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Post by lynette on Apr 4, 2018 19:56:58 GMT
for me, Hamlet. Mind you, they say there were a few versions so I suppose his first proper go at it. Did they love it?
Then also Guys and Dolls because all the stories about it say that they suspected it was going to be good but when they did the first show, it brought the house down. Hamilton x a million?
There are more but over to you.
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Post by Tibidabo on Apr 4, 2018 20:04:43 GMT
Nice idea for a thread lynette. Phantom. Sher's Dicky 3. Babs' Funny Girl. |
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Post by peggs on Apr 4, 2018 20:11:09 GMT
Ohhh good thread, sat at Summer and Smoke the other week I thought 'well this is a Tenessee Williams' play so things are not going to go well', but to not have that expectation and everything to just unfold before you!
Plus lots of Shakespeare, Othello I think, I wonder when the feeling of doom would have stolen over me.
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Post by 49thand8th on Apr 4, 2018 20:11:38 GMT
Les Miz at the Barbican
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Post by peggysue on Apr 4, 2018 20:23:58 GMT
Jesus Christ Superstar at the Palace
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Post by justfran on Apr 4, 2018 20:31:09 GMT
Good idea for a thread 😊
For me it would be Starlight Express at the Apollo Vic or Saturday Night Fever starring Adam Garcia.
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Post by joem on Apr 4, 2018 22:10:07 GMT
The Tempest
The Master Builder (the English first night of course)
The Birthday Party and/or The Caretaker
Camelot (London or Broadway)
Jesus Christ Superstar
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Post by LaLuPone on Apr 4, 2018 22:16:44 GMT
Evita in London with Elaine and on Broadway with Patti
Wicked in San Francisco pre-broadway
Sunset Boulevard in London
Rent Off-Broadway
Miss Saigon
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Post by Phantom of London on Apr 4, 2018 22:39:33 GMT
Les Miserables - Colm Wilkinson
Phantom - Michael Crawford/Sarah Brightman
Evita - Elaine Paige
Martin Guerre
Beauty and the Beast
Chess - Elaine Paige
Guys and Dolls - National
Guys and Dolls - Donmar/Piccadilly
Bombay Dreams
The Beautiful Game
Parade - Donmar
I try to avoid reading the theatre history of a programme, as I hear myself say “if only”.
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Post by clair on Apr 5, 2018 6:40:02 GMT
Oklahoma - London with Howard Keel and Evita - London with EP
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Post by Steffi on Apr 5, 2018 7:46:21 GMT
Hamilton at the Public Theatre
Saturday Night Fever at the Palladium
Punchdrunk's The Drowned Man (although I heard it was a bit of a mess)
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Post by NeilVHughes on Apr 5, 2018 7:53:40 GMT
Waiting for Godot - Arts Theatre - Peter Hall
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Post by kathryn on Apr 5, 2018 8:47:51 GMT
Definitely Shakespeare's Hamlet! It was a well-known tale but apparently earlier versions had a happy ending - just imagine the shock of the original audience at the end. I'm sure many wouldn't have liked it!
So many of Shakespeare's tragedies and comedies could go either way - compare Much Ado About Nothing and Romeo and Juliet - that I often think it must have been amazing to go and see a brand-new Shakespeare play not knowing which you were going to get.
Hamilton at the Public - apparently people already kind of knew at that point that it was going to be amazing because there had been a prior concert version at the Lincoln Centre that created a lot of buzz for it, so maybe it's the Lincoln Centre gig I would really have loved to be at.
The National's Guys and Doll's - isn't that the legendary one where the audience demanded 3 encores of Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat?
Of course with some shows the first performance wasn't that great as they needed previews to work the kinks out, so you wouldn't want to have seen the first preview of something like War Horse.
