| re: Longest Tryout Period For Musical? | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 06:23 pm EST 11/21/24 | |
| In reply to: re: Longest Tryout Period For Musical? - EvFoDr 04:54 pm EST 11/21/24 | |
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| Thank you, EvFoDr. Yes, sc2 seems to perhaps be conflating gestation time with tryout time. I also thought of Saturday Night. And Sondheim first wanted to write a musical about the Mizner brothers back around 1953 or not long after, but couldn't get the rights as far more famous people had the rights. He even wrote at least one or two songs back then, but he didn't get very far, as he couldn't get the rights, so we probably shouldn't count it. And I don't think any of what he wrote back then was later in any of the versions that got produced. When it comes to tryout time, strictly speaking of one continuous or nearly continuous period between when a show opened out of town and when it got to Broadway, the longest one I can think of is the original No, No, Nannette, which famously took a long and circuitous route to Broadway, not because it was in trouble, but because it was popular. It opened in Detroit on April 21, 1924. After a week there, it moved to Cincinnati for a week, then to an open-ended run in Chicago that lasted 11 months (and could have continued longer), then one week each in Milwaukee, Cleveland and again Detroit (where another company had already played after the first Detroit run), then to Boston for four months, and then finally to Broadway on September 16, 1925. Meanwhile, there had been other companies that played in various places, not necessarily in this order: a West Coast tour, Australia, London, Philadelphia and the other tour that played that time in Detroit. If my understanding is correct, the production that opened on Broadway was essentially the same one that had opened in Detroit in April 1924. There were some cast changes along the way and some revisions, but it was the same basic production. There have been others that played relatively long continuous tryouts, such as Kismet, The Roar of the Greasepaint—The Smell of the Crowd, Silk Stockings, and Oliver! but none nearly as long as No, No, Nanette. In the 1970s and 1980s (and maybe even a bit later), several revivals and revisals (e.g., the 1974 Good News) and stage versions of film musicals (such as Gigi and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) played very long pre-Broadway tours, but perhaps we can discount those. And we can probably discount the more than six months that The Baker's Wife spent on its tryout tour since it never opened on Broadway. In any case, none of those took as long as No, No, Nanette, except possibly Good News, since I don't have its tryout info at hand. But I don't think it was 17 months. |
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