene/number how it was done out of town. Does anyone know of any shows that ever did that?

[haterobics]

Posted: 1/17/15 at 12:09am

Well, it wouldn't be on opening night proper, since they freeze the show about a week before opening, and a lot of the press review the show a day or so before opening night...

[James2]

Posted: 1/17/15 at 12:11am

What I meant was they freeze the show using the original version of the scene/song after trying to change it.

[gleek4114]

Posted: 1/17/15 at 12:15am

I don't know the exact time line of it, but "Build a Wall" was cut from Shrek out of town and added back in either later in the out of town run, or when it transferred. I'm not exactly sure which it is.

[binau]

Posted: 1/17/15 at 1:04am

This barely counts but they tried removing an intermission for FOLLIES during previews and then went back quickly after.

[mikem]

Posted: 1/17/15 at 8:16am

Like in the example above, this didn't involve the out-of-town tryout, but when I saw Catch Me If You Can for the first time in previews, the final number, "Strange But True," was cut entirely. The story seemed to end extremely abruptly, and I later heard that the number was only cut for a couple of performances before it was put back in. I went back and saw the show at the final performance, and it ended in a much more satisfying way with the last number intact.