OBC of My Fair Lady
OBC of Follies
and, for curiosity's sake, the first preview of Merrily We Roll Along which apparently had most of the audience walk out before the first act was over.
Funny Girl OBC, Mame OBC, and the JRB Parade OBC. Honorable mentions: Titanic OBC, Ragtime OBC, Follies OBC, Secret Garden OBC, Doctor Zhivago OBC, and N2N with either Jessica Phillips or the gorgeous, late, great, Marin Mazzie.
opening night for :
SWEENEY TODD...OBC
MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG...OBC
GYPSY with Patti LUPONE
with one extra for good measure...MAME...OBC
They’re Playing Our Song
Liza in Chicago
I Love My Wife
All of which I have seen but would love to revisit those memories.
Opening nights for:
Original West Side Story
Original Music Man
Hamilton at the Public
(and, if I get a fourth, Original Camelot)
Stand-by Joined: 3/30/18
To join the chorus for two of my picks:
Follies (OBC)
The Glass Menagerie (OBC)
And one new one:
The Visit with Lunt and Fontanne
Since I'm so damned old, and have been going to theatre since the late 1950s (got to see Merman in HAPPY HUNTING, GYPSY, ANNIE GET YOUR GUN and DOLLY), my picks are a bit different (although I love reading the lists):
1. ANYONE CAN WHISTLE with Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury (I had tickets, could only go to Saturday matinees, and the show closed before my May matinee came up, never got over it, and convinced Steve and Arthur to let us do an off-Broadway revival in 1992 as a three-week benefit for BroadwayCares/EquityFightsAIDS).
2. THE MUSIC MAN with Robert Preston and Barbara Cook
3. CAMELOT with Richard Burton and Julie Andrews (saw it near the end of its run, with William Squire, a Welshman like Burton, giving a wonderful carbon copy of Burton, and aging soprano Kathryn Grayson doing unnecessary runs and trills).
This is so hard but I'd probably go with:
-Hamilton OBC
-Dear Evan Hansen OBC Opening Night
-Ragtime (either OBC or revival)
Featured Actor Joined: 11/30/16
I would have loved to have seen the original Show Boat for the historic opening. Second I would have marveled seeing Ethel Merman in Anything Goes and smelled how they perfumed theatres back then. The third ticket would be to see Pal Joey and Gene Kelly dancing.
Leading Actor Joined: 1/23/12
* Thread Bump *
Fiddler on the Roof (2004 Broadway Revival with Alfred Molina as Tevye)
American Idiot (with Billie Joe Armstrong as St. Jimmy)
Beautiful (with Melissa Benoist as Carole King)
Honorable Mention:
Waitress (with Sara Bareilles as Jenna and Jason Mraz as Dr. Pomatter)
Stand-by Joined: 2/5/19
Legally Blonde
Hairspray
Carrie ('88)
1. Angela Lansbury in GYPSY
2. Natasha Richardson in CABARET
3. Patti LuPone in ANYTHING GOES
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/14/11
So many to choose from. But right now I'd say:
1. Original off-Broadway Assassins
2. Original Streetcar Named Desire (Marlon Brando, Jessica Tandy, Kim Hunter Karl Malden, et al)
3. 2003 Long Day's Journey Into Night (Brian Dennehy, Vanessa Redgrave, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robert Sean Leonard)
Swing Joined: 1/23/20
I'd like to see a version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch with John Cameron Mitchell, either the original run or the Broadway revival, I don't mind which.
The other two would be one of the previous versions of Hadestown, to see how it evolved over time, and The King & I with Yul Brynner.
Show Boat 1927 - broke the mold
Integrated songs with plot
Integrated cast on stage together
Plot dealt with racism and hard lives of African Americans
Ol’ Man River
Helen Morgan
Crazy demand for tickets after opening crashed the Telecharge web site
My Fair Lady - Love Julie
42nd Street - opening night when David Merrick announced death earlier in the day of Gower Champion
Phantom Of The Opera with Michael Crawford - missed seeing him in it by three weeks.
Rent with the original Broadway cast.
Fences - James Earl Jones
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/26/19
Very hard choice, but:
Hamilton at Public
Rent at NYTW
Dear Evan Hansen OBC
Honorable mentions: August: Osage County on Broadway, Chorus Line during its original run
Laurette Taylor in Glass Menagerie
Ruth Gordon in A Doll's House
John Gielgud in Hamlet
*****
Pearl Bailey in Dolly
Richard Kiley in Man of La Mancha
Ethel Merman in Anything Goes
Chorus Member Joined: 5/6/19
Sweeney Todd OBC with Angela Lansbury, Len Cariou, and Victor Garber
Jesus Christ Superstar OBC with Ben Vereen
Next to Normal with Marin Mazzie and Aaron Tveit
Honorable Mention: Opening night of Hamilton at the Public
Private Lives (1931) (Noel Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Laurence Olivier, Jill Esmond)
Broadway Star Joined: 11/10/14
Barbra- opening night- Funny Girl
Original West Side Story
My Fair Lady
Long Day's Journey with Redgrave and Dennehy
I'd go back in time 3 separate times and see Judy at Carnegie Hall 3 times.
I couldn't settle on just three shows, so I'm dividing my answer into musicals and plays.
Musicals: Girl Crazy for Ethel Merman's Broadway debut
Porgy and Bess, OBC
On The Town, OBC
Plays: Orson Welles's Voodoo Macbeth
Death of a Salesman, OBC for Lee J. Cobb originating Willy Lowman
Streetcar Named Desire, OBC for Marlon Brando originating Sanley Kowalski
Judy - Since I got my Amazon Echo smart speaker I keep asking it to play Judy at Carnegie.
Babes in Arms Rodgers & Hart
I Wish I Were in Love Again
Where or When
My Funny Valentine
The Lady is a Tramp
The best recording of this song ever? (1967 TV Special)
Johnny One Note
But the book is supposed to be so bad that can’t be revived. And when MGM made the film they cut all five songs.
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
One of the benefits of being an old geezer is that I got to see all the great shows with their original casts.
Still, I would have loved to have seen Laurette Taylor in the original GLASS MENAGERIE and Jessica Tandy in STREETCAR. My 3rd choice; to relive the opening of DOLLY! on January 16, 1964.
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