Question about Larry Kert and the original Company- Page 2

[JBradshaw]

Posted: 1/24/22 at 8:58pm

HeyMrMusic said: "On the Beauty and the Beastcast recording,Barbara Marineau is Madame de la Grande Bouche instead of Eleanor Glockner, who originated the role. I don’t know the story there.
."

BatB in previews was the very first show I saw on Broadway. I remember buying a cast recording and program. 
maybe cause the cast recording was recorded between the tryout and Broadway why the different la Grande? 

[gypsy101]

Posted: 1/25/22 at 2:31am

imeldasturn said: "Judy Kuhn was nominated for a Tony for the 1993 revival of She Loves Me, but Diane Fratantoni sang the role in the cast recording. But this was the opposite case of what happened with Company, since they recorded the album many months into the run and Kuhn had already left.”

i’m still very sad about this. i wish Judy had recorded the score, i heard a bootleg recording of Vanilla Ice Cream and she sounded fantastic

 

[PhumeleleToniJose]

Posted: 1/25/22 at 4:39am

Larry Kert is looking to both his past and his future in his performances at the Ballroom, where he will be singing through next weekend. His past is represented by songs from “West Side Story” and “Company.” His view of the future is broader, including material from three forthcoming Broadway musicals in which ha will not appear, as well as one in which he will. There is a simple, jauntily bouncing song from Jerry Herman's “Grand Tour,” a lusty bit of Italian festivity by John Kander and Fred Ebb from “The Rink” and an intense, mood‐ridden song from “Sweeney Todd,” by Stephen Sondheim, with whose work Mr. Kert has had his major successes.

[The Other One]

Posted: 1/25/22 at 6:14am

PalJoey said: "I was 14 when Company opened and quickly became obsessed by it. I ended up seeing it four times: once with Dean Jones and three times with Larry Kert.

The documentary about the making of the album is so powerful and moving, and no one who had ever seen the documentary but NOT the original production will believe me, but onstage Dean Jones was cold and withholding, to the point of being uninvolving. His "Being Alive" was, frankly, unmemorable.

Speaking as someone who saw the original production four times, Larry Kert was far superior.

(And though Stritch was a revelation, Barbara Barrie was my favorite of the women.)"

I was 12 and saw it twice, both times on Saturday matinees with John Cunningham going on for Larry Kert as Bobby.  I am sorry that I never got to see Kert, but Cunningham was a dashing Bobby.  Barbara Barrie was my favorite of the wives, too, although all of them were memorable.  

I did see the Company cast reunion in 1993 in Southern California.  It is hard to imagine Dean Jones being as you say, he was so very engaging it felt as though the world was finally seeing the show as it was meant to be seen, but I will take your word for it.  If he was as miserable at the time as all reports claim him to have been, it was probably inevitable that it would affect his performance.

 

[LarryD2]

Posted: 1/25/22 at 8:47am

Re: Billy Porter and SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD -- shortly after breaking out in theater, Billy was signed to a record contract with A&M, under the impression that he would become a pop/R&B recording artist. The label did not want him to participate in the cast recording, and they generally tried to downplay his career in musical theater. Ultimately, he was dropped after recording one album and ultimately came back to the theater after the experience.

I don't know the exact reasons why Teresa Stratas declined to participate in the studio recording of RAGS, but it was made in 1991, five years after the show closed, which may have something to do with it. Of course, Stratas always had a reputation for being peculiar, and she often cancelled, so there's that too.