Productions
The musical opened on Broadway on April 15, 1971 at the Broadhurst Theatre, where it ran for 35 performances and nine previews. The cast included Mildred Natwick, Lillian Roth, Hans Conried, and Lillian Hayman. Natwick was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Popular veteran Broadway actor David Burns was also a member of the cast, until his sudden departure during a preview performance — he collapsed onstage at Philadelphia's Forrest Theatre from a heart attack, dying soon after. (Conried replaced him.) The production was supervised by Stanley Prager, directed by Paul Aaron, with set and lighting design by Robert Randolph, costume design by Jane Greenwood, musical direction and vocal arrangements by Oscar Kosarin, orchestrations by Don Walker, dance music by Dorothea Freitag, and choreography by Onna White.
The show premiered in the West End at the Vaudeville Theatre on June 17, 1991 running through September 1991. Directed by Paul Kerryson, it starred Dora Bryan, Pip Hinton and Joan Savage. It featured a revised book, new songs, and reduced orchestrations. The production did away with the big sets, big numbers and full-scale orchestra. This production was staged on one set and with a band of five musicians with the score reorchestrated by Julian Kelly. Kerryson explained: "Part of the problem of 70, Girls, 70 on Broadway...must have been that it was done so big, which doesn't suit this particular musical. Its charm here is that it is so intimate."
The Encores! series at New York City Center presented a concert version in April 2006. Directed by Kathleen Marshall and conducted by Paul Gemignani, it starred Olympia Dukakis, Bob Dishy, Anita Gillette, George S. Irving, Carleton Carpenter, and Charlotte Rae.
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Famous quotes containing the word productions:
“Most new things are not good, and die an early death; but those which push themselves forward and by slow degrees force themselves on the attention of mankind are the unconscious productions of human wisdom, and must have honest consideration, and must not be made the subject of unreasoning prejudice.”
—Thomas Brackett Reed (1839–1902)
“If in many of my productions terror has been the thesis, I maintain that terror is not of Germany, but of the soul.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“It is well known, that the best productions of the best human intellects, are generally regarded by those intellects as mere immature freshman exercises, wholly worthless in themselves, except as initiatives for entering the great University of God after death.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)