Posted: 11/27/19 at 12:26pm
The Distinctive Baritone said: "brettarnett said: "The Other One said: "The original production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? had an alternate matinee cast for George (and all other roles). The first Broadway revival of Man of La Mancha had a matinee alternate for Don Quixote.
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Was there a specific reason why Woolf had an alternative cast?"
The play is three hours long and very emotionally draining on the four actors. However, that is the only time to my knowledge but there have been alternates for a non-musical on Broadway. The subsequent revivals have not done this, and I think the reason for it at the time was the fact that having only four people do this kind of play was a relatively new thing. Now it is more common place. Straight playsused to have larger casts back then in general.
Also, I believe that actor playing the title role in ThePhantom of the Operais only contractually obligated to do seven performances a week,and the two understudies are somewhat unofficial alternates. The same withJean Valjeanin the original run of Les Miserables."
Also, I am not sure if this had anything to do with them having alternates, but no other production of the play has run for a year and a half. It's possible that doing 8 performances a week for that long proved impossible for the cast and the quality of the work suffered. The fine actors who substituted on matinees (Elaine Stritch and Sheppard Strudwick among them) may have guaranteed a better performance.
Mine explicitly has its cast listing like this: 
