Theater Memories Part 3: Pre-Broadway Try-Outs

Patricia Routledge and Ken Howard
in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Now that we have done summer stock and national tours, how about pre-Broadway tours or out-of-town try-outs. Philadelphia used to be a major stop on the road to Broadway, but by the 1980s, the process became too expensive and most shows came from regional productions or were workshopped before opening in NYC (Michael Bennett pioneered the workshop process with A Chorus Line and Dreamgirls.)

Here are the pre-Broadway try-outs I remember seeing in Philly in the 1970s (most of the them big bombs): Who's Who in Hell written by and starring Peter Ustinov with George S. Irving, Beau Bridges, Olympia Dukakis, and Joseph Maher (a Shavian comedy set in the afterlife with Ustinov as a Soviet premiere, Irving as a Nixon-like US president, and Bridges as the assassin who killed them both, I enjoyed it and I thought it got a bum rap); Broadway Broadway by Terrence McNally with James Coco, Geraldine Page and Lenny Baker, Robert Drivas directs (I saw this just before leaving for college in 1977, it closed out of town, later rewritten as It's Only a Play and much more successful); The Prince of Grand Street with Robert Preston miscast as an aging Yiddish theater star, Sam Levene and Werner Klemperer were also in the cast; Alice, a musical based on Alice in Wonderland with Debbie Allen, Alice Ghostley, Cleavant Derricks, Hamilton Camp (Mike Nichols produced this attempt to cash in on The Wiz and Annie, but it closed in Philly); A Matter of Gravity by Enid Bagnold with Katharine Hepburn and Christopher Reeve (One of the few successful shows here, a light comedy and it was a thrill to see Hepburn on stage); 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the legendary bomb from Leonard Bernstein and Alan Jay Lerner with Ken Howard and Patricia Routledge, it wasn't that bad (pictured); Ladies at the Alamo by Paul Zindel with Estelle Parsons and Eileen Heckart; Myrt and Phil again with Parsons and Michael Lombard, a terrible play about a miserable couple in crisis after the wife has a mastectomy; I Remember Mama by Richard Rodgers and Martin Charnin, Liv Ullman's only attempt at a Broadway musical. Ullman was a big star at that time due to her shattering performances in Ingmar Bergman films such as Face to Face, Persona, Shame, Scenes from a Marriage, etc. I only remember George Hearn as the father and George S. Irving as the irascible Uncle Chris, puffing on a cigar to show his anger.

More: Seascape with Deborah Kerr, Barry Nelson, Frank Langella, Maureen Anderman (Edward Albee's very weird play before it won the Pulitzer, Langella won the first of his three Tonys); Master Harold and the Boys with Zakes Mokae, Zeljko Ivanek; Sweet Bird of Youth with Irene Worth and Christopher Walken, probably one f the best performances of a Tennessee Williams play I've ever seen; Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding with Marybeth Hurt in the Julie Harris role, Glenn Close as the bride, and the kid who played Ted Knight and Georgia Engel's adopted son on the Mary Tyler Moore Show (or at least it looked like him, I could be wrong) (I can't remember if this was pre or post-Broadway, but I will list it here.)

Irene Worth and Christopher Walken 
in Sweet Bird of Youth.

Peter Ustinov (playwright-star), 
Beau Bridges, and
George S. Irving in
Who's Who in Hell