Productions
The original Broadway production opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on November 3, 1960 and closed on February 10, 1962 after 532 performances and 1 preview. It was directed by Dore Schary and choreographed by Peter Gennaro. The opening cast included Tammy Grimes, Harve Presnell, and Jack Harrold. Grimes won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical. Grimes appeared in the US national tour in 1962, including Los Angeles and San Francisco in April and June 1962, respectively.
Presnell reprised his stage role for the 1964 film, also entitled The Unsinkable Molly Brown starring Debbie Reynolds. The two starred in a 1989-1990 national tour.
The first West End production, with Abi Finley and Sean Pol McGreevy in the leading roles, opened in May 2009.
- Readings
A reading of Molly Brown, the first of the revised versions by Dick Scanlan, took place in Denver at the Denver Center Theatre Company's Colorado New Play Summit in February 2009. The show was directed by Kathleen Marshall and starred Kerry O'Malley as Molly, Marc Kudisch as James Joseph "J.J." Brown, William Parry as Horace Tabor, Linda Mugelston as Polly Pry, with Chad Callaghan, Paula Chase, Susan Derry, Kevin Earley, Ali Ewoldt, Jeremy Jordan, Kevin Ligon, Omar Lopez-Cepero, Brandi Chavone Massey, Orville Mendoza, Richard Roland, Matthew Shepard, Jennifer Smith and Kevin Worley. The story was revised "to use more elements from the real-life story" of Molly Brown.
A reading of the musical was held in May 2010. The show was directed/choreographed by Kathleen Marshall, music supervision by Michael Rafter, with Sutton Foster as Molly and Craig Bierko as James Joseph "J.J." Brown. This reading had only Molly and J.J. as characters, cutting out all others that were in the previous version.
In December 2011, another reading of the musical by Scanlan was staged. The creative team was the same as in May 2010, and it starred Foster and Kudisch again, Teal Wicks, Constantine Germanacos, Francis Jue, Zachary James and Donna English. The score consists of about half from the original musical and "the rest of the "new" score is made up songs from the late Willson's catalog."
Read more about this topic: The Unsinkable Molly Brown (musical)
Famous quotes containing the word productions:
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—Thomas Brackett Reed (1839–1902)
“Eternity is in love with the productions of time.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
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—Herman Melville (1819–1891)