Posted: 7/12/26 at 12:33pm
I know this is probably the most basic theatre related question out there but let’s face it these broadway world message boards can be a little bit too much for one person to take. So I think it’s about time to bring some simple light hearted discussion back to these boards once and for all with this question: if you could go back in time and see one broadway show in person, what would it be?
Posted: 7/12/26 at 12:53pm
A tie. "Merrily We Roll Along" and "Into The Woods". Original productions.
Updated On: 7/12/26 at 12:53 PM
Posted: 7/12/26 at 1:01pm
The one R&H I have yet to see, ME AND JULIET. It pretty much doesn't get done.
Posted: 7/12/26 at 1:01pm
Streisand's "Funny Girl"
Posted: 7/12/26 at 1:22pm
Godspell, original Toronto cast. I can't WAIT for the documentary.
Posted: 7/12/26 at 1:35pm
Tenor8674 said: "The one R&H I have yet to see, ME AND JULIET. It pretty much doesn't get done."
You would then get to see Shirley MacLaine’s Broadway debut in the dance ensemble. On this show is where she met Joan McCracken and took her in-between matinee performances acting classes. Shirley also met at this time, Joan’s husband, future choreographer/director, dancer Bob Fosse. 2 years later, Shirley’s life and career would change overnight while understudying one of THE PAJAMA GAME’s leads, Carol Haney. Shirley would later go on to kickstart Bob Fosse’s career as a legendary film director by demanding he direct her in the 1969 film adaptation of his SWEET CHARITY, not just choreograph it, which Universal Pictures had initially only intended to hire him for.
Posted: 7/12/26 at 1:51pm
I’d definitely see Ethel Merman in Gypsy. I think she is so perfect in the bootlegs I’ve heard, I don’t really think any of these other women ever came close to being nearly as good as she was in the role.
Posted: 7/12/26 at 1:59pm
May 1966 -- great broadway musical shows on the boards: Mame, Sweet Charity, Man of La Rancha, Funny Girl, Hello, Dolly!, Golden Boy, A Time for Singing, Skyscraper, Merman in Annie Get Your Gun revival, off-off- Broadway Cafe Cino Bernadette Peters in 1 hour version of Dames at Sea, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever with Harris and Cullum. New York City Center revival of Wonderful town with Elaine Stritch, final weeks of Hal Prince's Superman.
Posted: 7/12/26 at 2:03pm
OBC cast of A Chorus Line.
Posted: 7/12/26 at 2:08pm
Carrie -- and I'm not trying to be funny.
Updated On: 7/12/26 at 02:08 PM
Posted: 7/12/26 at 2:27pm
TheatreMonkey said: "Carrie-- and I'm not trying to be funny."
Who said it wasn’t funny? Besides, this might be a hot take but I would love to see a Carrie revival on broadway, but only if they get a great director with a true vision and a book writer who deeply understands this material (Michael Mayer/Danny Strong you stay away from this)
Posted: 7/12/26 at 2:42pm
Liza Minnelli in Flora The Red Menace.
Updated On: 7/12/26 at 02:42 PM
Posted: 7/12/26 at 2:44pm
Fred Mason said: "I’d definitely see Ethel Merman in Gypsy. I think she is so perfect in the bootlegs I’ve heard, I don’t really think any of these other women ever came close to being nearly as good as she was in the role."
She’d run your irritating ass out of the theatre so damn quick 🤣
Posted: 7/12/26 at 3:27pm
TheatreMonkey said: "Carrie-- and I'm not trying to be funny."
Don’t know where you’ve been but CARRIE today holds a certain respect in Broadway folklore with Betty Buckley including it on occasion on her social media postings and always comments on postings with CARRIE content. Even Debbie Allen, who for decades removed herself from the show and never including it on Playbill bios, has since come around and speaks about CARRIE and shares great backstories of her time with the musical.
On the 21:15 mark, Debbie speaks about the show on her recent PLAYBILL: My Life in the Theatre:
Posted: 7/12/26 at 4:03pm
BrodyFosse123 said: "TheatreMonkey said: "Carrie-- and I'm not trying to be funny."
Don’t know where you’ve been but CARRIE today holds a certain respect in Broadway folklore with Betty Buckley including it on occasion on her social media postings and always comments on postings with CARRIE content. Even Debbie Allen, who for decades removed herself from the show and never including it on Playbill bios, has since come around and speaks about CARRIE and shares great backstories of her time with the musical.
