tours vs local productions

[theaterdude2]

Posted: 3/1/17 at 8:57am

The Fun Home tour isn't coming to Toronto. In a city like this, while we get many tours, scheduling usually depends on availability of the few large theatres. Sometimes if a major tour doesn't fit into the first part of their tour, we'll get it very late. (Beautiful only gets here this summer)

So now comes news that Fun Home will be produced by a small theatre company here in collaboration with our one well known theatre producer, Mirvish. The trouble is, the work of this smaller company is always subpar. They have a niche audience who applauds every show they do and who admires them for hiring all Canadian talent, but sadly the quality pales in comparison to a national tour, with Broadway talent and designs based on the original productions. Friends here all feel the same way, yet most of the theatre going public here doesn't seem to know the difference.

Does this happen in another major north american cities, where a show that you missed on Broadway is finally set to premiere but with a local production? 

[Dover]

Posted: 3/1/17 at 2:47pm

Usually a few years after a show closes on Broadway the rights are released and there will be a flurry of regional and stock theatres that do the show all around the country. 

[Fosse76]

Posted: 3/1/17 at 3:28pm

The OP is asking for instances where a city's first exposure to a specific Broadway show (defined as a show that officially appeared on Broadway) is a regional production and NOT a national tour.

The answer, for the OP, is that it happens a lot. Plays, for one, are less likely to have national tours than musicals are, so most cities will have their first exposure to them through a regional house. Many musicals were too expensive to tour based on demand (so either never launched, or had a limited number of venues). Parade never made it to Chicago, so the city's first exposure to the show was through a regional house.