Your first Broadway show? — Page 2

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#26

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/27/25 at 10:31am

Cats, when I was still young enough to be in diapers. But the first show I have strong memories of was Beauty and the Beast (OBC, summer 1994).

"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body

#27

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/27/25 at 11:47am

A Chorus Line at the Shubert. Donna McKechnie had returned to the role of Cassie, and I got to see her.

#28

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/27/25 at 12:21pm

Aspects of Love in summer of 1990. I had memorized the cast recording ahead of time. Michael Ball's voice was glorious. I had an understudy for Rose. As another poster mentioned, the show itself is creepy and lacking in many areas, but I too love the score.

#29

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/27/25 at 12:41pm

First ever Broadway show as in on Broadway was Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman final performance together in Phantom, we had booked tickets from Australia months in advance.

Well I didn't want to get into it, but he's a Satanist. Every full moon he sacrifices 4 puppies to the Dark Lord and smears their blood on his paino. This should help you understand the score for Wicked a little bit more. Tazber's: Reply to Is Stephen Schwartz a Practicing Christian

#30

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/27/25 at 3:34pm

Was already in love with show music from the original London cast recording of Les Mis, but first Broadway show was Phantom of the Opera on 1/4/90. (Saw Les Mis on the same trip a couple of days later.)

The era of the mega-musical was in full swing!

Just remembering you've had an "and" When you're back to "or" Makes the "or" mean more than it did before

#31

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/27/25 at 3:39pm

The Phantom of the Opera on Wednesday, December 16, 1998 at 8pm. I was SO excited because I bought the tickets over the phone and the operator said they were front row, so I expected front row center. They turned out to be all the way at the far end of the row, but it was still incredible. and I saw it 89 more times after that.

#32

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/27/25 at 3:46pm

My first Broadway show was The Lion King in the early 2000s. Bought tickets for myself and my partner with the first stable corporate job salary.

#33

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/27/25 at 4:40pm

I saw Frank Langella as Dracula, at the Martin Beck Theatre (as it was then called), in October 1977. Loved those Edward Gorey sets, but every actor in the cast was great. I was fortunate enough to see the show at the end of preview week, a night or two before it opened, and it was an amazing experience!

#34

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/27/25 at 4:55pm

cmorrow said: "I saw Frank Langella as Dracula, at the Martin Beck Theatre (as it was then called), in October 1977. Loved those Edward Gorey sets, but every actor in the cast was great. I was fortunate enough to see the show at the end of preview week, a night or two before it opened, and it was anamazing experience!"

A bit off topic, but my best friend from college lived next door to Frank Langella during his run in Dracula. As a surprise for my 21st birthday he got tickets to the show for us, afterwards he was insistent that we go to “Ted Hook’s Backstage Bar.” A few minutes after we sat down at a table for 3, Langella walked in and joined us. He said, “I heard it was your birthday” and gave me a show card and a Dracula pendent that was bat shaped with the logo in the middle (I sadly lost this) after a drink he left with a classic, “Good Evening” and laughed. I have the show card framed and in my office. His signature is on the back.

#35

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/27/25 at 5:16pm

Avenue Q when I was 16, also my first ever trip to New York. The armrest came off my seat.

On that trip, I also saw the Doyle Sweeney Todd revival, The Wedding Singer, and The Drowsy Chaperone.

I had seen a number of national tours when I was younger because my dad worked at a performing arts center. The first I can remember is Show Boat, but Phantom was what really made me love theatre.

"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."

Updated On: 8/27/25 at 05:16 PM

#36

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/27/25 at 5:39pm

Phantom was my first show I saw ON Broadway - I was a high school kid. I had seen countless shows on tour prior to then. On my first trip here I saw Phantom, Hair, Billy Elliot, Jersey Boys, and Shrek. Not a bad haul for a first trip!

My first professional live show was the national tour of The Wizard of Oz back in the late 1990s. Eartha Kitt played the Wicked Witch of the West!

"There’s nothing quite like the power and the passion of Broadway music. "

#37

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/27/25 at 5:55pm

My first professional/Broadway show was Grease in the last year or so of its original run. However, I had been performing in shows for almost 10 years (starting in 2nd grade) by then - so was already "sold".

