Your first Broadway show?- Page 3

[THDavis]

Posted: 8/29/25 at 7:02am

I saw a tour of Beauty and the Beast on tour in Minneapolis around 2000 when I was 9, but my next show (and the first that gave me the bug) was the touring production of Wicked starring Kendra Kassebaum, Julia Murney, and Sebastian Arcelus in 2006.
 

Wicked gave me the bug and I badgered my father for my first NYC trip in 2007, when I was 16 and saw Wicked as my first official Broadway show. Kassebaum, Murney, and Arcelus were also in the Broadway production at that point. 

[dramamama611]

Posted: 8/29/25 at 9:34am

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

!!! I hardly ever hear of someone that even KNOWS of this show, yet alone saw it on Broadway! Just: wow! 

[Duckie4]

Posted: 8/29/25 at 3:03pm

Barnum, with Jim Dale and Glenn Close, 1981. 

[Jarethan]

Posted: 8/29/25 at 3:28pm

dramamama611 said: "senorvoce said: "The Me Nobody Knows, on a school trip. I think it was at the old Helen Hayes Theater."

!!! I hardly ever hear of someone that even KNOWS of this show, yet alone saw it on Broadway! Just: wow!"

It did play at the Helen Hayes and I seem to recall that it had a decent run.  As I remember it, the cast was comprised solely of teenagers; I remember it as a revue rather than a classis book musical, but that may not be correct.  The biggest thing I remember is being bored.

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 8/29/25 at 4:23pm

LOVING this thread for 2 reasons-- I adore hearing from folks who remembered fabled shows of the 50's and 60's like it was yesterday. And I love learning that elder sages of BWW turn out to be young'uns after all. (Noticing Kad's first show was Avenue Q, which in no way makes me value his smart input any less.)

Like any good liberal Jewish family, my first visit to Bway (at age 11) was the 1967 cast of FIDDLER featuring Harry Goz as Tevye and Bette Midler as Tzeitel. But the show that changed my life was the OBC of A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC on Dec 31, 1973. I was already in love with all the magic tricks Boris Aronson's sliding birch panels had pulled off in Act I. The risqué shimmer of Hugh Wheeler's script may have been a bit lost on me till I grew older. But then in Act II Sondheim gave us the saddest most plaintive waltzes to salute the Swedish summer night. And then there was Glynis Johns in her tremulous reedy voice beginning the first words of "Send in the Clowns". Pure lift off onto another level of beauty. To this day ALNM remains my favorite musical ever written.

[David10086]

Posted: 8/29/25 at 5:43pm

My first B'way show was "Aspects of Love" about five weeks after it opened. It was my first time visiting NYC with my friend, and everyone said 'You gotta go see a B'way musical!'  Our first choice was 'POTO' which was sold out (of course) and the guy at the hotel ticket booth insisted we see 'Aspects' which had just opened. Something should have warned us when he had center orchestra seats in the fifth row available on a Saturday night (he said it was a cancelation). I think both of us snoozed through that show - the only saving grace was seeing Michael Ball in his white muscle shirt (I think that's the only thing I remember from it today). 

HOWEVER...

A year later, we're back in NYC on business once again in May, 1991 staying at the Marriott Marquis, and this woman who was Joan Rivers' doppelganger is selling theater tickets for Saturday night show in the lobby. We try to see POTO but it's still sold out. She tells us to trust her - and convinces us to see 'GYPSY' with Tyne Daly. We're both rather reluctant to see MaryBeth Lacey on stage as Mama Rose, but this woman was adamant we get the tickets for that night. "I promise you, you will enjoy every minute and remember it years from now".  How could we doubt Joan RIvers ? She also said if we didn't like the show, to stop by and see her the next day and she'd refund our tickets right out of her purse! LOL. We did buy the tix, and told her we hoped it would be better than 'Aspects' which we saw last year.  She asked us "Who in their right mind recommended that piece of crap to the two of you ?  I would never..."

Thank God we listened to her - we had aisle seats, right where Tyne Daly stopped and shouted "Sing out, Louise! Sing out!"  BEST SHOW I ever saw. It made me a true B'way musical fan from that day forward, and I've seen dozens of them over the next 30 years (I haven't returned to NYC since the pandemic). I stopped by the next day to thank her and we both slipped her an envelope with $25 in it as a 'Thank You' (back then that was half the price of a ticket!). Instead of reimbursing us $100 she earned an additional $50. She was thrilled. Told us to keep going to her whenever we wanted to see a B'way show and we did for the next five years (the last one we saw because of her was Betty Buckley in 'Sunset Blvd' in August, 1996. We saw so many great shows in those five years - whatever she said to see, we bought the tickets. Never doubted her. (Sadly, when we returned in the Spring of 1997 she wasn't there - we were told she had passed away unexpectedly over the winter). 

[bruceway]

Posted: 8/29/25 at 6:00pm

Mine was 39 Steps in 2008. The next day I saw Avenue Q and that cemented my love of Broadway.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 8/29/25 at 9:51pm

Duckie4 said: "Barnum, with Jim Dale and Glenn Close, 1981."

 

That was my 3rd Bway show!   But I saw it with Tony Orlando during Dale's honeymoon - if I'm remembering correctly.