Interesting Facts You Didn't Know About Your Favorite Shows.. — Page 2

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"1. The first Wicked Witch was fired because she was too pretty for the role of a witch.
2. The second Wicked Witch quit because she didn't want to become ugly like a witch."

You are thinking of the same person. The woman originally considered for the part of the Witch was Gale Sondergaard. She and Mervyn LeRoy originally envisoned a glamorous witch, just like the one in Snow White (which was a huge box-office smash the year before.) But studio executives protested, sayng you can't have a glamourous witch, she has to be ugly. So LeRoy had the make up artists give Sondergaard the ugly treatment, bue Sondergaard was not going to be ugly for the movie, so she quit. Then Margaret Hamilton was hired.

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Maybe OT, but "Somewhere over the Rainbow" was cut from "The Wizard of Oz", I can't remember who through a fit to get it put back in. Apparently, no one at the studio liked it and it didn't test well.

The fit throw-er would be Judy Garland. Bless her heart.

On the opening night of Oklahoma! the finale (the song Oklahoma) was given 14 encores. I love that fact.

Updated On: 2/15/14 at 09:38 PM

Actually, the sheet music publisher for MGM Studios (Harms?) was the one pushing to dump the song "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and the reason? Because the song was so long that they would have to publish and extra one page insert in the sheetmusic. Once he began talking up dumping the song, it began to snowball. The person who threatened to quit was not Judy Garland (get real, she was a frightened, insecure 16-year-old girl who was being told to lose weight) No it was the nascent producer Arthur Freed who threatened to quit if the song went (and it tested fine).

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Yes, "Without You" was originally a duet between Maureen and Joanne during the 1994 NYTW. You can look at the libretto for it at link below.
Rent NYTW Libretto

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Most of this comes courtesy of Ken Mandelbaum via his 2 excellent books:

- in early performances of CHORUS LINE, Zach would "cast" different people on different nights- an idea of Bennett's to increase the tension of not knowing who would be chosen. after a little while they had to set it in stone due to the logistics of the quick change into the "One" outfits

- Barry Bostwick was originally working to create the role of Zach but was dismissed for "being too sympathetic". The next choice was Chris Sarandon, but he wasn't enough of a dancer- so Robert LuPone was bumped up from the role of Al, which he played in workshops

- ACL lyricist Ed Kleban absolutely hated "What I Did For Love" and considered it one of the worst songs he had ever worked on. His will included express instructions not to have it performed at his funeral

- JEKYLL & HYDE went through numerous incarnations before reaching Broadway, with many songs coming, going, and morphing. "Someone Like You" was at one time a duet between Lucy and Jekyll and "Good & Evil" was sung by Simon Stride, who ran the whorehouse at the time

- the JH "Confrontation" went through several changes. originally a different actor (Dave Clemmons) would come out of a mirror as Hyde and fight Jekyll. this was replaced on tour by the projection of a big green head that sang the Hyde parts

- Lynn Ahrens is the voice of "What Would You Do For A Klondike Bar?"

- David Yazbeck was an early writer/collaborator of vocal group Rockapella

- speaking of Rockapella, curly-headed tenor Kevin Wright played Joly and understudied Marius in LM on Broadway, dating Deborah Gibson for a time

- ill-conceived but well-written flop LOLITA MY LOVE starred Denise Nickerson in the tile role. She is best known as Violet from the original Willy Wonka movie

- well-conceived but poorly-written flop DOONESBURY featured a young Gary Beach as Duke

- Tim Rice considers CHESS to be his best work

- Marvin Hamlisch considers SWEET SMELL his best score

- in the Japanese production of LES MIS, the young girls were played by actual children while Gavroche was played by a small woman. child labor laws only allowed minors to work until about 9 PM, so Young Cosettes were safe but Gavroche's scenes fell too late in the play

- George Bush, Sr is the only US President to have invested in a Broadway show. He put up money for a 1952 5-performance flop, then played a hand in Neil Simon's "Come Blow Your Horn" a decade later

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Updated On: 10/13/06 at 04:51 AM

House and Garden was performed at my local theatres a few years ago - it was written for Aykebourne's home theatre in Scarborough which has two theatres ajoining. My local theatre (I believe) is the only other one in the UK where it can be performed like this.

I only saw Garden but that was very good. My Parents saw both halfs and said that it was a good play on it's own without the gimmick, and that after a while you forgot that there were two plays going on because everyone arrived on cue so well.

The only real problems were at the curtain - it was difficult to time because of audience response.

Stunt double! Yeah, I knew it was something like that. Thanks, actor.

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"Anatevka" was originally written as a lively comedy number to open Act 2 of FIDDLER.

Danny Kaye was originally offered the role of Tevye. Well, actually, the producers talked to his wife/manager Sylvia Fine. She turned them down, saying Danny would never play a man with three grown daughters. Mr. Kaye never even knew he'd been offered the part. A few years later, he returned to Broadway in TWO BY TWO, playing Noah, a 600-year old man with three grown sons.

Paul Newman screen tested for the role of Curly in the film OKLAHOMA but the role went to Gordon MacRae. How cool would that have been?

You are right ErinDillyFan. Judy Garland was a kid of 16 at the time. She had no power and never threw any fits during the filming. She was a sweet kid, intimidated and at the same time in awe of the three men playing her co-leads. She was still pretty innocent. What happened later, well, happened later....

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