steve's notebook

(July 13, 2010)

Everyone’s been making a big fuss about Bernadette Peters going into A Little Night Music because it’s the first time she’s replaced another actress during the run of a show.  [Pre-run-of-a-show, see Mack & Mabel.]  And while steadily working pros like Marin Mazzie often appear as mid-run replacements, it isn’t standard for Broadway A-listers.

But it’s not entirely unheard of that a star of Peters’s caliber does this.  Over the last few decades there have been several notable instances of star replacements.  This week is about them.

Staying near Night Music for the moment, let’s begin with Angela Lansbury.  A 1977 revival of The King & I opened at the Uris Theatre with Constance Towers as Anna and Yul Brynner returning once again as the King.  A year into its run, Yul Brynner had a vacation planned.  Producers didn’t believe his understudy, Michael Kermoyan, could keep ticket sales afloat during this time and so gave both Brynner and Towers a break, bringing in Lansbury to headline for three weeks as the Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Welsh schoolteacher.  

Lansbury was unquestionably among the biggest of Broadway stars by this time.  Known for her Oscar-nominated film work, she’d quickly proven herself on stage as well.  After picking up Leading Actress in a Musical Tonys for Mame (1966) and Dear World (1969), she’d won a third only three years before in Gypsy.

One effect of this casting was to shift the dramatic balance of the show back to something more akin to its original structre.  Ever since the King became Brynner’s breakthrough role, his presence made that the star part.  But back when the original production opened in 1951, he was a supporting actor and Gertrude Lawrence’s Anna drew all the attention.  Lansbury playing against Kermoyan mirrored this and, I’m sure, made for an entirely different show that what had played in the prior weeks.  By all accounts, Lansbury’s brief stint as a replacement was a success and within a year she would return to the Uris in Sweeney Todd, which was to have its own notable replacements.