Your First Broadway Show

[macbeth]

What was your first Broadway show? I'll start - it was 42nd Street and I can't think of a better show to have started with. From the second the curtain went up, I knew I'd be a lifelong theatre fan. 

I'd seen some tours before then and local productions, but the BROADWAY experience was something special. I even remember the car ride home, back to New Jersey looking out the windows and knowing my life was changed forever. 

This still brings a smile to my face. I'd love to see a luxurious revival. No Menier versions of this one please!

 

[Jordan Levinson]

Mine was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in 2005. The special effects freaked me out, and frankly, I wasn't such a big fan of live events back then.

[BrodyFosse123]

PIPPIN at the Imperial Theatre. Christmas 1972. I was 7 years old and this started my fascination for all things Bob Fosse. The musical had just opened 2 months earlier so the original Broadway cast was still intact.



 

[matt1982]

My first Broadway show was Les Miz at the Imperial in 1992.  Rachel York was Fantine.  

My first national tour was Into the Woods at the Forrest Theatre in Philly in 1990.  Betsy Joslyn was the Witch.  

I still have the Playbills for both!

 

 

[dramamama611]

Original run of Grease, circa 1978 or 79.

[RunnyBabbit]

The Secret Garden in 1991.  And I loved it so much that I convinced my parents to take me back so I could see it two more times.  Thus starting a very expensive habit.  (Drugs probably would have been cheaper.)

[Mr Roxy]

It was either Oliver or Here's Love

[SisterGeorge]

On my first trip to New York during the 1976 Christmas Holidays, I saw "Night of the Iguana" with Richard Chamberlain, Dorothy McGuire and Sylvia Miles at Circle in the Square and "The Threepenny Opera" with Raul Julia, Blair Brown and Ellen Greene at the Vivian Beaumont.

[Theatrefanboy1]

My very first show was Promises Promises with Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes. I had gone alone to that show as my family opted to see other shows on that trip with me. I had grown up with Kristin on Rosie and some broadway shows I had listened to as well at university she was seen as a great classically trainer sound. A number of peers were obsessed with her as well.

For me my favourite memory of that experience was waiting for the show to start. Sitting in the velvet type seats. Looking through my very first playbill (that I had become an admirer of since my earliest memories of the Rosie show. And then the playbill website). And then the spark of magic when Kristin walks on and the audience applauded her.

[bwaylvsong]

“Beauty and the Beast” at the Palace in 1996 starring Kerry Butler, Marc Kudisch, and then-standby Steve Blanchard. I saw Blanchard in the same role a full decade later at the Lunt during its closing week.

[Broadway61004]

The 1996 King and I with Donna Murphy and Lou Diamond Phillips. Phillips was quite good, Murphy's voice was flat on every song it seemed (but her acting was solid) and the whole production very lavishly designed. So all in all, a nice production.

[bwaylvsong]

@Broadway61004 that was my second Broadway show!

[Finch]

I guess I'm the oldest one online---so far

• On Broadway--The Music Man [Preston/Cook]--8/57
• On Tour--Auntie Mame [Sylvia Sidney]--4/57

 

[Dollypop]

The original SHE LOVES ME with Barbara Cook and Jack Cassidy

[ggersten]

On Broadway, 42d Street (June 1983)

Otherwise, My Fair Lady - Los Angeles Civic Light Opera - 1969

[temms]

Kiss Of The Spider Woman, OBC except Jeff Hyslop was Molina. I love that Chita was my first Broadway lead. But I actually made it to London before NY and saw West End shows before Broadway, and LuPone in Sunset Boulevard was my first one there.

[msmp]

Phantom of the Opera was my first show on Broadway (summer of 2004, Hugh Panaro as the Phantom I think). My grandmother really wanted to start exposing me to theatre and figured she would start with the tourist staple.

For tours, my first was the Raul Esparza tour of Evita.

[mikey2573]

My first show was PETER PAN starring Sandy Duncan.  Right around 1980.

[cmorrow]

Dracula, starring Frank Langella, sets by Edward Gorey. I saw it the last night of previews, just before it opened, in October 1977. To this day it remains one of my all-time best theater experiences.

[JuneJune]

Beauty and the Beast. Don't know if it was the "original" one or the watered down one.

I was maybe 6 or 7 (maybe older?) and have practically no memory of it, other than the audience bursting into laughter as soon as Belle came out in her poofy yellow dress.

That, and Belle and the Beast stayed on after curtain calls to encourage the audience to buy limited time souvenirs: a heart locket with a slip of paper signed by Belle's actress for $20, and a coloring page signed by Belle and the Beast for $25. I bought the latter, which I no longer have. (Why I remember these details more than the actual show, I have no idea haha)

If anyone has any information about who this cast might've been, it would be appreciated :)

[BrodyFosse123]

JuneJune said: "Beauty and the Beast. Don't know if it was the "original" one or the watered down one.

I was maybe 6 or 7 (maybe older?) and have practically no memory of it, other than the audience bursting into laughter as soon as Belle came out in her poofy yellow dress.

That, and Belle and the Beast stayed on after curtain calls to encourage the audience to buy limited time souvenirs: a heart locket with a slip of paper signed by Belle's actress for $20, and a coloring page signed by Belle and the Beast for $25. I bought the latter, which I no longer have. (Why I remember these details more than the actual show, I have no idea haha)

If anyone has any information about who this cast might've been, it would be appreciated :)"

This definitely sounds like a regional production.  Any incarnation of Disney’s adaptation did not do any of this post-curtain call merchandise hawking. 

[FosseTharp]

The first Broadway show I saw was Beauty and the Beast, May 2001, on a school trip to NYC with my HS Choir. We also saw Suessical with Aaron Carter on that trip... My good friend and I ended up meeting this kid who’s parents worked at the World Trade Center while in line at the Empire State Building, and sneaking away from our class to go and “second acted” a matinee of Cabaret at Studio 54. I believe it was a few weeks before that revival closed? We got out just in time to meet up with our school group for our reservations at Sylvia’s in Harlem without getting busted! This was in May of 2001 and in September I was in Choir when the planes crashed into the Twin Towers. All my friend and I could think about was our friend we met a few months earlier who’s mother and father worked at the World Trade Center.

[JuneJune]

BrodyFosse123 said: "JuneJune said: "That, and Belle and the Beast stayed on after curtain calls to encourage the audience to buy limited time souvenirs: a heart locket with a slip of paper signed by Belle's actress for $20, and a coloring page signed by Belle and the Beast for $25. I bought the latter, which I no longer have. (Why I remember these details more than the actual show, I have no idea haha)

If anyone has any information about who this cast might've been, it would be appreciated :)"

This definitely sounds like a regional production. Any incarnation of Disney’s adaptation did not do any of this post-curtain call merchandise hawking."

Hmm, I was pretty sure it was on Broadway since I remember driving into NYC and having lunch at a Junior's that day. But I was also pretty young, so maybe my memory's jarbled. Thanks for your input!

Hopefully I can job my memory more eventually, but if I really did see a regional production, my first Broadway show was Shrek. Ha.

[David10086]

My first was “Aspects of Love” in April, 1990 with Michael Ball ( and I believe the rest of the original cast). Couldn’t get tix to “ Phantom” so my friend and I figured the newest ALW musical must be fantastic! Boy, were we wrong. Though Michael Ball was great, and still eye candy at the time.

My first tour was “ Les Miz” on Halloween night, 1990. The theater was doing a BOGO to fill the house, so another friend and I went. Loved it!

[bwaylvsong]

@JuneJune the timeline in your memory doesn’t line up- there was no Manhattan location of Junior’s until around 2007, the year that “Beauty” closed.