What Are The Greatest Casts You’ve Ever Seen?

[Hot Pants]

What are some of the most uniformly excellent casts youve ever seen? A few choices of mine are:

Urinetowns on Broadway (Im including both the principles and ensemble members)

Hamiltons original cast

The recent Angels in America in the West End

Into the Woods original cast

Dear Evan Hansens original cast

Mark Rylances Twelfth Night in the West End

One Man Two Guvnors in the West End

To Kill a Mockingbirds replacement Broadway cast (Scouts understudy was on, and she was spectacular)

Both the original Broadway company and the John Doyle revival’s cast of Sweeney Todd

Noises Off’s most recent revival cast

Anything Goes’ most recent revival cast

[Huss417]

The original cast of Ragtime.

[Highland Guy]

Cabaret       London, 1968

Judi Dench (Sally Bowles)

Barry Dennen (Emcee)

Lila Kedrova (Fraulein Schneider)

Peter Sallis (Herr Schultz)

Kevin Colson (Cliff)

And every single other person who was part of that wonderful production..

[poisonivy2]

Plays:

Three Tall Women

Slave Play

Musicals: (OBC's)

Hadestown

The Great Comet of 1812

Dear Evan Hansen

[ViniFromBrazil]

The Ferryman and Oslo!

[tomwsjr]

So many, but two that stick out in my mind the most are the original casts of Dreamgirls and Nine.

[Jarethan]

Off the top of my head:

Musical:

-- Original Broadway Cast of Mame

-- Original Broadway Cast of 1776

-- Original Broadway Cast of Chicago

-- Original Broadway Cast of I Do! I Do! (Mary Martin and Robert Preston)

-- Original Broadway Cast of Follies

-- Original Broadway Cast of Nine

-- Original Broadway Cast of Dreamgirls

-- Original Broadway Cast of The Producers

-- Original London Cast of Les Miserables

-- Anything Goes Broadway Revival 1987

 

Play:

-- Absolute #1: A Moon for the Misbegotten with Robards, Dewhurst and Flanders all winning Tony awards

-- Long Day's Journey Into Night with Redgrave, Dennehy, Hoffman and Leonard.

-- Original Broadway cast of The Ferrymen; even the baby got a laugh the night I saw it.

-- Original Broadway cast of Fences

-- Original Broadway cast of Nicholas Nickleby

-- Original Broadway cast of Angels in America

-- Original Broadway cast of To Kill a Mockingbird

-- The Little Foxes with Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon

-- Mornings at Seven 1980 revival 

-- Awake and Sing 2006 revival

 

[Hairspray0901]

2009 Hair revival cast

[Dollypop]

The casts that Ben Platt wore as Evan Hansen come to mond.

[BWAY Baby2]

I was blown away but Fela- the entire cast was excellent- I though it was s superstar performance- and Kinky Boots-with Billy Porter at his prime- was also very powerful- with a great cast. Nest To Normal with Alice Ripley and company was also uniformly excellent.

[JBroadway]

I'm lucky enough to have seen a lot of really phenomenal casts over the years - more than I care to list here. But the first one that came to mind was the original cast of One Man, Two Guvnors on Broadway. James Corden got most of the attention, but every single member of that comedic ensemble was just absolutely spot-on. I later saw a regional production of the play with a different cast, and I found it disappointing. That Broadway cast was just pure comedic magic. 

[LeftofLinus]

Hands down the OBC of Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812.

[GavestonPS]

The OBC of FOLLIES, of course, as the characters were in part molded onto the performers.

The OBC of SWEENEY TODD, even though I found it odd that Joanna and Antony were not cast as traditional ingenues. (I understand now that I have read that Prince wanted to cast Barbara Harris and Joel Grey as the young lovers in FORUM.)

The 1980ish Delacorte production of TAMING OF THE SHREW, starring Meryl Streep and Raul Julia, but including a dynamite supporting cast from Bianca (Deborah Rush) to Larry Pine to Tom Holland.

The Angela Lansbury GYPSY. When I worked on it, George Coe was playing Herbie and Nana Tucker had taken over the part of Louise from her half-sister Zan Charisse; otherwise, the cast was mostly the same as had appeared in the Broadway revival and included people like John Sheridan, Marilyn Cooper and Maureen Moore.

A South Florida production of ALL MY SONS starring Jack Klugman and Sada Thompson, and featuring Stephen McHattie, Peter Coffield and Joanna Hall (now Joanna Gleason). The same production later played the Doolittle in L.A., where it was not well-reviewed: I have no idea why.

