National Tours Vs Regional Productions

[BwayLB]

Posted: 4/6/25 at 3:48pm

In almost 2 decades of attending theatre I’ve seen spare amounts of national tours and regional productions. Which do you prefer?

[BorisTomashevsky]

Posted: 4/6/25 at 4:02pm

Generalizing here: tours often have great talent but that talent can often be tired and unfamiliar with the space they’re performing in, depending on how long a run is or how long they’ve been in the venue, which can mean a performance isn’t quite centered. The tech elements can also feel like they don’t fit well, especially sound. Not their fault at all, just the economy of it. 

Regional productions will often be much more calm all round, as there isn’t the time crunch that tours can have and there’s the benefit of a week or more in the space. 

I think I always feel better “communicated-with” at a regional production of something, but have seen great tours as well (usually in the case of several-week runs).

[BwayLB]

Posted: 4/6/25 at 7:44pm

I’ve seen more regional than national tours since COVID hit. Beforehand it was the reverse

[dramamama611]

Posted: 4/6/25 at 7:54pm

Since I go to NY frequently, I seldom see tours.  In the last 5 years I think I've gone to exactly one.  (Hadestown)

 

Regional theater I go to often. I get to see new work, unusual and off beat work, as well as new interpretations of known work.

Is it all good? Nope. And that's ok. I consider myself lucky to have so many vibrant theaters in Boston.  

 

 

[Jarethan]

Posted: 4/7/25 at 12:20pm

I live part of the year in Sarasota, FL, which is dubiously referred to as the 'art capital of Florida'.  In Sarasota alone, they have a large theatre that handles national tours, and three really excellent regional theatres.  One of them, the Asolo, has put on a number of productions which I felt were as good as the originals...Josh Rhodes directed productions of Cabaret, Evita and Crazy for You that I honestly felt were better than the Broadway productions (he had the advantage of being able to take advantage of the original ideas and then add his own concepts....the results were great.  Many excellent productions have been presented over the years.  There is then the added advantage that the theatre seats about 700 people, I imagine, so you are relatively close in even the cheapest seats.

I have seen many touring productions over the years.  They were very professional, well cast, and they generally were slightly to very scaled-down versions of the Broadway productions.  If you see the show in Tampa, you are in a barn, and you don't have to be very far back to feel that you are really too far from the stage.  I cannot even imagine seeing a small show in that barn, e.g., Kimberly Akimbo.  In Sarasota, not quite a barn, but a theatre with a lot of bad seats IMO.

So, all things considered, the intimacy of the regional theatre wins for me every time.