Oh, sure, let's play a game.
Name a single theatrical production that occurred before you were born that you'd like to time-travel back to see.
(It doesn't have to be the absolute only, but you can name only one.)
For me today: Hart and Kaufman's Once in a Lifetime (1931)
i've always wanted to see the very first performance of richard iii put on by shakespeare for king charles in 1633. small playhouse, first big play, no scenery—they must have been petrified and it was extremely well received, thus a notable (for the record) performance and it's a formidable story.
The Marx Brothers in Animal Crackers on Broadway.
"Let 'Em Eat Cake" (1933) has been very much on my mind. —It's so topical.
I’ll Say She Is, 1924 Marx Brothers.
It at least premiered before I was born, though we soon overlapped: My Fair Lady (1956).
Agreed. And fuck Lady in the Dark.
1924, Provincetown Playhouse: ALL GOD'S CHILLUN GOT WINGS, with Paul Robeson.
It was only a year before I was born, but I’d love to see the original Off-Broadway run of A Chorus Line at the Public Theater.
Original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire.
How about The Philadelphia Story? With Kate, Joseph Cotten, Van Heflin, Shirley Booth 🥺
I immediately thought of the legendary 1961 production of The Blacks at St. Mark’s: Roscoe Lee Browne, Lou Gossett, Cecily Tyson, Godfrey Cambridge, Arthur French, Maya Angelou. I would crawl through space and time to be there.
Well, it opened when I was four, but I'd love to see Ethel Merman in the original Broadway production of "Gypsy."
Or Julie Andrews in "My Fair Lady" (I was one).
Orson Welles’s “voodoo Macbeth” (1936)
Sarah Bernhardt's Hamlet.
Opening night Showboat
The 1936 Orson Welles production of Macbeth
Noẽl Coward in his Private Lives opposite Gertrude Lawrence, Adrienne Allen and some whippersnapper named Laurence Olivier.
Hamlet at the National Theatre in 1963. O’toole in the title role, Olivier directing… and Derek Jacobi fighting for his actual life in V.ii every single night because (after almost four uncut hours) Hamlet was raving drunk.
Read about Peter O'Toole's performance of Hamlet at the National Theatre in 1963, as a companion piece to the production of Sam Mendes' The Motive and the Cue.
The Mercury Theatre’s 1937 adaptation of Julius Caesar. If looks both visually stunning and powerful in the photographs I have seen.
John Raitt in Carousel
The original Broadway production of The Philadelphia Story.
Aeschylus's Oresteia, 458 BCE. Though I'd risk being proved wrong about things I've argued ...
Ziegfeld Follies 1921 with Fanny Brice
Julie Andrews in The Boyfriend on Broadway, 1954. Growing up, the soundtrack LP played in regular rotation with The Pajama Game and Camelot among others.
Dad mighta been gay.
DuBarry Was a Lady, just to see Merman and Lahr bring down the house with "Friendship."
Orson Welles’s “Mussolini” Julius Caesar
Ethel Merman on the opening night of Girl Crazy
Camelot, with the original cast.
Cradle Will Rock.
Sigh.
I did see a college production, though, with Harry Groener as Jerry -- he also did the choreography for a tap-dancing Jeffrey Combs...
(It took all my strength not to go see Lady in the Dark.)
Anyone Can Whistle, the whole mess.
My real time machine show, though, occurred after I was born: second workshop of A Chorus Line, when it was four hours long.
The 1932 Broadway production of Showboat with Paul Robeson
The Broadway run of Sherlock Holmes, 1899, with Gillette in the lead role. Definitely before my time!
🎭
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_U...
My heart wants to say Laurette in Menagerie, but my inner queen refuses to stray from Tallulah in Skin of Our Teeth.
Easy for me: Cradle Will Rock when the Mercury performed it from the audience.
I'd love to see the original Blithe Spirit.
The sort of question whose answer will change daily. Tonight, two jumped to mind, but I’ll choose one, as per instructions: Angela Lansbury in Mame.
preview.redd.it/3sxyitlwbkx8...
Going to actually say something good and so the opening night of the original 1971 Follies.
Opening night of A Raisin in the Sun
Fredric March in Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1956)
'Moby Dick Rehearsed' at the Duke of York Theatre in London in 1955. Written, directed by, and starring Orson Welles with a cast including Patrick McGoohan, Christopher Lee, Joan Plowright, Gordon Jackson and, er, Kenneth Williams. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehz8...
YouTube video by Ray Kelly / WELLESNET
The chicago opening of Glass Menagerie. or Welles' Julius Caesar.
The original RSC production of Dangerous Liaisons, with Lindsay Duncan, Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevenson.
The 1972 Toronto production of Godspell that had most of SCTV in it.
