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10 unusual facts about Broadway


Bill Osco

In 2007, an Off-Broadway musical based on his Alice in Wonderland was staged at the Kirk Theatre in New York City.

Brett Leigh

Leigh began his career on the Broadway stage, playing the roles of "Riff" and "Action" in the musical West Side Story and "Tommy Djilas" in the The Music Man.

Dick Gallagher

When Pigs Fly (1996), which was produced internationally after an extended run Off-Broadway, and won the 1996 Outer Critics Circle award for Best Musical Revue, and the Drama Desk Award for Best Off-Broadway musical

Douglass Watson

He was also an acclaimed actor on the New York stage, acting in several Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, including the 1952 Broadway revival of Desire Under the Elms by Eugene O'Neill.

Girl Crazy

An abridged version of Girl Crazy was presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC October 2–5, 2008 as part of their Broadway: Three Generations production.

Kirsten Holly Smith

On November 18, 2012, the new version of Smith’s Dusty Springfield bio-musical, now entitled Forever Dusty opened Off-Broadway at New World Stages in New York City.

Leon Ichaso

He first made his mark with the independently made Spanish-language feature, El Super (1979), based on an Off-Broadway play about an immigrant building superintendent trying to make his way in New York City.

Roscoe Born

Over the last thirty years he has worked in Regional Theatre on both coasts, and Off Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway in New York.

Windmill Performing Arts

Internationally, Windmill have performed in many countries, including in the US (including Off-Broadway), New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea.

Yarbrough and Peoples

More recently, in 2009, they both appeared in the Off-Broadway musical, Blind Lemon Blues, at the York Theatre, New York, where Cavin Yarbrough portrayed Lead Belly.


Antonio Meneses Saillant

Now a filmmaker and innovator he has produced the fantasy thriller, The Ascension, starring Corbin Bernsen and a romantic dark comedy entitled Heterosexuals, starring J. Robert Spencer from Broadway's Musical "Jersey Boys."

Arnold Moss

He played Prospero in Margaret Webster's 1945 production of Shakespeare's The Tempest for a combined total of 124 performances, the longest run of the play in Broadway history.

Caissie Levy

She later opened the Broadway production reprising her role as Molly Jensen along with Richard Fleeshman, her co-star in the West End production as Sam Wheat.

Carolyn George

She started her professional dance career in 1952 in Broadway musicals and joined New York City Ballet (NYCB) on its European tour that year in George Balanchine's Swan Lake.

Colin Bates

In November 2005 at preliminary auditions for Billy in the U.S., he went to the audition, being 15 when the cut-off age was 14; but director Stephen Daldry, realizing Colin would be too old for the Broadway production but also realizing his potential, brought Bates to London a few weeks later with his family to start rehearsals and debuted on March 13, 2006.

Corcoran, California

Whitley first intended the town be named "Otis", after Harrison Gray Otis of the Los Angeles Times, and streets as Otis, Sherman, Letts (the Broadway store) and Ross (after his son, Ross Whitley) show the connections.

David Rapkin

Rapkin has designed sound on Broadway for Steaming by Nell Dunn, On Golden Pond by Ernest Thompson, The Curse Of An Aching Heart by William Alfred, The Wake Of Jamie Foster by Beth Henley and Off-Broadway for Playwrights Horizons and The Phoenix Theater.

Donald O'Connor

O'Connor appeared in the short-lived Bring Back Birdie on Broadway in 1981, and continued to make film and television appearances into the 1990s, including the Robin Williams film Toys as the president of a toy-making company.

Doug Haining

He has performed professionally since 1974, backing national artists such as Steve Allen, Don Rickles, Bob Hope, and others, and Broadway shows such as West Side Story, Cats, A Chorus Line and many others.

Erminie

The Broadway, New York production was extraordinarily successful, opening at the Casino Theatre on 10 May 1886 and running for 571 performances.

Frank McGlynn, Sr.

By 1896 though, he was appearing on stage at the Casino Theatre performing in The Gold Bug, a burlesque musical comedy written by Glen MacDonough with music from Victor Herbert.

