The smashing Elizabeth Stanley first played Sugar eight years before the Sacramento production, at the Gateway Playhouse, before she was known at all on Broadway. Director-choreographer Scott Thompson was given the sets from the Tony Curtis national tour (most, but not all of which fit on the stage.) The production got solid raves and sold out; Mrs. Jule Styne came out to see it, with others of the Styne organization, and raved.
Thompson fixed the original abrupt Act One finish with an all-new one bringing the entire cast to the stage in a mega-recap; and got permission from the estate to add back in the song infamously cut from the original Broadway production, "The People In My Life." Elizabeth Stanley knocked it out of the park. I always thought that song was musically and lyrically far better than "People" (or just about any other ballad from Styne, with or without Merrill) and would have been The Big Song performed and recorded by everyone, had it not been sadly chopped from original 1972 show. |