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Post by sophizoey on Apr 5, 2018 9:14:38 GMT
Wicked on Broadway - when no one but the cast knew defying gravity was going to happen. (well really just that OG cast, but the first performance would have been extra special)
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Post by Deleted on Apr 5, 2018 10:15:48 GMT
Punchdrunk's The Drowned Man (although I heard it was a bit of a mess) I was there the next night and it ran smoothly, although there were plenty of changes after that. That sort of work is unusual in that the first performances are part of the creative process as the audience are so much part of the equation. I find it fascinating to follow but woe betide anyone who goes in previews and thinks that they have seen the final version of it. It’s depressing seeing so many shows that I consider recent, I’d need something much more historical to make it interesting. I’ll go for 29th May 1913, The Rite of Spring first performance by the Ballets Russes in Paris. Famous, of course, for the absolute riot it caused. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 5, 2018 10:22:22 GMT
Of course with some shows the first performance wasn't that great as they needed previews to work the kinks out, so you wouldn't want to have seen the first preview of something like War Horse. Actually, those are the ones that I really do want to see, especially musicals with songs subsequently cut! The first Follies performance maybe or Anyone Can Whistle or following the Bernstein/Lerner disaster 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as they frantically kept changing it through previews. |
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Post by kathryn on Apr 5, 2018 10:42:25 GMT
Of course with some shows the first performance wasn't that great as they needed previews to work the kinks out, so you wouldn't want to have seen the first preview of something like War Horse. Actually, those are the ones that I really do want to see, especially musicals with songs subsequently cut! The first Follies performance maybe or Anyone Can Whistle or following the Bernstein/Lerner disaster 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as they frantically kept changing it through previews. Fair enough, then you’d really be wanting to see multiple previews, not just the first one! It is fascinating how shows develop and change. |
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Post by Mr Snow on Apr 5, 2018 10:55:58 GMT
Wicked on Broadway - when no one but the cast knew defying gravity was going to happen. (well really just that OG cast, but the first performance would have been extra special) We must be careful not to project onto these. Richard Rogers used to be say that in reality the audience goes out humming the songs they were humming on the way in. That said, the ones that broke traditions - mainly to see if I ‘got’ them by myself. Tristan and Isolde Showboat Rite of Spring Pal Joey Oklahoma Callas’s First Norma, before she was “Callas” |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 5, 2018 14:31:38 GMT
What a great thread! Euripedes’s Medea for me. Apparently the play came last in the festival competition when it was presented so it would be interesting to also see the other plays.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 5, 2018 15:21:15 GMT
Look I might as well stay “on brand” and say Rent (as heartbreaking as it is that first performance after Larson died) and Angels in America (could I teleport between the London and NY openings)
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Post by bellboard27 on Apr 5, 2018 15:46:12 GMT
I would like to have been at the first performance of the Rite of Spring in 1913 and, of course, the trouble that ensued.
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Post by lynette on Apr 5, 2018 16:01:12 GMT
Definitely Shakespeare's Hamlet! It was a well-known tale but apparently earlier versions had a happy ending - just imagine the shock of the original audience at the end. I'm sure many wouldn't have liked it! So many of Shakespeare's tragedies and comedies could go either way - compare Much Ado About Nothing and Romeo and Juliet - that I often think it must have been amazing to go and see a brand-new Shakespeare play not knowing which you were going to get. Hamilton at the Public - apparently people already kind of knew at that point that it was going to be amazing because there had been a prior concert version at the Lincoln Centre that created a lot of buzz for it, so maybe it's the Lincoln Centre gig I would really have loved to be at. The National's Guys and Doll's - isn't that the legendary one where the audience demanded 3 encores of Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat? Of course with some shows the first performance wasn't that great as they needed previews to work the kinks out, so you wouldn't want to have seen the first preview of something like War Horse. I don’t know about the first night at the NT Guys and Dolls but when I saw it with Ian Charleson ( dreadful loss) they had to do it more than three times! It was sensational. |
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Post by lynette on Apr 5, 2018 16:34:48 GMT
I forgot Waiting for Godot. I wonder if I would have liked it on first viewing. What I mean is with no previous hype or knowledge of it. Obviously I saw it once for the first time. Waves of nostalgia....Did I ever mention that my OH was at the second performance of Rosencrantz and G at the Edinburgh Festival? I was v impressed to learn that. Like having a Ferrari, it was.
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Post by alece10 on Apr 5, 2018 16:45:36 GMT
Flora the red menace with Liza
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Post by Deleted on Apr 5, 2018 18:19:10 GMT
I’ll go for 29th May 1913, The Rite of Spring first performance by the Ballets Russes in Paris. Famous, of course, for the absolute riot it caused. That's what I was thinking too - just to see if it really was as shocking as people say. |
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