What Original Broadways Have You Seen With Megastars

[Uncle Stevie]

I saw

Camelot with Richard Burton, Robert Goulet, Julie andrews

Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand, Sidney Chaplin

[laffite]

I saw Death of a Salesman with Dustin Hoffman in the lead, 1985 NYC, don't remember the theater name. The only other cast member I remember is John Malkovich who played Biff. I was impressed with him because I thought he was to a Mega Mega Star, I thought of him as another possible Marlon Brando. But as he aged he looked more and more creepy and inevitably he would be steered in that direction, or maybe steered himself that way. If you want to have work you take what they want from you (if you can). I don't recall too well but I do remember I was satisfied. Hoffman later made a TV-movie of same and was very, very, good, better that I remembered in the live stage play.

Also Glengarry Glen Ross with Joe Mantegna. The play opened 25 March 1984 and I caught a subsequent performance. Very funny at times. Really enjoyed it though the memory gets (as Woody Allen voice over at the end of Radio Day "dimmer and dimmer." The play won a Pulitzer.

[Swithin]

Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand
Hello Dolly with Carol Channing and Pearl Bailey
Mame and Sweeney Todd with Angela Lansbury
Applause with Lauren Bacall
Happy End (though it was a revival) with Meryl Streep
Hostile Witness with Ray Milland

...to name a few

[txfilmfan]

Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand
Hello Dolly with Carol Channing and Pearl Bailey
Mame and Sweeney Todd with Angela Lansbury
Applause with Lauren Bacall
Happy End (though it was a revival) with Meryl Streep
Hostile Witness with Ray Milland

...to name a few

Alas, I was not old enough to see most of these stars perform on stage. I have to make do with fuzzy Tony awards clips (after they went national in the late 60s) or clips from Ed Sullivan on YouTube, or the taped stage shows, for the few that got that treatment. In fact, I just watched Pearl Bailey & Co. from a Tony Awards ceremony just the other day, when she received a special Tony.

I have seen newer productions with original casts, but not many. It is hard for us out-of-towners to sometimes get to the big city before their contracts end. Some of these are obviously not the original production, but were runs with the original revival casts, rather than replacements. Even so, many times the replacements have just as much "star power," as when Bernadette Peters stepped into Hello, Dolly!

• Hello, Dolly! with Bette Midler and David Hyde Pierce

• Dear Evan Hansen with Ben Platt

• Company with Patti LuPone et. al. just before it closed

• War Paint with Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersol

• Bandstand with Laura Osnes

• A Doll's House, Part 2 with Laurie Metcalf

• A Gentlemen's Guide to Love and Murder with Jefferson Mays

• Music Man with Hugh Jackman, Sutton Foster and Jefferson Mays

• Into the Woods (2022) with lots of A-listers. I saw this the first week it opened on Broadway. It's somewhat of a casting carousel.

A couple of London productions (even more difficult to time trips to see first runs there):

• I Am My Own Wife, with Jefferson Mays

• Long Day's Journey Into Night with Laurie Metcalf

[Swithin]

The first show I ever saw on Broadway was A Funny Thing, but it was at the end of the run, with Dick Shawn (who was great) in the lead. I did see Zero Mostel in Fiddler on the Roof.

I probably mentioned this on the old board, about the night I saw Pearl Bailey in Hello, Dolly! I was a teenager and went along with a friend. At the curtain call, Pearl Bailey made a speech that confused us, something about the cast not knowing what to do, but decided to go on. My friend and I went to the stage door to get her autograph, and she told us that, during the performance, the cast learned that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated.

Of course I've seen many more "megastars" on stage. Since you mentioned The Music Man, I did see Brian Cox in the show at the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park. Not sure he counts as a "megastar," though. I did see many megastars on stage in London, i.e. Jeremy Irons in Richard II (Stratford) and in Long Day's Journey Into Night. And Redgrave, Dench, etc. on stage many times.

And of course I met and worked with many famous artists, some of whom might qualify as "megastar," but that wouldn't be relevant for this thread. One of my favorites was Natasha Richardson.