I've only seen it on film, but the original Mark Taper Forum cast of ZOOT SUIT was pretty much perfect: Edward James Olmos, Tyne Daly, et al. (The revival of a few years ago was also brilliantly cast, entirely with performers who were new to me.)

The original production of BENT in the West End with--now "Sir"--Ian McKellan was great as well, though I mostly remember him, forty years later.

 

 

[Sutton Ross]

Fun Home - Public Theater

Hamilton - Public Theater

Rent (departing cast) - Nederlander Theater

[thejcm]

Sutton Ross said: "Fun Home - Public Theater

Hamilton - Public Theater

Rent (departing cast) - Nederlander Theater"


Speaking of Rent, the first non-equity tour cast that went out around 2002/2003 was outstanding. It was my first live experience with the show and it was the first cast in a long time that wasn’t filled with Rent regulars (that show loved to recycle cast members for years and years). There was an energy and excitement in the performances that I think was missing around that time (especially on Broadway).

 

It had a pre-American Idol Constantine Maroulis as Roger, Rebecca Naomi Jones as Joanne, Marcus Paul James as Collins (still my favorite Collins to this day) and Jeannette Bayardelle (who was a phenomenal Celie in The Color Purple) as the Seasons of Love soloist. I believe this tour also had Aaron Tveit as a Steve (Roger U/S) replacement at some point after I saw it, but it may have been after the first big cast change. Other standouts were Jaime Lee Kirchner as Mimi, and Brian Gligor as Mark.

 

I saw most of the non-equity casts of that tour (and the post-Broadway tour with Adam/Anthony) and that first group was something special and remains my favorite.

[Navin Johnson]

One thousand percent the cast of Shuffle Along -- this was especially apparent at the first preview, which ran nearly four hours because more characters received spotlight numbers (to this day I remain heartbroken for the unbelievably talented Felicia Boswell, whose entire track - including a plum featured role as Josephine Baker - was cut before opening)

- Audra McDonald
- Brian Stokes Mitchell
- Adrienne Warren
- Billy Porter
- Joshua Henry
- Brandon Victor Dixon 
- Darius de Haas
- Amber Iman
- Christian Dante White
- Brooks Ashmanskas

It's a real shame there is no official cast recording, but the centennial of the original show is next year, so maybe a miracle can happen to get these people back together to preserve their performances.

[another sloe eyed vamp]

Hadestown: André De Shields, Patrick Page, Amber Gray, Eva Noblezada

The Pillowman: Billy Crudup, Jeff Goldblum, Željko Ivanek, Michael Stuhlbarg

Arcadia: Blair Brown, Billy Crudup, Victor Garber, Robert Sean Leonard

[NJGUY]

I am glad that someone mentioned SHUFFLE ALONG; a mess of a musical yet never boring, it was mesmerizing to see all those theater stars in one show- a once in a lifetime experience.  Going back close to 40 years I put DREAMGIRLS and NINE in that category, having seen both of them within weeks of their opening. And to think those two shows were both in the same season!  

[bwaylvsong1]

"A Little Night Music" revival replacement cast- Bernadette Peters, Elaine Stritch, Erin Davie, Aaron Lazar... the original revival cast with Jones and Lansbury was wonderful, but Peters and Stritch elevated the ensemble to pure magic.

[David10086]

1991 “Gypsy” with Tyne Daly, Christa Moore, etc.

1996 “ Sunset Blvd” with Betty Buckley and cast.

2017 “Sunset Blvd” revival with Glenn Close and cast.

2018 “ Hello Dolly” with Donna Murphyand cast.

[JGPR2]

Next To Normal - Original Cast

Hamilton - Original Cast

Jekyll & Hyde (1997) - Original Cast

The Producers - Original Cast

Doubt - Original Cast

[Shubert Alley Cat]

Without hesitation I can say the best cast I have ever seen is the original cast of RAGTIME, closely followed by the original cast of SOUTH PACIFIC at Lincoln Center.

[Whatshisname]

Long Days Journey;

with Dennehy, Redgrave, Hoffman, and Leonard.

[AlexxGee]

Hamilton - original cast
Hadestown - original cast
The Hunchback of Norte Dame La Jolla Playhouse - original cast
Jagged Little Pill - original cast.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Year 2 Cast. Haven’t seen the original, but the Year 2 cast...phenomenal.

[KJ4]

Harry and the cursed child - world tour cast

waitress - Shoshana and JJ

newsies - Film version cast

Hamilton - Film cast

Dear Evan Hansen - Original cast

Finding Neverland - Pre-broadway cast

LSOH - Original cast