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| re: Who was the best REPLACEMENT director or actor? | |
| Posted by: fredfrankg (fredfrankg427@gmail.com) 10:54 am EST 02/17/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Who was the best REPLACEMENT director or actor? - Michael_Portantiere 10:32 am EST 02/17/21 | |
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| It's difficult to determine the contributions of directors and choreographers, unless the incoming folks have completely scrapped what their predecessors had created. In reading Becoming Barbra Streisand, there were a slew of directors, choreographers, and scores of versions of the book for Funny Girl. As for performers, the two replacements that immediately come to mind are Pearl Bailey, who deservedly won a special Tony when she became the fifth Dolly in the original Broadway production. Fast forward a few decades to Reba McIntyre taking over for Bernadette Peters in Annie Get Your Gun. Unfortunately, I missed both of those, But I have fond memories of Pat Hingle as the replacement Coach for Richard A. Dysart in That Championship Season; Maryann Plunkett was also superb taking over for Peters in Sunday in the Park with George; Betty Buckley was vastly superior to her predecessors in Sunset Boulevard; Ditto Aaron Lazar as Fabrizio in Light in the Piazza Stay safe and well, Fred |
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| re: Who was the best REPLACEMENT director or actor? | |
| Posted by: PlayWiz 12:09 pm EST 02/17/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Who was the best REPLACEMENT director or actor? - fredfrankg 10:54 am EST 02/17/21 | |
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| Elaine Paige was superb, both vocally and in her acting in "Sunset Blvd" -- Glenn Close excellent in her acting, the singing less so, but still a memorable performance Jane Powell, just as lovely as Debbie Reynolds in "Irene", and actually a well-trained dancer Jonathan Pryce -- even better than John Lithgow, both stylistically and vocally, in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" Angela Lansbury -- much better than Constance Towers in "The King & I" as Anna when she took over when both Yul Brynner and Towers were on vacation; Michael Kermoyan was the King |
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| The thing is... | |
| Posted by: TheOtherOne 12:14 pm EST 02/17/21 | |
| In reply to: re: Who was the best REPLACEMENT director or actor? - PlayWiz 12:09 pm EST 02/17/21 | |
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| The original poster didn't ask us who our favorite replacements were once a show had opened. He specifically asked about actors who had been replaced before a show got to its Broadway opening. These answers are to a different question or topic. | |
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| re: The thing is... | |
| Last Edit: PlayWiz 12:32 pm EST 02/17/21 | |
| Posted by: PlayWiz 12:22 pm EST 02/17/21 | |
| In reply to: The thing is... - TheOtherOne 12:14 pm EST 02/17/21 | |
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| I know, but that's a really difficult question -- did people here, for instance, see the Peter Sellars "My One and Only" and then see the transformed Tommy Tune version? Perhaps someone did, though it would be pretty rare. It was covered quite a lot in the press at the time in some detail as was the saving of "Irene" by Gower Champion. I think someone did see different versions of "Seesaw". Ok, you're right -- but someone would have to have been pretty quick to see both versions of some of these shows. As someone else opened up the discussion to performances, I took the bait. The performances I mentioned, I saw both performers and could compare, at least in my memory. They want theater lore from documentation -- ok, well, a famous one is that "A Funny Thing...Forum" was flopping until they replaced the opening number "Love Is In the Air" (performed later in "Side by Side by Sondheim") with "Comedy Tonight". It set up that the show was a broad burlesque-style comedy primarily right from the start and not a romance, and it transformed the show into a hit. | |
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