Who did you see before they were famous??- Page 5
Who did you see before they were famous??
RoseStopnikCooks
Stand-by Joined: 12/19/07
#100re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 2/22/08 at 2:20pmJai Rodriguez went to my performing arts high school, Nassau BOCES Cultural Arts Center in Syosset on Long Island.
#101re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 2/22/08 at 2:29pm
Kristin Bell in Reefer Madness.
I didn't even recognize her when I first started watching Veronica Mars, but, when I was cleaning up my Playbills, I noticed her name.
Jonny boy
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/30/07
#102re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 2/22/08 at 2:38pmUpdated On: 2/29/08 at 02:38 PM
#103re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 2/22/08 at 2:52pmIn 1983 Gary Sinise directed a Steppenwolf production of The Miss Firecracker Contest featuring ensemble members Joan Allen, and Laurie Metcalf with Glenne Headly. It was an incredible night in the theatre.
timmmmmmmmmy
bestfreakinshoes
Stand-by Joined: 1/5/08
#104re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 2/22/08 at 2:58pm
Not regional, but I saw Christian Borle when he was in Millie.
A bunch of Blonde folks in PaperMill's Grease: Leslie Kritzer, Becky Gulsvig, Noah Weisberg
#105re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 2/22/08 at 4:10pmJennifer Hudson in Big River at Mariott Theatre. The year was 2001.
timmmmmmmmmy
#106re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 2/22/08 at 4:22pmJonathan Groff in IN MY LIFE
#107re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 2/22/08 at 4:24pm
Shoshana Bean and John Hill in the ensemble of Hairspray
Kevin Cahoon as Ed ("the retarded hienna") in The Lion King
strelimyn
Stand-by Joined: 9/17/06
#108re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 1/17/09 at 1:19amA woman I work with just let me borrow a tape of a production of "Company" 26 years ago in which she starred alongside Isabel Keating as Joanne. A fantastic portrayal!
sumladfrompa.tumblr.com
WishingOnlyWounds2
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/25/08
#109re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 1/17/09 at 1:26am
Julie Reiber as Elphaba in Wicked...
In a few years, that is going to go so well with this thread.
2008: Feb. 18- Rent, Feb. 19- Curtains, April 18- Xanadu, April 22- Wicked, April 26- Legally Blonde, May 31- Wicked, June 13- The Little Mermaid, June 28- Wicked and Young Frankenstein, July 2- The Little Mermaid, July 6- A Chorus Line and Legally Blonde, August 16- Xanadu, September 13- Legally Blonde and 13, September 28- Xanadu and Spring Awakening, Oct. 12-GYPSY and [title of show], Oct. 19- Hairspray & Legally Blonde, Nov. 9- Wicked and 13, Dec. 14-13, Dec. 26- Billy Elliot, 2009: Jan 1- Shrek, Jan 2- 13 and Wicked, Jan 4- 13, Feb 17- In The Heights, Feb 19- Billy Elliot, Feb 22- Sweeney Todd (tour), March 28- Mary Poppins, April 4- Mamma Mia!, April 15- Jersey Boys (on tour), April 25- next to normal & 9 to 5
May 1- Billy Elliot, May 3- Spelling Bee (tour), May 8- Chicago, May 21- Wicked, June 6- Everyday Rapture, June 23- The Wiz, June 25- Hair July 15- Shrek, August 9- Wicked, September 7- Rock of Ages, October 11- Next To Normal, October 23- The Marvelous Wonderettes, November 7- Ragtime November 29- Dreamgirls, December 25- Billy Elliot, December 30- Finian's Rainbow, 2010: January 9- Bye Bye Birdie, January 16- Memphis February 17- The Phantom of The Opera, February 18- God of Carnage, March 7- Billy Elliot, March 31- American Idiot
#110re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 1/17/09 at 1:42am
Fun thread!
Updated On: 1/17/09 at 01:42 AM
Perfectly Marvelous
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/16/06
#111re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 1/17/09 at 1:55am
Aaron Lazar in Chamberlain.