If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it? These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.

#38

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/27/25 at 6:05pm

First show was 1971, Promises, Promises with Lorna Luft. It was during a NYC trip with my family ( my parents were really cool). I’ve loved Broadway ever since!

#39

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/27/25 at 6:20pm

My first show was Oliver! in Miami when I was in 4th grade. On my first trip to NYC December 1976, my first show on Broadway was a matinee of The Night of the Iguana with Richard Chamberlain, Dorothy McGuire, and Sylvia Miles. That evening I saw the Raul Julia and Ellen Greene in Joe Papp's Threepenny Opera at Lincoln Center. I have no memory of how or where I bought the tickets. I also squeezed in my first Met opera that weekend -- Tosca ($2.50 standing room).

Sister George

#40

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/27/25 at 6:58pm

Cabaret at studio 54 starring Melina Kanakaredes, Jon Secada (as the Emcee) and Tom Bosley (as Herr Schultz).

Cap

#41

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/27/25 at 7:02pm

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

Also on that trip I saw Sweeney Todd, Evita, and Sugar Babies.

All shows OBC.

Who wouldn't become a lifelong musical theatre fan after that?

#42

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/27/25 at 9:36pm

My first was Hello Dolly! at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, spring 1978 on a high school trip. Carol Channing did the show with her arm in a sling, from a recent fall. She was magnificent!

#43

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/27/25 at 10:33pm

Got hooked on the theater thing with the mega-musical tours in the early ‘90s when I was in high school - CATS, LES MIZ, and PHANTOM. I also remember just loving the tour of CRAZY FOR YOU and HELLO DOLLY with Carol Channing.

My first shows in NYC were in summer 1995 - graduation gift. The shows we saw were SUNSET BLVD (with Glenn Close), BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, MISS SAIGON, the Harold Prince SHOWBOAT (from the last row of the mezz in the Gershwin), and LES MIZ. I was obsessed with coming to see shows in NYC ever since.

#44

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/27/25 at 10:52pm

The Me Nobody Knows, on a school trip. I think it was at the old Helen Hayes Theater.

#45

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/28/25 at 1:16am

Supposedly APPLAUSE, but I have no recollection of it since I was a child. The first one I remember must be SHENANDOAH - and I only remember that one because they fired a shotgun from the wings and it scared me senseless. I must've been 8 or 9 for SHENANDOAH.

#46

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/28/25 at 11:54am

On Broadway? A Chorus Line (he proudly declared).

Updated On: 8/28/25 at 11:54 AM

#47

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/28/25 at 11:58am

Summer 2008. Wicked with Kerry Ellis, Kendra Kassebaum and Aaron Tveit

#48

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/28/25 at 12:49pm

My first touring show that I recall was the debut of the non-eq Music Man tour in 2001 in Des Moines. I was too young to know that there was drama surrounding it trying to hide its non-equity status.

As to New York, my first show was supposed to be a two-show day of both parts of Harry Potter; however, on the day before, due to a portent of bad weather, I decided to ditch my Yankees ticket and bought a TKTS ticket to Tootsie. I understand why people may not be a fan of the show, but the excitement of being in my first Broadway house and my lack of familiarity with the movie made me the perfect audience member for those jokes.

#49

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/28/25 at 1:08pm

Showing my age here, but the first performance I attended was How to Succeed, which I think I was too young to enjoy. The first show I saw without parents was a really stupid choice.

I was 14 and my parents had agreed to let me attend a matinee with two friends (we lived in Essex County, NJ, which was pretty close). The day before we went, the show Mary! Mary! had become the 10th longest running show in Broadway history, so we decided to see it. Again, probably too young to enjoy it.

My third was Funny Girl the day before my 15th birthday, and the rest is 60 years of theatre going.

#50

Your first Broadway show?

Posted: 8/29/25 at 4:34am

My very first Broadway show was Fiddler on the Roof, towards the end of its original run. Zero was long gone and it was probably early 1970. Paul Lipson was Tevye and my 10 year old self thought he did a fine job. My parents made a conscious effort to instill in their two kids the same love for musical theater that their parents had instilled in them.

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