Amber Riley was supposed to be terrific as Effie and she got great notices, but she had trouble doing 8 performances a week and she missed a lot of performances. I have no idea why and don't recall if any reason was given publicly for Riley's attendance issues.
When it was announced that the production was transferring to New York with Riley, I was curious if the producers and/or Riley had solved whatever the issues were and Riley had committed to do all performances. It seemed like bad business to mount a production built on a star leading lady who'd already demonstrated problems with attendance. Perhaps that's why it seems to not be happening now. |
