Oh right. I suppose they were pitched slightly differently (nothing like "Bette Midler. Hello! Dolly. Enough said" but it would seem a little bit revisionist not to acknowledge that A Little Night Music was a major star vehicle for the Broadway debut of an academy award winning film star (who won the Tony for the performance) - not an easy thing to follow, and the legendary Angela Lansbury. Their names were bigger than the title of the show on the poster. The significant drop in sales when the stars swapped also suggested to me that audiences had the same idea.
yeah. another difference, though, it was her best bff's show.
I firmly believe Murphy was brought in not so there would be 8 performances a week, but moreso for Murphy to fill in for Midler's 4 weeks of vacation.
Interesting that the writer reports that 3 of the 4 best musical nominees are having a benefit performance, and then he moves on to Dolly. Dolly is not one of the nominees-- there was no mention of The Great Comet, which seemingly is not doing a benefit performance. He should have clarified that this was a REVIVAL. Although all of us know this, it's misleading making it sound like Dolly is the only show not giving such a performance.
Understudy Joined: 11/5/14
HogansHero said: "Even setting aside all of the other considerations I would say getting either of them to go into the show as a replacement is absolutely impossible.
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Bernadette Peters went in as a replacement for Catherine Zeta Jones in A Little Night Music a few years back didn't she?
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/2/14
Someone posted on here that he had a friend who was friends with Bernadette and that she had been asked to take over for Dolly. Have no idea if it's true, but she'd be a fantastic Dolly
Broadway Legend Joined: 1/22/14
I wonder if they're going to look into pop stars to replace Bette. Dolly Levi is supposed to be older but she doesn't have to be a woman in her 60s-70s.
Swing Joined: 8/29/17
I don't think they will do a special performance with Bette - which would undoubtedly raise a lot of money for The Actors Fund. If they try to do one with Donna - it won't make a lot. And I highly doubt Scott Rudin will donate the proceeds from one of the performances in lieu of an extra performance. All of this is sad - special performances are the best!
Not sure if this was mentioned, but it looks like they had one on Monday with Donna(?) https://instagram.com/p/BbIivmSH7oI/
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