The Marriott Marquis, which revamped Times Square, turns 40 today- Page 2

[Mr. Wormwood]

Posted: 9/7/25 at 6:50am

Those elevators though...

[binau]

Posted: 9/7/25 at 10:53am

 


 

On 7th August 2011, I went to the Marquis theatre for the first time. It was the first preview of Follies. How exciting, Bernadette Peters opening a brand new prestigious Sondheim revival. The theatre is perfectly located and I’ve since seen that you can actually see recorded the Follies marquee in the background of the 2011 NYE Lady Gaga performance, and in a small cut scene from Times Square in the SBC movie ‘the dictator’. 


I found it very strange to enter through a hotel and the whole place has this nice but slightly dated 90s feel. I kind of loved that the theatre entrance felt in a glass casing, I could see through the glass before the first preview that the playbills were in colour given it felt common at the time that playbills would turn to black and white to save costs (do shows still do that?). And I loved seeing the posters for Bernadette’s other shows on the wall: The Goodbye Girl and Annie Get Your Gun. 


Everyone here kept talking about how ironically Follies did not belong in this theatre and they wanted it somewhere like the Belasco. It seemed to represent the very thing the show was fighting against - historic theatres being torn down ‘for a parking lot’. But Follies was a VERY last minute transfer, if I recall tickets were on sale only 7-8 weeks before the first preview. It was also a limited run. So they needed a large theatre to theoretically recoup and they couldn’t exactly take their pick. 


So how were they going to fix this? We walked in the theatre and it was an ‘immersive’ experience before people brand it as such. The walls were draped with black building site blankets and lanterns. The stage was all broken and uneven. The proscenium stylistically decrepit. This was not the same marquis theatre!
 

Every day I refreshed the seating chart, trying to get a sense of how well I could forecast the box office health. It became clear close to the first preview that there was a bit of hype around the show - it actually started grossing over a million and at one point had the highest grossing week of any Sondheim show ever on Broadway. Costs were 650k per week, which was very economical even at the time despite the large orchestra, cast and somewhat lavish production. 

 
Michael Riedel actually posted about the potential to make money. 


https://nypost.com/2011/09/14/avoiding-financial-follies/


There was also chatter here that Follies should perhaps change theatres to keep going - right now it was a bit of a filler show before Ricky Martin and Elena Roger opened Evita 


Was amazing to be the first in the audience to see a number of changes from the DC pre-Broadway run, almost all of which improved the show and led to a very positive write up from Ben Brantley in the NYtimes. 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/theater/reviews/follies-on-broadway-review.html?unlocked_article_code=1.kE8.v2lK.1a4Og6bu6JTS&smid=url-share

 

I also still remember what it was like to hear the orchestra start playing the beautiful, eerie atmospheric Prologue with a large orchestra. It was unusual at the time because we just went through a wave of scales down Sondheim with tiny orchestras: eg the John Doyle Company and Sweeney, where actors played their own instruments. And the transfer of the west end/menier chocolate factory Night Music (I have since been there and they actually have references to this in a display case, and the La Cage tony etc). 

 

Notably, I gasped when Bernadette walked out in a pink homely dress instead of a sexy red dress. Gregg Barnes, who won a Tony for his costumes in this show, said he read every comment online and took action (this board hated the red dress!). He also threw Bernadette under the bus to say that the red dress was chosen at the request of ‘the star’. But this is a good evidence point to emphasise that sometimes working with stars can be hard if they don’t want to be directed (see also, Billy Porter in Cabaret). Still, Bernadette has a reputation for doing what is asked for her sometimes at her own detriment (see Arthur Laurents’ book mainly on directing where he claims Bernadette’s performance only took its ‘rightful place’ after she ‘ignored’ Sam Mendes and took the role to where it needed by the end of the run). So when push came to shove, she threw her red dress in the metaphorical trash. 

 

They restored the trio ending of ‘Broadway baby’ and Jayne Houdyshell replaced Linda Lavin, who was hilariously cute and funny in the role. Mary Beth Peil now did “ah! Paris” who was also glamorous and who articulate the lyrics better than the previous French cast member in DC. 

 

All of the other supporting ladies also seemed to make a large impact in their small roles: Elaine Paige was glamorous and her voice was amazing with “I’m still here” (but she forgot the lyrics at the first preview and she did forget on occasion throughout the run). Terry White brought the house down with her commanding vocals and stage presence leading “Who’s that Woman” (which also gave us the opportunity to see Bernadette tap - she said she would practice this before every show to warm up). 

 

But the real hype around the production were the leads: Jan Maxwell, a classy theatre actress known for plays not musicals who ‘humble brag’ said she was offered the role before she even knew what the show was was glamorous and brought credibility to the gravity required in the acting. She wasn’t a dancer but even managed a cart wheel. There was hype she would win the Tony, but she lost to Audra. Many jokes on this forum about Jan Maxwell’s bag. 

 

Ron Raines, a soap opera star hiding a bellowing and dark operatic voice. 

 

Danny Burstein, who said he had a crush on Bernadette when he was younger and now gets to act it along side her. Was also hyped to win the Tony but didn’t. 

 

And of course Bernadette, who brought her Sondheim pedigree and felt she was having an unstoppable come back, I mean return, after her important and intimate performance of ‘send in the clowns’ at the Walter Kerr in Night Music and after being on hiatus after Gypsy, and suffering from her husband dying in a helicopter crash. 

