Posted: 7/17/16 at 5:56pm
My Grama took me to see Beauty and the Beast on Broadway when I was 10. It was my first show and my first time in NYC. Everything about it was absolutely magical! It certainly was the spark that began my love for theater and NY! I remember it like it was yesterday.
Posted: 7/17/16 at 6:07pm
Great topic! My first Broadway show was Miss Saigon (1997)--grade 12 school trip. I received the cast recording in junior high and knew every word. For years I thought about the day I'd see it in NYC. I remember the hair on my arms standing up when Matt Bogart (who played Chris) belted Why God, Why? and being amazed by the dancers' unison during American Dream.
Posted: 7/17/16 at 6:10pm
Beauty and the Beast - March 5, 1998
Toni Braxton was Belle, James Barbour was Beast, and Meshach Taylor was Lumiere.
I was just south of 5 years old.
Updated On: 7/17/16 at 06:10 PM
Posted: 7/17/16 at 6:30pm
A small add on to my earlier post...
My second trip to NY, as I mentioned, was in February 2002 - only 5 months after September 11th. I had started making plans to visit the summer before, and I remember when it happened just being completely confused, and wondering if something like that could happen when I was there. As the time for the trip got closer, and I had decided to stick to my original vacation plan, I remember everyone at the place where I worked at the time thought I was crazy for going, and tried to paint a picture that the whole city would be closed down, or something.
Obviously, nothing like that happened. Went on the trip, and had the time of my life. It certainly wasn't the "lifeless, sad" place that some of my friends were certain it would be. I remember walking home from a show one night, and just looking at the city and people around me, and thinking what a glorious city it was, and how I would like to come out and do this every year.
So I did.
Posted: 7/17/16 at 6:32pm
Guys and Dolls with Nathan Lane and Faith Prince. They set the bar too high.
Posted: 7/17/16 at 6:57pm
As a kid, under 5 probably, Beauty and the Beast.
Posted: 7/17/16 at 6:58pm
Mine was for my 8th birthday in June of 1988. My parents took me to see Into the Woods. I don't think I even new what a musical was, but I remember seeing the commercial and just being entranced by what I saw. I was lucky enough to see the entire original cast, but with Phylicia Rashad as the Witch. That was what got me hooked. So it's kinda cool that production was filmed for great performances, and I can relive my first broadway experience, time and time again.
Posted: 7/17/16 at 7:06pm
My aunt & uncle took me and my cousins to The Sound of Music in April of 1998. Rebecca Luker was our Maria. Was going through all my old Playbills recently and discovered a familiar name listed as "Ensemble/us Maria" --- Laura Benanti, in her Broadway debut.
Posted: 7/17/16 at 7:32pm
I've been trying to remember which show I saw first on trips to New York. I first went with my future wife in 1990, saw Six Degrees of Separation at Lincoln Center before the Broadway transfer. So I guess my first Broadway show was probably Phantom.
And in keeping with The Secret Garden theme, we saw that the following year.
Posted: 7/17/16 at 7:57pm
Actually on Broadway was Book of Mormon on 25 November 2015. In Melbourne it was Annie on 25 April 2001 when I was 10; the girl who played Molly became one of my best friends in high school.
I also attended Les Mis in utero!
Posted: 7/17/16 at 8:17pm
The original west side story...i was about 6, and my mom said I went ballistic during the dance in the gym number. We got the cast album and I drove everyone crazy in our house for about a yr, playing that thing a zillion times. I had decided right then and there, I was gonna be a musician, and I am. Lenny was my G-d.
Posted: 7/17/16 at 8:18pm
My parents actually just found the playbill from my first show very recently. Apparently it was Footloose at the Richard Rodgers Theater, I believe in February of 1999. Jeremy Kushnier was Ren at the time, and I only have a vague recollection of sitting in the mezzanine and the stage being washed in a red light. I think I was somewhere between 7 and 8 at the time so I don't remember much of it at all. It certainly didn't register as something I had to keep seeing more of at the time, or even something I'd end up working in one day.
Posted: 7/17/16 at 8:20pm
The first show I ever saw on Broadway was the FIRST Les Miz revival. I was a latecomer! I'd been seeing tours since the mid '90s, though.
Posted: 7/17/16 at 8:36pm
Mamma Mia in 2007.