[Allhallowsday]

JACK LEMMON in Tribute
DANNY AIELLO in Gemini
CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER and BRIAN DENNEHY in Inherit The Wind
HARVEY FIERSTEIN and ROSIE O'DONNELL in Fiddler On The Roof
HARVEY FIERSTEIN in Hairspray
VANESSA REDGRAVE BRIAN DENNEHY PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN in Long Day's Journey Into Night

[EP Millstone]

Megastars is subjective.

My List

The following were not Broadway plays but were stage productions that I saw in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and elsewhere:

Arsenic and Old Lace with Jonathan Frid, Marion Ross, Gary Sandy, Jean Stapleton, and Larry Storch
Carnival with Anna Maria Alberghetti and Ed Ames
Diversions and Delights and The Villains Still Pursue Me with Vincent Price
Don Juan in Hell with Paul Henreid, Ricardo Montalban, Agnes Moorehead, and Edward Mulhare
Dracula with Jeremy Brett
Dracula with Martin Landau and Humbert Astredo
Forget-Me-Knot-Lane with Donald Moffitt
Mark Twain Tonight! with Hal Holbrook
Sweeney Todd with George Hearn and Angela Lansbury
The Will Rogers Follies with Keith Carradine
Wishful Drinking with Carrie Fisher

[LawrenceA]

None.

[LostHorizons]

None.

Technically you could include filmed Broadway plays like the Angela Lansbury Sweeney Todd. The OP never specified that.

[Swithin]

I saw

Camelot with Richard Burton, Robert Goulet, Julie andrews

Lincoln Center Theater will soon be presenting a revival of Camelot. It sounds promising.

[LawrenceA]

Technically you could include filmed Broadway plays like the Angela Lansbury Sweeney Todd. The OP never specified that.

I haven't seen many filmed plays, either. I'm having trouble thinking of any other than Give 'Em Hell, Harry!, although I think I saw a couple more.

Oh yeah, I saw Hamlet with Richard Burton, too.

[Swithin]

Technically you could include filmed Broadway plays like the Angela Lansbury Sweeney Todd. The OP never specified that.

I haven't seen many filmed plays, either. I'm having trouble thinking of any other than Give 'Em Hell, Harry!, although I think I saw a couple more.

Oh yeah, I saw Hamlet with Richard Burton, too.

A new play about the Burton Hamlet, which was directed by John Gielgud, will be opening at London's National Theatre in a few months. It will probably be filmed at some point. It has a great cast, including Johnny Flynn as Burton and Mark Gatiss as Gielgud.

https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/show ... nd-the-cue

[Allhallowsday]

Saw LIZA MINNELLI in December, 2008
-
- half expected a tumble into the orchestra, really lucked out and saw a GREAT show!

[Swithin]

Not on Broadway, but in England:

Diana Rigg and Alec McCowan in The Misanthrope
A way-before-Bond Timothy Dalton as Romeo (he wasn't very good; a dreadful production by Terry Hands)
A way-before-Picard Patrick Stewart in As You Like It

In New York:

Alec McCowan in Hadrian VII

In a road show, when I was quite young:

Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, Thomas Mitchell, and Patricia Medina in Prescription: Murder

I saw that production of The Misanthrope, and saw them in Pygmalion as well. Saw her on stage many times, including (with David Suchet) Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Saw him as Prospero. The only time I saw Timothy Dalton on stage was in Antony and Cleopatra with Vanessa Redgrave. Not a good production, sort of like Popeye and Olive Oyl. A year later, I saw Peter Hall's production with Judi Dench and Anthony Hopkins. That was excellent. Saw Hopkins on stage a few other times, including as King Lear.

But I have enjoyed Vanessa Redgrave's performances on stage, particularly in The Cherry Orchard, in which she was better than Judi Dench.

Regarding Patrick Stewart, I've seen him on stage many times, first as Aaron in Titus Andronicus (1973 I think). A few years later as Oberon. Later still in The Master Builder, and Yonadab.