actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
massofmen
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/10/04
#1actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 10:27am
Stephnie BLock over Sutton
Adam Pascal over Chad Kimball.
So does that mean that stephanie would have won the tony award if she was cast instead of sutton? and does that mean that the ROLE is good and any good singer/actor could come in and do just as well? i mean maybe it should be based on how baseball does their rating system calle "WINS ABOVE REPLACEMENT" . wherein how much would the show be affected if THIS person was not in the role. In suttons case..not that much. In chad's case it would have been better to have adam in the role. Nathan Lane is WORTH the money seeing as producers took a HUGE nose dive when he left as did addams family..would it matter at all if will swenson left Priscilla?
People seem to love Adam much much more than Chad in memphis..could Adam have won the tony if the casting director/director/producer had the foresight to cast someone different? and could any actor who can sing it and kinda act it do just as well? I feel like this is why some people think actors are a dime a dozen and why tourists really don't care who they see..
i mean right? Was the original tracy turnblat the best? Would carly jibson have won the tony is she was cast instead of MArisa jaret? Probably..what does that say?
#2actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 11:29amIt's all speculation really. And personal opinion. I wouldn't say that Pascal/Block are better over Kimball/Foster, but that a lot of people prefer them over the others. But in reality, you cannot measure that because I'm sure there are MANY out there who feel the opposite. I feel that Pascal is a HUGE improvement and that Block is just as good in the role as Foster, but again, just personal taste. Who knows who would have won the awards. I think they would have, but we will never know.
"Life in theater is give and take...but you need to be ready to give more then you take..."
#2actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 11:51amI love love love love love both Kristen & Idina but I have to say I thought Shoshanna Bean & Megan Hilty where better in Wicked.
"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around."
henrikegerman
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
#3actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 12:52pm
I'm sure I'm gonna get shot down for this one but here goes.
Samonsky was ten times better than Morrison as Cable. And 100 times sexier!
Gaveston2
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/28/11
#4actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 12:55pmI've written elsewhere that I thought Judy Kaye was a vast improvement over Madeleine Kahn in ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. This was quite a shock to me because I thought Kahn was the funniest woman alive (as she could be when she bothered).
#5actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 12:56pm
I agree about Samonsky over Morrison.
I also though Missi Pyle was better in Boeing!Boeing! than Mary McCormack.
"The sexual energy between the mother and son really concerns me!"-random woman behind me at Next to Normal
"I want to meet him after and bang him!"-random woman who exposed her breasts at Rock of Ages, referring to James Carpinello
#6actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 1:15pm
As others have intimated, the question is, on a certain level, silly. Actors don't own roles (much as some of us like to think they do), and just because someone plays something first doesn't necessarily mean they do it best. That said, here are a few instances where I preferred a replacement over their original:
Estelle Parsons was 1,000 times better than Deanna Dunagan in AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY. I know many others who felt similarly.
Bernadette was better than Catherine Zeta-Jones, hands down. (Bradley Dean was also an improvement on Aaron Lazar)
I preferred Laura Osnes to Kelli O'Hara in SOUTH PACIFIC.
Beth Leavel was far superior to Christine Ebersole in 42ND STREET.
In WICKED, I'd say that Murney, Bean, and Espinosa were better than Menzel; Hilty was far better than Chenoweth; and Hearn was a better Wizard than Grey.
And right now, I'd say Judith Light is better than Linda Lavin in OTHER DESERT CITIES.
"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
#7actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 1:23pm
I find it exceptionally rare for a replacement to be better than an originator of a role (particularly in original productions rather than revivals) - but it's all plain ol' subjective opinion anyway.
The only replacement I remember preferring is Aaron Lazar - a much better actor than bland old Matt Morrison in Light in the Piazza.
Usually, though, they seem (to me) like either less-dimensional imitations, or desperate attempts to be "different" just for the sake of being different than the original.
#8actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 1:42pmI ended up seeing Jeremy Jordan as Tony in West Side Story, when he was alternating with Matt Hydzik. He was great. I loved him a lot more than Matt Cevenaugh, who I saw first. He made me hate Tony and not care that he died.