 

I will die on a hill that despite some of the criticism at the time, Bernadette was not miscast. “She is blonde, petite, pert, sweet-faced and, at 49, still remarkably like the girl she was 30 years ago” as described in the libretto is basically Bernadette. In this production, they gave Bernadette a long extended entrance where she walked out overwhelmed. People complained it put her cards on the table immediately and gave her no where to go, but come on after 30 years of waiting for this moment I think that is probably an appropriate reaction. 

 

This was an era where it was fashionable to have leading female musical performances whose characters have mental health issues and/or extreme emotions for example. We had Christine Ebersole in Grey Gardens (2006), Patti LuPone in Gypsy (200, and Alice Ripley in next to normal (2009) practically win back-to-back Tonys. This was Bernadette’s chance to make her own mark. Sondheim suggested that we had only seen Bernadette go there ‘in the movies’ and there was a particularly dark piece by Jesse Green in nymag about this. 


Jesse Green: she has been descending the Sondheim ladder, rung by rung, to reach, finally, the madness that is Sally


Bernadette Peters: “Oh yes, Sally is the darkest”


Bernadette/Jesse: 

 

“Why did I want to go there?” she asks, and it takes me [Jesse Green] a moment to realize she means herself, not Sally. “Because I forgot there was no happy ending!” She fingers a tiny crescent-moon necklace at her throat; in the long pause that ensues, the subject of her husband’s death in a helicopter crash in 2005 seems to hover and then dissipate. “But it wouldn’t have stopped me,” she resumes softly, “if I knew.

 

https://nymag.com/arts/theater/features/bernadette-peters-2011-8/

 

In the wall street journal, it seemed Sondheim bought into it “He thinks she's very neurotic, and she is very neurotic, so he said to me , "Congratulations. She's crazy."

 

I thought the hysterical lines she read was heartbreaking “he, he held me anddd the band was playing. Im getting married and im going to live forever with the man I love”. I was so happy they actually captured this on the cast recording. 

 

And seeing Bernadette slumped shoulders hopeless at the end “what am I going to do?”. It was dark. 

 

Anyway, despite criticism of her vocal health (and she indeed cracked during too many mornings during the first preview), I will also die on a hill that Bernadette’s classic vulnerability and intimate vocals served the character well, especially the final verse of In Buddy’s Eyes by here she makes clear the subtext that she is not happy with Buddy despite the words coming out of her mouth. 

 

Still, Bernadette’s performance was polarising and her vocals weren’t easy listening for many. She also had a few strange line readings that I’m sure I remember JORDAN making fun of “I’m. Sorry. I. Don’t. Have. To. Fight. With you.”

 

There were even a couple of hilarious forbidden Broadway parodies you can check out. 

 Sondheim in parody: 

“it has a real orchestra, a book that’s a musical version of who’s afraid of Virginia wolf. anddddd Bernadette Peters is here……….sigh….again…to bring on the Sondheim girls 

 

Bernadette in parody: look at my dress, strictly a mess, never the less 

 

Bernadette in parody: You know it’s all so glamorous, Steve lets me be in all of his shows whether I’m right for the part of not!

 

—-she then sings a buddy’s eyes parody called ‘in Stephen’s ears’ lamenting that her voice is beautiful….to Stephen’s ears.—-

 

Hilarious. 

 

Now, after refreshing the seating charts every day I started to notice that when the discount ran out the advance sales were terrible and the show was about to drop off a cliff. Inline with my prediction, the show did begin to tank. I remember ljay saying I was right. 


It started to shape my perceptions along with many other examples (eg war paint, company, Audra Gypsy) that these kind of prestige shows have about 11-12 weeks of strong box office before they start to decline unless they can reach the general population. 


At one point, there was talk that Bernadette would do Follies in the west end directed by Trevor nunn in addition to this production. However, it ended up not happening and Bernadette did her final performance as Sally - and as a leading role in a Sondheim show right now - in January 2012. 


I’ve heard an audio of the final performance and Bernadette’s ‘in buddy’s eyes’ was particularly striking, slow and intimate like Nicole S did for ‘with one look’ at her final Sunset. Slow and indulgent is how I like it. 


They announced the show would go on…without Bernadette…to LA. Variety reviewed the show that ‘Victoria Clark replaces the miscast and vocally compromised Bernadette Peters’. Ouch. 


I suppose Bernadette did eventually perform ‘losing my mind’ on the same stage in LA 13 years later in ‘old friends’ although now her voice was particularly hoarse. 


Heartbreak when in spring 2012 BERNADETTE WAS ROBBED with no nomination. And again in 2024 with old friends. 


Still, the production and show remains an important part of my life. The amazing thing about the material is that it takes on different meaning over time. In 2011 I particularly found the unrequited love aspects of the story relatable. But over time as life becomes locked from your choices “the road you didn’t take” suddenly is much more haunting, and after experiencing long term relationships I finally get the naivety of ‘love will see us through’, and the rage of ‘could I leave you?’.


I am sure when I’m old, and elderly the meaning of show will continue to evolve. 


Bernadette and Elaine still seem to have a bit of a relationship! 

 



 

I’d be very interested to talk to anyone who worked on the show and has stories to share - over the years I have received a PM or two of people sharing stories. Everyone continues to rave about Bernadette’s personality. 

 

Updated On: 9/7/25 at 10:53 AM

[Birdie Boy]

Posted: 9/7/25 at 3:14pm

I thought her Losing my Mind in Old Friends has theist show stopping number of last season. It was stunning. 

[uncageg]

Posted: 9/7/25 at 3:50pm

binau...Also when you walked in you could hear the "ghosts" whispering before the show started. I thought that was a nice touch.

I saw it on the 16th, the Tuesday after you, and I loved every moment of that evening.