Posted: 7/17/16 at 8:40pm
I consider my first "Broadway" show to be The Lion King tour in Nashville on December 2, 2006. It was a dream come true to see that show, and I credit it with beginning my love for the theatre.
My first show actually on Broadway was Mary Poppins in March 2009 from the second row of the New Amsterdam balcony. Funnily, I remember less about Poppins than LK even though LK is further in the past. I do remember that the leads for MP were Scarlett Strallen and Adam Fiorentino, and Rebecca Luker was still in the show, although I didn't know how prolific a career she has/had had at that point.
I saw Aladdin at the New Amsterdam on my second trip to New York in Jan. 2015 and have tickets to see it there again in December (from the same seats I saw Mary Poppins from, incidentally) , so I suppose I can't go to NYC without stepping into the New Amsterdam! :)
Thanks for this thread!
Posted: 7/17/16 at 8:41pm
GODSPELL (Off-Broadway, but that's a technicality) in 1971.
I'd always loved live theater - from early early days - and loved the local theater and summer stock productions in our town. The very first live performance I ever saw was a community theater summer production of LI'LABNER! I was about 5 or 6.
I was 12 when I saw GODSPELL and it changed my world. From the on, it's easier to list what I didn't see than what I did! I grew up just outside of NYC and my parents loved theater so it became a favorite family activity. Once I was old enough to take the train to NYC by myself, a friend and I used to spend just about every Saturday seeing both a matinee and an evening performance of whatever we could get tickets to. My Playbills are packed away, but I have them all.
Great thread topic. Thanks for giving me a reason to revisit some cherished memories.
Updated On: 7/17/16 at 08:41 PM
Posted: 7/17/16 at 8:47pm
My first wasn't exactly Broadway, it was "Carousel" with John Raitt at the brand-new Lincoln Center (before the Vivian Beaumont was built) in 1965 when I was nine.
Then on a senior year trip in HS, the first show on the list was "Pippin" with Ben Vereen and the rest of the OBC followed by "The Changing Room," "The River Niger," and "The Hot L Baltimore."
Finally, my first trip as an adult (and my husband's first ever) was the original cast of "Rent" and also "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" with Nathan Lane and "A Delicate Balance" Since that trip, we've visited roughly annually - seeing 96 shows (I keep a spreadsheet)
Updated On: 7/17/16 at 08:47 PM
Posted: 7/17/16 at 8:53pm
My first Broadway show was "Whose Life is it Anyway?" in 1979. I went because Tom Conti had just won the Tony Award. It was fantastic!
Posted: 7/17/16 at 9:01pm
1776, in 1969 on a Junior high school class trip (OG). They had me at Sit Down, John. Hooked for life . Then came Jesus Christ Superstar, Pippin, A Chorus LIne. Chicago and Sweeney Todd, through high school and college.
Posted: 7/17/16 at 9:04pm
I saw Phantom in NYC in October 2006. I was only 5 at the time, but my grandmother had played the Canadian Cast recording for me on car trips so many times, that many of the songs were familiar to me. But I still remember seeing it onstage, and just how spellbound I was by it. So glad I was exposed at such a young age 
Posted: 7/17/16 at 9:04pm
COMPANY, 1971. High school trip; I was 17. Saw FOLLIES the next afternoon.
Posted: 7/17/16 at 9:06pm
That's an epic combination!
Posted: 7/17/16 at 9:15pm
1st Broadway show - FALSETTOS: John Golden Theatre, March 17, 1993 @ 2:00 PM. Mandy Patinkin, Chip Zien, Stephen Bogardus, Barbara Walsh, Maureen Moore, and Susan Goodman (Heather MacRae's understudy).
1st Professional show - CATS: National Tour in Charleston, WV, October 15, 1990 @ 8:00 PM.
I'm planning a trip to NYC this October where I intend to revisit BOTH of these firsts with their respective revivals opening!!!
Posted: 7/17/16 at 9:18pm
"Pipe Dream in 1956, I was five years old." DanceEditor for the win so far, but I know, it's not a competition.
Mine was the original FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, in 1967 when I was 11, by which point Harry Goz had replaced Hershel Bernardi who had replaced Zero Mostel. (I did get to see Zero as Tevye maybe 10 years later in his Bway revival.) But my really transformative Bway memory came 6 years later seeing the original cast of A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC. Dec 31, 1973.