"I don't want the pretty lights to come and get me."-Homecoming 2005
"You can't pray away the gay."-Callie Torres on Grey's Anatomy.
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#9actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 1:53pmMegan Hilty over DeGarmo any day in 9 to 5.
henrikegerman
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
#10actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 1:55pm
Bettyboy, I didn't see Mary McCormack as Gretchen in Boeing, but Missi Pyle was fantastic!
I will never foget
"IN AAAAAIX? ARE YOU INSANE?"
iluvtheatertrash
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/9/04
#11actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 3:08pmI agree wholeheartedly about Samonsky.
"I know now that theatre saved my life." - Susan Stroman
Gothampc
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#12actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 3:16pmI haven't seen Adam Pascal in Memphis, but whatever he's doing has to be better than the "village idiot" interpretation that Chad Kimball gave.
If anyone ever tells you that you put too much Parmesan cheese on your pasta, stop talking to them. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.
Gothampc
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#13actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 3:19pm
"Bernadette was better than Catherine Zeta-Jones, hands down."
I don't know where your hands were, but in no way was Bernadette better than CZJ.
I wasn't a big fan of CZJ's "Send in the Clowns" but as a whole she more embodied the role of a European actress (which Desiree is) than Bernadette with her Queens Kewpie Doll lisp.
If anyone ever tells you that you put too much Parmesan cheese on your pasta, stop talking to them. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.
#14actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 3:36pm
My hands were covering my ears and eyes in an attempt to block any remnant of CZJ's performance from taking up residence in my memory.
She did embody a European actress. Unfortunately, it was a 21st century, high glamour actress off a red carpet in Paris, not a journeywoman, almost over the hill, touring performer, which is what I look for in a Desiree.
"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
Gothampc
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#15actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 5:18pmWell if by "touring" you mean touring in Astoria, Forest Hills and Flushing and if by "performer" you mean portraying Betty Boop, then yes, Bernadette was better than CZJ.
If anyone ever tells you that you put too much Parmesan cheese on your pasta, stop talking to them. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.
wonkit
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/30/08
#16actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 5:21pmThe classic example: William J. Macy over that mercury guy.
#17actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 5:24pm
Well if by "touring" you mean touring in Astoria, Forest Hills and Flushing and if by "performer" you mean portraying Betty Boop, then yes, Bernadette was better than CZJ.
Yes, just as Zeta-Jones's accent toured America, England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and various Eastern European locales. But please, continue to tell me the ways in which my personal opinion is incorrect.
"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
#18actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 6:35pmWell, I certainly liked Adam lightyears better than Chad in Memphis, also Jennifer Laura Thompson in Wicked, Norbert in Speed-the-Plow, Hunter Parrish and Alexandra Socha in Spring Awakening come immediately to mind.
#19actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 7:27pm
I think Johanna Day was a better Barbara Fordham than Amy Morton, though that may have been because I saw Day from the front row and Morton from the mezz.
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#20actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 7:34pmAdam Pascal may be better than Chad Kimbell, but I doubt he would have won the Tony over the La Cage men and Sean Hayes.
Like a firework unexploded
Wanting life but never knowing how
Wanting life but never knowing how
Emmaloucbway
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/16/11
#21actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 7:53pm
I prefer the some of voices of the current cast of Phantom over the leads in the OLC.
Also agree about Bernadette Peters in ALNM. Disagree about Samonksy in South Pacific. I didn't really like him, but I also never saw Morrison so I can't compare the two.
ghostlight2
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/5/04
#22actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 11:50pm
#23actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 11:58pmI too preferred Laura Osnes to Kelli O'Hara as Nellie, since I felt O'Hara was straying into Clara Johnson territory at times.
When I see the phrase "the ____ estate", I imagine a vast mansion in the country full of monocled men and high-collared women receiving letters about productions across the country and doing spit-takes at whatever they contain.
-Kad
BroadwayFan12
Broadway Star Joined: 4/17/10
#24actors taking over other actors roles...and doing better
Posted: 11/28/11 at 11:58pmMarin Mazzie in next to normal.
