Who did you see before they were famous?? — Page 2

I saw Mara Davi in 42nd tour as Peggy. That was her first professional gig. This where it gets interesting. I do shows with a girl who went to high school with Mara Davi at the local theatre where Audra McDonald, Sharon Leal, Robert Westernberg, Sarah Uriate Berry started. I see the old show posters and there were like 15 yrs old at the time. Audra did Evita at 16. I've seen some of the tapes. It was hard to believe that she was 16 playing this role.

Ah, Audra in the Secret Garden (1990 or '91?). I was six and don't remember much but I'm sure she was great. In 1994 I saw Patrick Wilson and Sarah Uriate Berry in Carousal (tour), the production that really turned me on to theater. Raul Esparza in Evita tour. Working at Casa Manana as a kid I got to work with some people that went on to reach success, seeing as in the summer we imported young actors from New York as the leads. There were maybe four or five of them, but I guess it's tacky to name-drop. It's great to see actors develop over time. I'm jealous of those who saw the previously mentioned production of Othello! I imagine you'd leave the theater going "Wow... they were *all* great!"

Not yet Hollywood- or Broadway-famous then --

Hugh Jackman in the London production of OKLAHOMA!

Don't know if this counts, but I was just flipping channels and came across an old Saved by the Bell, and there was Gary Beach as a slimy high school ring salesman, hilarious!!

---

Carolee Carmello in "Chess" in 1990

I was lucky enough to be in the theatre dept at Northwestern, so I saw there (and/or worked with) the following talented students:

Megan Mullally
Greg Edelman
Michael Grief
Jayne Atkinson
Richard Kind
Fred Applegate
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Brad Hall
John McGlinn
Susie Plaksin

I am th only non-famous one.

Mandy Patinkin as an undergrad in college playing Tevye in Fiddler (I was around 5 or 6 years old).

Don Johnson playing Tulsa in Gypsy when he was 18 in college. My mom was in the show, too.

Rob Marshall, Judy Kuhn and Donna Murphy in the chorus of The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

I was on stage myself with Marin Mazzie a couple of times before she was "famous."

---

I saw T.R Knight as "tim" in the revival of Noises off before he was in that show....something anatomy?

---

"Mara Davi (my playbill said Melody Davi) on 42nd Street tour. This was 1 1/2 months before Chorus Line in S.F., where I saw her again."

Are you sure it was Mara? Melody is her sister, who played Peggy after her.

And for me, Lisa Brescia as Cathy in The Last Five Years. She had done Aida and JCS at that point, but this was a couple years before The Times and Wicked. (There might be more, but I can't think of them and I'm too lazy to dig out my Playbills.)

Constantine Maroulis in Rent touring

I went to college with Tony Yazbeck. We lived in the same dorm building my freshman year (his sophomore year). I wouldn't exactly have called him a friend, but we hung out on occasion. I can't remember seeing him in any shows back then though.

I saw Patrick Wilson in Bright Lights Big City at NYTW, and Celia Keenan-Bolger in Summer of '42 at Goodspeed.
Lots of random people in RENT - Jai Rodriguez, Norbert Leo Butz, Sharon Leal, Richard Blake. Depends on your definition of "famous" which of these people can be considered as such.

EDIT: EganFan, your avatar (and your name) reminded me - I saw Susan Egan in a pre-Broadway run of Triumph of Love at CenterStage in Baltimore. This was after she'd done Beauty & the Beast, but I had no idea who she was at the time. When I saw her in Cabaret years later, I realized that I'd seen her before. I told her so at the stage door and she was shocked that I remembered because (to paraphrase) "that was a million years ago!"

Updated On: 8/27/07 at 02:09 PM

Barrett Foa, Celia Keenan-Bolger, and Aaron Lazar were in Bye Bye Birdie at Pittsburgh CLO in 1999 and I was in the children's ensemble... Gavin Creel was in Cinderella at CLO in 1997, which I saw