Graciela Rivera

In 1945, she was given the role of Adele in the musical "Rosalinda", a Broadway version of Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus.

Helen Burns

Burns' Broadway stage credits include The Inspector General, There's One in Every Marriage (1957), The First Gentleman, at the Belasco Theatre in New York City, and Catsplay, for the latter of which, she received a Drama Desk Award nomination.

Henry V. Esmond

For the next Broadway production, Eliza Comes to Stay, Esmond travelled to New York to appear alongside his wife and the popular actor Leslie Banks.

Ida Straus

Alma Cuervo (1997) (Titanic) (Broadway Musical) When Ida decided to stay with her husband, they sang the song "Still."

Jewel and Blaire Restaneo

Jewel & Blaire also had the great opportunity of working with Erin Brockovich on ABC's Challenge America TV Special with other Broadway kids, Ashley Rose Orr, Danielle Brown, Jennifer Brown, and Shadoe Brandt.

Joe DiPietro

2003 The Thing About Men (Off-Broadway) (book, lyrics) (musical version of the German comedy film by Doris Dörrie, Männer... (Men...), from 1985) with music by Jimmy Roberts

John B. Snook

Snook's 620 Broadway (1858) – called the "Little Cary Building" for its resemblance to the Cary Building by Gamaliel King and John Kellum (1856) – was fronted with cast iron from Badger's Architectural Iron Works.

Jump, Little Children

Jazz dancer Clarice Ordaz and Broadway dancer Jess LeProtto performed a contemporary routine choreographed to the song by Stacey Tookey.

Larry Keith

In the 1961 Broadway production of My Fair Lady, Keith served as an understudy to Michael Allinson and played the role of Higgins some 50 times.

Lester Rawlins

Born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, Rawlins appeared in off-Broadway productions of Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, Winterset, In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel, and Nightride, for which he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance.

Linda Lee Thomas

A one-woman show about Linda's life with Porter, Love, Linda: The Life Of Mrs. Cole Porter, starring jazz vocalist Stevie Holland, ran Off-Broadway at the York Theatre, in 2013.

Long Wharf Theatre

More than 30 Long Wharf productions have been transferred to Broadway or Off-Broadway, including Durango, Wit, (winner of a Pulitzer Prize), The Shadow Box (Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award/Best Play winner), Hughie, American Buffalo, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Quartermaine's Terms (Obie Award winner for best play), The Gin Game (Pulitzer Prize winner), The Changing Room, The Contractor and Streamers.

Loring Smith

Smith's most memorable Broadway role came nearly three years later when he portrayed Horace Vandergelder in Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker, with Ruth Gordon as Dolly, Arthur Hill as Cornelius and Robert Morse as Barnaby.

Mary Testa

She returned to Broadway in July, 2007 in the musical-theater remake of the 1980 film Xanadu for which she received a Drama Desk Award nomination.

Ming Cho Lee

Lee's first Broadway play as Scenic Designer was "The Moon Besieged" in 1962; he went on to design the sets for over 20 Broadway shows, including Mother Courage and Her Children, King Lear, The Glass Menagerie, The Shadow Box, and For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf.

Mixed Company of Yale

Bellamy Young '92, stage and film actress. Starred in This Life and Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway and currently plays Mellie Grant on the ABC show Scandal.

Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812

The work received the 2013 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theater, a 2013 Obie Award, and Best New Musical at the 2013 Off-Broadway Alliance Awards, and was nominated for five Drama Desk Awards.

Nick Basile

His acting credits include roles in the Off-Broadway production of Tony n' Tina's Wedding, H.P. Lovecraft (LoveCracked! The Movie) and has appeared in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing at the Gene Frankel Theatre in NYC.

Night Hostess

Silver screen legend Katharine Hepburn (using the alias "Katharine Burns") made her Broadway debut in Night Hostess, playing the bit part of "Other Hostess".

North Carolina Theatre

Several Broadway veterans are said to have started their careers at North Carolina Theatre, including Clay Aiken, Sharon Lawrence, Lauren Kennedy, and Beth Leavel.

