So why did Donna Murphy miss all those shows in Wonderful Town?

[Leadingplayer]

Posted: 5/12/12 at 2:09am

Why didn't they admit she had left?

[nasty_khakis]

Posted: 5/12/12 at 2:14am

Because she had left half a bottle of Beefeaters and a pack of Trident in her dressing room. They assumed she was coming back because who leaves that behind?!

[BwayLover]

Posted: 5/12/12 at 7:56am

She had hurt her voice (hemorraged a vocal chord) early in previews and never had proper time to heal. That's why she was out occasionally from the show during the run- giving her voice a rest. She then injured it again and was told that if she didn't take a medical leave, she was risking hurting her voice forever. The producers asked her to be quiet about it, and they informed the press it was the flu, and that she would be back shortly (knowing she was on medical leave really) and thus succeeded in creating this persona of her as someone who never shows up.......which is unfair and untrue and obviously people still harp about it almost ten years later. So yeah. I honestly don't know why they kept the real reason she was out quiet- but whatever their reasons were, I personally think it was a rotten thing to do.

She didn't miss any performances of "LoveMusik" or "The People In The Picture", just fyi.

Updated On: 5/12/12 at 07:56 AM

[dreaming]

Posted: 5/12/12 at 9:28am

I remember that. What I thought was unfair was how the producers handled it. Thanks to them, she's become the butt of Michael Riedel's jokes on the topic of attendance, despite her stellar record since. (See this week's column-it continues.)

There was a NYTimes article about this whole episode a few years ago.

[AC126748]

Posted: 5/12/12 at 9:54am

Here is the article dreaming referenced. It should tell you everything you need to know about the WONDERFUL TOWN situation. This topic comes up about half-a-dozen times a year.
link

[Auggie27]

Posted: 5/12/12 at 11:34am

“On your knees, citizens of Broadway,” Ben Brantley’s review in The Times began. “A superwoman walks among you.”

I thought that was one of the most bizarre bits of hyperbole in a review since Walter Kerr said "Let me tell you about Sandy Dennis: No home should be without one." (Or something like that). Many people felt a good performance had been treated like the 2nd coming, and I still recall attending and hearing "She's good, but she's not THAT good." Murphy was perfectly wonderful in the show, but it wasn't the "event" performance that many assumed, and I thought she ended up with a lot of "show me" members of the audience.

I raise this because I still think it was a factor in the building backlash: that she had been overpraised to begin with. I recall the chatter on these boards, as everything Murphy did was debated, parsed and deconstructed. Never as funny as Roz Russell, she brought real musical theater chops to the show and made the numbers more traditional. So that had to be an extra strain on Murphy, since the very element that gave her Ruth the most distinction was the hardest on her physically. I will no doubt be raked over the coals for suggesting her vocals were the defining element, but to me -- someone who knows the show well, and the Russell Ruth -- it was Murphy's "real" singing that defined her Ruth.

Updated On: 5/12/12 at 11:34 AM

[elphaba.scares.me]

Posted: 5/12/12 at 11:54am

I heard from a reliable friend about a year or two ago that the "vocal trouble" story was completely concocted, and the reality was that Murphy had a miscarriage and decided she would rather have them cook up a story about her voice than go public with that news.

Never made sense to me why they would lie about her illness/attendance for so long...until I heard that. And obviously no one would want to be the one to call Michael Riedel and tell him to back off, lest the truth appear in his column.

[AC126748]

Posted: 5/12/12 at 12:07pm

Considering that Murphy has been very public about the fact she's had multiple miscarriages, I have a hard time believing that.

[alxscrz2]

Posted: 5/12/12 at 12:29pm

In an interview she did for downstage center she says she was absent from a few performances of Wonderful Town because she had a miscarriage. Heres the link for the mp3 interview






Link :) Updated On: 5/12/12 at 12:29 PM

[Gothampc]

Posted: 5/12/12 at 3:20pm

The vocal rest story never rang true. Wonderful Town is not a difficult show to sing. It was written for Roz Russell who had about an 8 note vocal range. Maybe if it were Murphy's first musical, they could have made the story believable, but Murphy was a seasoned musical performer

[BwayLover]

Posted: 5/12/12 at 3:24pm

Just to set the record straight - her miscarriages were after the Encores run of WT, and she has talked about them (though not much, understandably). It wasn't during the Broadway run.

I, too, find it hard to believe she would make up the vocal problems to cover up a miscarriage.

Edited to add - she hemorrhaged a vocal chord, it has nothing to do with professionalism.

Updated On: 5/12/12 at 03:24 PM

[DivaMurph]

Posted: 5/12/12 at 3:32pm

Hum, no, she talks about the one she had between the Encores and the Broadway prodution, but I don't think she had one during WT. She also really got the flu during the WT previews, and later in the run as well, adding to the trouble with her voice at the time. Anyway, I can't believe we're still talking about that almost 10 years later, when it's well known that she's one of the most professional people in the business...

[Dollypop]

Posted: 5/12/12 at 3:35pm

All of this conversation really bothers me because I'm friends with Boyd Gaines and he's spoken to me at great length about how anguished he was when he missed more than half of the scheduled performances of COMPANY due to serious health issues. It even thwarted a Broadway run of the show. Both he and Donna Murphy are season professionals and I'm sure Donna Murphy feels the same way about WONDERFUL TOWN. This happened years ago. Let go of it.

[DivaMurph]

Posted: 5/12/12 at 3:37pm

Might I add, she hemorrhaged a vocal chord because of a coughing fit (when you're a singer you know that coughing is possibly the worst thing you can do to your voice), so it had nothing to ddo with the range of the music of the show...

[DivaMurph]

Posted: 5/12/12 at 3:38pm

AMEN!

[someone.else's.story2]

Posted: 5/13/12 at 12:01pm

Donna Murphy is extremely professional and I find it odd how people seem to make such a huge thing of this. On the downstage center interview (which I heard a few years back), she talks at length about this. She has performed in many shows and has no track record of missing shows except on Wonderful Town-with her vocal injury.

[justafan2]

Posted: 5/13/12 at 12:16pm

I saw Wonderful Town 3 times and was very lucky that Donna Murphy performed in each one. She was incredible----hopefully this unfortunate attendance record will lessen in intensity as she continues to succeed in more productions.

[someone.else's.story2]

Posted: 5/13/12 at 6:09pm

She has never had an attendance problem in any other show. She had an injured vocal chords during Wonderful Town. This would cause anyone to need to take shows off.

[Leadingplayer]

Posted: 5/13/12 at 9:56pm

"She has never had an attendance problem in any other show"


That isn't true. She missed a lot during King and I.