Looking Back (Way Back) Before the New Year
As if that weren't enough exciting video news for the day, I have even more! Many of you who do love to access our videos have been asking me about the lost archives. On the previous design of Broadway.com (version 3.0), the video archive went back to early 2002 or so. Well, now we're digging through our entire collection of videos all the way back to 2000, our launch year, and re-encoding and bringing them to back to you, our loyal users!
Click through our video archives and you'll find all sorts of rare offerings, new and old. As we keep adding more to the site (there are literally hundreds of videos being added in the next few months), I'll spotlight some of the notable selections in these pages. Starting now!
Click here to see our video from a special sneak peek that the producers of Millie did for the press on May 21, 2001, almost a year before the show premiered at the Marquis Theatre. [IMG:R]In the feature, you'll see a young, high-energy Sutton tapping up a storm and singing all the great hits from the show--in the actual red fringe dress that she wore in the show logo (which never actually appeared in the show)! When we asked a bewigged Sutton about the appeal of the character she would wind up play for an incredible three years, she summed it up in two words: "She's cool." Indeed!
Nine months later, we met up with Foster again during rehearsals for the Broadway run of the show on February 7, 2002 at the New 42nd Street Studios. Click here to see Sutton and the cast singing the title song, the then-new "Not for the Life of Me," "Forget About the Boy" and the one-of-a-kind Sheryl Lee Ralph singing "Only in New York." Without her flapper wig and bright red lips, Foster looks more like the star we know and love in this video. As honest as ever, when asked how she felt to be headlining a big Broadway musical, she said, "Scared to death but thrilled and honored!"
[PAGEBREAK]Toasting the Long Lost Long-Runners
Of course The Phantom of the Opera is still going strong-thanks to the publicity from the just-released movie. In fact, it's been holding steady as Broadway.com's top-selling show for the last month or so. We recently revisited the Andrew Lloyd Webber extravaganza on the occasion of i[IMG:L]ts 7,000th performance (Click to watch). But a trio of other legendary shows that were delighting audiences when Broadway.com launched have gone the way of the history books. Here, we look back on the mega-musicals of videos past.
We were in the audience with our video camera when the Broadway company of Cats played their final performance at the Winter Garden Theatre on September 10, 2000. Click here to see the curtain call speeches by director Trevor Nunn and producer Cameron Mackintosh and our post-show chats with people like choreographer Gillian Lynne, designer John Napier and reunited original cast members like Betty Buckley, Terrence Mann, Ken Page, Anna McNeely, Cynthia Onrubia and history-maker Marlene Danielle, who was still in the show on its 7,485th and final performance.
October 2, 2000 was a fun night at the Broadway Theatre, where current and past cast members came onstage for a special post-show finale after Miss Saigon's 4,000th performance. Click here to see rare video of that performance as well as interviews with the many talented performers who played out the drama of Saigon during its run. At the after-party, Tony winner Jonathan Pryce admitted to us that the costume department had to let out the famous red satin jacket to recreate his showstopper "The American Dream." Among the other highlights: Philip Lyle Kong, one of the show's original Tams, revealing that one of his biggest memories of starring in the show was Pryce's sweaty hand, replacement Chris Jarrod Emick speculating that Les Miserables would run until "the place burns down" (ironic as he starred in the Imperial Theatre's follow-up tenant, The Boy from Oz), and original cast member Liz Callaway on the inside joke of "Post-'Bui-Doi.'"
[PAGEBREAK]Pre-Phantom Patrick Wilson
We knew that The Full Monty would be great at the open press rehearsal back in September 2000 even though we only saw the half [IMG:R]monty--director Jack O'Brien stopped the strip number midway yelling out "If you want to see the full monty, you're gonna pay the full price!" Click here to see that moment and to see Wilson joking about how his underwear audition for the show was the "most horrifying experience" he'd ever been through! Then Click here to join Wilson on opening night at the Grand Hyatt, where he laughed about the final moments of the show, in which he stood center stage stark naked with the lights shining on the old ladies in the audience, admitting to getting some pleasure out of "giving them a thrill" like that.
To see Wilson crooning some classic Rodgers and Hammerstein songs, click here and relive the opening night of Trevor Nunn's Broadway revival of Oklahoma! from 2002. At the posh party at Tavern on the Green, Wilson cracked about the fact that unlike The Full Monty and some of his past theatrical experiences, everyone in the audience knew the lyrics to songs like "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" "I just want to get all the words right!" he laughed.
A Yuletide Offering
Those are my little video Christmas presents to you all. Still looking for the perfect gift for your Broadway-obsessed loved ones? Don't forget about Broadway.com photographer Bruce Glikas' 2005 Calendar, featuring Harvey, Hugh, Audra and all the stage stars that make us shine. Have a great holiday!
That's it for now. Talk to you next time. Please e-mail me any of your questions, comments or critiques!
Paul Wontorek
Way before the Tony Award and her current gig playing literary legend Jo March in Little Women, Sutton Foster was just another star-to-be (literally, in Annie) looking for a break on the Great White Way. Although we already knew big brother Hunter (who mooned Times Square for many a month from the Grease! billboard), we didn't meet Sutton until May 2001, shortly after she wowed critics at La Jolla Playhouse as a last-minute substitute for Erin Dilly in Thoroughly Modern Millie.
Patrick Wilson is becoming a recognizable face in Hollywood these days thanks to this year's Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for Angels in America and his current starring role in The Phantom of the Opera. But we've been following this reluctant heartthrob for years now and we've got the video to prove it!
I leave you with a video shot at the concert that Sh-K-Boom Records organized to spread some holiday joy four Christmases back. Click here to see an endless number of highlights including Sherie Rene Scott wailing "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)," brand new Producers star [IMG:L]Richard Kind teaming up with Matt Bogart for "The Lonely Jew on Christmas," velvet-voiced Norm Lewis singing "O Holy Night," pop star Gavin DeGraw taking on the classic "The Christmas Song" and Bogart, Jonathan Dokuchitz (Hairspray), Adam Pascal, Alice Ripley and Clarke Thorell (Lone Star Love) singing an original song by Little Women composer Jason Howland called "Love at Christmas Time."
Editor-in-Chief
For an archive of old Stage Note columns, click here.