"I am and always will be the optimist. The hoper of far-flung hopes and dreamer of improbable dreams." - Doctor Who
"Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, men recognize that the human race has been harshly treated but it has moved forward." - Les Miserables
#112re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 1/17/09 at 4:53am
Hugh Jackman in Oklahoma.
Catherine Zeta Jones in 42nd Street.
#113re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 1/17/09 at 7:02am
Oh, this list is going to date me. I'm not including people I saw in the chorus. It was helpful going through the other posts first to remind me of some people, although lots of posters are listing actors who aren't remotely famous (except to people who post on theatre chat boards) or who already were pretty established by the time they saw them. If someone had already won a Tony by the time I saw him, that person don't count.
Still, I suppose a few of the people I've listed aren't all that famous. I don't consider John Cameron Mitchell or Carolee Carmello to be famous, but I guess people here do (since others mentioned them), so I included them.
Meryl Streep (New York debut in Trelawney of the Wells and a whole lotta early stuff)
Dianne Wiest (understudy in Happy Birthday, Wanda June and Miranda in The Tempest at Stratford)
Kristin Chenoweth (New York debut in Scapin)
Patti LuPone (Next Time I'll Sing to You and The Robber Bridegroom)
Ted Danson (replacement in The Real Inspector Hound)
Christine Baranski (A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Delacorte)
Jane Krakowski (Fredrika in A Little Night Music at York)
Malcolm Gets (Merrily We Roll Along at York)
Carolee Carmello (Oolie/Donna in City of Angels)
Phillip Seymour Hoffman (The Skriker)
Robert Sean Leonard (The Speed of Darkness)
Richard Schiff (college productions)
Kate Burton (Williamstown, 1980)
David Hyde Pierce (Williamston, 1980, and then a whole bunch of early New York stage work)
Zeljko Ivanek (Williamstown, 1980)
Tonya Pinkins (Merrily We Roll Along)
Harvey Fierstein (original productions of The International Stud and Fugue in a Nursery)
Jonathan Groff (community theatre productions)
Kevin Spacey (Long Day's Journey Into Night)
Peter Gallagher (A Doll's Life)
Mandy Patinkin (Trelawney of the Wells)
Kevin Kline (The Robber Bridegroom)
Debra Messing (Collected Stories)
Georgia Engel (Hello, Dolly!)
John Lithgow (The Changing Room. Breaking my own rule about not listing someone who'd won a Tony by that time.)
Stephen Pasquale (Spinning Into Butter and The Spitfire Grill)
Christian Slater (Landscape of the Body at Second Stage)
William Hurt (a bunch of stuff at Circle Rep)
Kelly Bishop (A Chorus Line. I'm counting her saw I saw it several times at the Public, well before she won the Tony.)
Mark Ruffalo (This Is Our Youth)
Cynthia Nixon (Lydee Breeze, The Philadelphia Story and The Real Thing)
Christine Ebersole (Agnes in On the Twentieth Century)
Ian McKellen (stuff with The Actors' Company, though by that time he was already known in England)
Richard Gere (Killer's Head)
Danny de Vito (The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Delacorte)
Kristin Johnston (The Lights)
Christopher Lloyd (romping around naked in Total Eclipse
Linda Lavin (It's a Bird ... It's a Plane ... It's Superman!)
T.R. Knight (The Lime Tree Bower)
Debbie Allen (Raisin)
I'm sure there are lots of people I'm forgetting.
wickedfan11
Broadway Star Joined: 6/17/06
#114re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 1/17/09 at 8:03am
Eden Espinosa (Nessa understudy in Wicked)
Probably some others too
dg22894
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/22/08
#115re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 1/17/09 at 11:00am
Sutton Foster as Eponine
Seirra Bogess(sp) as Cossete(sp) she was an understudy too
#116re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 1/17/09 at 11:12amYes, indeed. We have often said that if we got out our old Playbills there might be some real surprises. I mean folks we are well aware of now that we didn't even realize we saw then.
