| 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. |