On the 21:15 mark, Debbie speaks about the show on her recent PLAYBILL: My Life in the Theatre:
"
I've been aware Carrie for 31 of 39 years on this earth -- one of my dance teachers (when I was a kid) was in the ensemble. I'm well aware of the new found respect it has, but you can't deny that there isn't a still a tinge of jest when people speak of it -- I was merely expressing my earnest desire to see it for all of it's, until recently acknowledged, brilliance.
Posted: 7/12/26 at 4:40pm
The original Sunset Blvd production, ideally with Elaine Paige but honestly its more about the production rather than cast.
Closely followed by original Beauty and the Beast and the original London production of Martin Guerre
Posted: 7/12/26 at 6:09pm
Six words: Jesus Christ Superstar, original Broadway cast. [Or, as I call it, "Insect Christ Futurestar."] I recently did a pictorial walkthrough using the Friedman-Abeles photos from the NYPL digital collection, with help from original cast members and Tom O'Horgan's assistant, and it looks fascinating.
Updated On: 7/12/26 at 06:09 PM
Posted: 7/12/26 at 6:48pm
Original Broadway Casts of
A Chorus Line
Grease
Hair
Promises, Promises
West Side Story
Bye Bye Birdie
Company
Evita
Two Gentlemen of Verona
No Strings
Gypsy
I couldn’t pick just one….
Updated On: 7/12/26 at 06:48 PM
Posted: 7/12/26 at 6:51pm
I would go back to 1994 and tell that was a high school kid in the lobby of the Minskoff, at 7:15p to use the credit card and get a ticket! He can babysit and pay his parent back. Sigh!
Posted: 7/12/26 at 7:17pm
I'd go back to Dec1, 1968, for the Broadway opening of Promises, Promises, and stay a few weeks to catch
the original cast of "Hair,"
the soon-to--become-legendary-flop "Golden Rainbow,"
Anita Gillette as Sally Bowles,
Marlene Dietrich, with Burt Bacharach's musical arrangements, at the Mark Hellinger
Zoe Caldwell as Jean Brodie
and venture off-Broadway for the original "The Boys in the Band" and Bernadette Peters in "Dames at Sea"
Posted: 7/12/26 at 10:51pm
I feel like I remember an identical thread about a year ago?
Posted: 7/13/26 at 12:17am
Voter said: "I feel like I remember an identical thread about a year ago?"
There was. I remember saying that I would have wanted to go back to see the opening night performance f Bells Are Ringing (even though I knew from the movie and cast album that I would be bored for some of the (dated) numbers). I loved Judy Holliday in everything I saw her in and would have loved to see her live, especially in a show where her character had nothing but great songs, including one of the all-time great 11:00 o'clock numbers.
It's always an interesting topic.
I most enjoyed Merle57's post, since I saw virtually every show that Merle57 mentioned, plus two that were either left out intentionally or forgotten: Fiddler on the Roof, which I think opened in Fall 1964 and would remain open for another 8 years, and (possibly) Half a Sixpence (not sure when it closed)...it opened in the same season as Fiddler and ran about 15 months, so it could have been closed. Also, in those days, Lincoln Center staged 2 musical revivals at the (then) New York State Theatre, and the second musical after Annie Get Your Gun was a production of Show Boat, with outstanding performances by Barbara Cook as Magnolia, Constance Towers as Julie, and William Warfield singing Old Man River.
Thinking back to my 16 year old self, you really were right. There were an incredible number of great musicals open at that time. So many classics in their initial production. The only things that you might have regretted wishing for if you were able to see them were A Time for Singing, which was all about the male chorus and was really boring; and Skyscraper, which was just mediocre in every way. It is criminal that Julie Harris received a Tony nomination instead of Joan Diener; in her first and only musical, even at 16, I could see that she had no stage presence in a musical. While On a Clear Day was not a great show, it was thoroughly enjoyable and was my introduction to Barbara Harris, whose greatness as a musical comedy performer was sadly exceeded by her success in avoiding Broadway after The Apple Tree.
But to think that the original productions of so many shows that became true classics were all open at the same time is pretty amazing when I think about it.
Posted: 7/13/26 at 2:04am
My Fair Lady. Oh, to hear Julie sing again…….
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