"It ain't no myst'ry
If it's politics or hist'ry
The thing you gotta know is
Ev'rything is show biz" - Mel Brooks
#117re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 1/17/09 at 11:58am
Very true. I'd saved my Real Inspector Hound playbill because Lenny Baker was in the cast. A year or two ago I had occasion to look through it and saw that Ted Danson had been in the cast. It must have been a very long time since I'd looked at it.
I should add Betty Buckley in 1776 to my list.
My parents actually saw Shirley MacLaine go on for Carol Haney.
JasonM12480
Broadway Star Joined: 3/17/05
#118re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 1/17/09 at 1:00pm
While I didn't see her live, I remember when Sherie Renee Scott played April O'Neill in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "Coming Out of Our Shells" rock concert tour. It was taped at Madison Square Garden, and I still have the video to this day. I remember being a young kid, thinking "This girl has an amazing voice!", and now as an adult looking back going "Wait - was that....it was Sherie Renee Scott!!"
I also went to high school with Crystal Monee Hall, who's star is rising on the New York cabaret scene, and she was in RENT before it closed, has sung with Scott Alan, etc.
#119re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 1/17/09 at 1:23pmThis isn't that good, but I saw Beth Leavel as Dorothy Brock in the 42nd Street revival. I don't know how well known she was considered back than but you can imagine my surprise a few years later when The Drowsy Chaperone opened. I remember when I saw 42nd Street I turned to my mom and said, wow Dorothy Brock is really good, and now I kick myself for not appreciating her performance even more.
Jon
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/20/04
#120re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 1/17/09 at 2:58pm
My dad was in THE FANTASTICKS in 1982 with Megan Mullally as The Girl. My dad played The Boy's Father. The Narrator was Robert Conrad (of "Wild, Wild West" fame).
Also, actor Michael Shannon (currently featured in the movie "Revolutionary Road") made his professional debut at our theatre when he was 16. There's a big feature article on him in the latest issue of New York Magazine, and he talks about it.
#121re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 1/17/09 at 3:11pm
Sometimes I go down to our basement storage area, and I go through the small stack of old theatre programmes. I personally saw Lara Pulver in Honk!, a great many years before the London premiere of Parade. My mother and sister saw Miss Saigon with a very young Naoko Mori now of Torchwood fame. That might have been the show that had Craig Horwood in it, before he sprouted Revel as a middle name and started judging celebrities doing ballroom dancing on television. I think the best one is the pantomime where the ingenue was a young girl called Denise Outen. That makes me laugh quite a bit. XD
The problem with being a theatre fan is that I'm a really bad judge of fame. I'll be sitting watching, say, Fringe with my family, and then I get really excited and start shouting "OMG IT'S MICHAEL CERVERVIS OMG OMG OMG!". And they all go "... who?". Or I'll say to friends "YOU NEVER TOLD ME SUTTON FOSTER WAS IN FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS!". And they go "... who?". :/
I mean, I saw Edward Bennett in three plays before his current high-ish-profile season at the RSC, but who other than obsessive theatre fans are going to go "of course, David Tennant's understudy!"? *shrugs*
Who knows? Who. Knows? ^_^
Oh, but I bought the video of the National's Oklahoma! before Hugh Jackman was ever announced for Wolverine, so that... almost counts? If I'd joined my theatre group at the time a few months earlier, I'd've gone to see the show properly with 'em, so yeah, it almost counts. XD
Updated On: 1/17/09 at 03:11 PM
#122re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 1/17/09 at 3:37pmI saw Martha Plimpton as Laura Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie at Steppenwolf about 10 years ago. It was of course post-Goonies, but before all of her Broadway success.
#123re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 1/17/09 at 3:56pm
The first national tour of The Secret Garden featured then unknowns: Audra McDonald, Roger Bart, Douglas Sills and James Barbour.
I saw Lacey Chabert as Young Cosette back in the day, before she was on Party of Five, but I just realized that a couple years back.
#124re: Who did you see before they were famous??
Posted: 1/17/09 at 5:16pm
I saw Ashley Spencer in a Community Theatre production of Children of Eden. She isn't FAMOUS but she's on her way.
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