Northwest Vocal Project

They perform a wide variety of styles within a cappella music, including traditional barbershop, jazz, Broadway, and light classical.

Nottingham Trent University, School of Art and Design

In the field of art and design, NTU has links with a wide range of companies, professional bodies and institutions on an international level, including Apple, Arcadia Group, Broadway, Fashion Institute of Technology, Marks & Spencer, Ralsey Group Limited, Association of Illustrators, Sony, and Sophie Stellar.

Olentangy West, Columbus, Ohio

The area is easily accessed by car via State Route 315 along with many other major roads including North Broadway, Kenny Road, Olentangy River Road, and Henderson Road.

Peter Michael Goetz

Additional New York City theatre credits include Beyond Therapy, Brighton Beach Memoirs, The Government Inspector, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Macbeth, and the off-Broadway productions The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs and Alan Ayckbourn's Comic Potential.

Raoul Bhaneja

In January 2006 Bhaneja debuted in Hamlet (solo), a one-man version of William Shakespeare's Hamlet directed by Robert Ross Parker, which has been performed across Canada including an engagement at The National Arts Centre in the fall of 2013, in the United Kingdom at The Assembly Rooms as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art as well as in New York City on a number of occasions, including Off Broadway.

Sakharam Binder

Its most recent performance in English was staged Off-Broadway as a part of the theatre company The Play Company's season starring Adam Alexi-Malle, Sarita Choudhury, Anna George, Sanjiv Jhaveri, Bernard White and directed by Maria Mileaf.

Sanford Friedman

Friedman was also active off-Broadway as a writer and producer, collaborating with actor Howard Da Silva; author Ben Maddow; and playwright Arnold Perl.

Sattler

Sattler's, a regional department store chain headquartered at 998 Broadway, Buffalo, New York

Shi Pei Pu

The incident became the basis of David Henry Hwang's 1988 play M. Butterfly, in which B. D. Wong played Song Liling, a Chinese opera singer and spy based on Shi Pei Pu in the original Broadway production of the play.

Summer Shaw

Summer considered asking him to stay,before a heart-to-heart with Sarah,who asked her "what if you landed a part in a Broadway show?" "I'd ask him to come with me" "For him to drop everything to follow your dreams, when you wouldn't let him follow his?"

The Great Divorce

In 2007 the Magis Theatre Company of New York City presented their adaptation in an off-Broadway run at Theatre 315 in the Theatre District with music by award-winning composer Elizabeth Swados and puppets by Ralph Lee.

The Love of Sunya

She chose to film another adaptation of Max Marcin and Charles Guernon's play as it had been filmed once before in 1919 starring Clara Kimball Young and was a resounding success on Broadway.

The Mary Tyler Moore Hour

Moore announced plans to return in a new sitcom in the fall of 1980, but instead turned to Broadway, where she starred in a revival of Whose Life Is It Anyway? (winning a special 1980 Tony Award for her performance of a role originally played by Tom Conti), and then went back to Hollywood, where she played the emotionally crippled mother in the acclaimed film Ordinary People, directed by Robert Redford.

Tiger Rose

Tiger Rose (play), American theatrical production written by Willard Mack and produced by David Belasco for star Lenore Ulric; Broadway opening in October 1917 at Lyceum Theatre; closed in September 1918 after 384 performances

Tony Azito

Azito's best-known role, however, came in yet a third production for NYSF: as the Sergeant of Police in the 1980 Broadway revival of The Pirates of Penzance, starring Linda Ronstadt and Kevin Kline.

Warren Casey

Producers Ken Waissman and Maxine Fox saw the show and suggested to the playwrights that it might work better as a musical, and told them if the creative partners were willing to rework it and they liked the end result, they would produce it off-Broadway.

Willy Russell

Bill Kenwright produced a revival in 1988 which has run for more than twenty years; the show was produced on Broadway in 1993.

Wilson Jermaine Heredia

He starred alongside Harvey Fierstein (who won a Tony Award for writing the Book of the musical) as Albin/Zaza and Broadway veteran Christopher Sieber as Georges.