What out of town/pre-Broadway tryouts have you seen, and which one has been your favorite?
I saw Anastasia in Hartford, as well as Jagged Little Pill (a total impulse buy, I'm so glad I did!). Between the two of them I think I preferred JLP but I also had a soft spot for Anastasia since I grew up with the animated movie.
I saw Wicked, La Boheme, Beautiful, Lestat, Lennon, Dear Evan Hansen, Come From Away, and Millie all pre-Broadway. La Boheme remains one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen on stage.
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If/Then and Mean Girls, both at the National. It was great to be able to see Idina, and she was in fantastic voice the night I saw it. Both shows had issues, but I think MG was in slightly better shape at the time.
I didn't see either production in its Broadway run, but I saw If/Then on tour after Broadway and I'll be seeing Mean Girls on tour this spring. Judging from the cast recordings (and seeing the If/Then tour), I think MG did a better job of addressing the issues it had on tryout.
I'm sending pictures of the most amazing trees/You'll be obsessed with all my forest expertise
- First Wives Club (Chicago) - Spongebob - War Paint - Pretty Woman - The Cher Show - Tootsie - Six
I’d say out of these Spongebob, War Paint, and Six were the most exciting. First Wives was cool just because of how infamous the show is, and the fact after a second failure it will never see the light of day again.
I saw the try outs of Dracula and Bonnie & Clyde at the La Jolla Playhouse. It took me a while to come around to the new material that was ultimately written for each show when they premiered on Broadway. It was difficult for me to understand why they cut some songs because I thought the original songs were better. Looking back I think each show actually did get better between the try out and Broadway except for the song "Modern World" in Dracula which was truly terrible and in Bonnie & Clyde I thought the scene where Bonnie and Clyde first meet was better written in La Jolla. Clyde was far more charming and I got a better sense of why Bonnie fell for him. It also didn't hurt that Stark Sands was so damn charming in the role. I still don't understand why that scene was rewritten though. But Bonnie & Clyde was as good on Broadway as it was ever going to get and it's a shame audiences didn't come around to it because I thought it was one of Frank Wildhorn's better written shows.
I also saw Jesus Christ Superstar at the La Jolla Playhouse before it transferred to Broadway and that experience was so disheartening, when the show failed to find an audience on Broadway and didn't get a cast album, I pretty much swore off seeing shows out of town. I can't take the heartbreak.
I was equally disappointed when we didn't get an original Broadway cast recording of Dracula as well. The studio highlights album we did eventually get just isn't the same and the orchestrations were far better on Broadway than the later more pop oriented orchestrations Frank Wildhorn seems to favor for the piece.
Most things that have come from the ART IN Boston including:
Comet JLP Waitress Porgy and Bess Pippin Finding Neverland
And not from ART, Moulin Rouge
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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.
I've seen a lot of these, but I think my 1st was the Chicago run of the 1972 revival of Forum with Phil Silvers; which played the long-gone McVicker's Theatre.
dramamama611 said: "Most things that have come from the ART IN Boston including:
Comet JLP Waitress Porgy and Bess Pippin Finding Neverland
And not from ART, Moulin Rouge"
Oooo I'm so jealous that you saw Waitress! I know there were significant changes to scenes and songs between ART and Broadway. I would've been interested in seeing that. I got into the show after its run there. Seems like ART is the place to see shows before they go to Broadway.
We saw Come From Away at Ford's, which was wonderful and such a great cast. They have a very generous program of discounts for seniors, military, young people, etc as well as for first previews etc. Seeing the marvelous CFA for $18 a piece made it all the more enjoyable!
I saw Shrek the Musical, Catch Me If You Can, Aladdin and Scandalous (when it was still Saving Aimee) in Seattle. That last one was so bad I'm surprised they moved it to New York. Catch Me was better in Seattle. I also saw Big Fish in Chicago and Moulin Rouge in Boston.
First Wives Club War Paint The Goodbye Girl Aida Victor, Victoria Tootsie The Pirate Queen Spamalot Kinky Boots Half Time
I skipped Last Ship and Amazing Grace - did not appeal to me.
Lyric, book, and scene changes are fascinating. The cast album for The Goodbye Girl refers to Shirley Temple on a bender. During the 6-weeks in Chicago, the lyric was always Carol Channing on a bender.
The world premiere of BEAUTY & THE BEAST here in Houston, circa 1993. The night I saw it Tom Bosley forgot some of his lines but was still quite charming. I remember being awed by the entire show and especially the transformation at the end.
Ceej said: "The world premiere of BEAUTY & THE BEAST here in Houston, circa 1993. The night I saw it Tom Bosley forgot some of his lines but was still quite charming. I remember being awed by the entire show and especially the transformation at the end."
I saw this one, too! Don't remember too much of it as I was really young and we had just moved to Houston, but I remember enjoying it a lot, as did my mom.