Word: broadway
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...anyone who has been involved with a Broadway show during the past 40-odd years will tell you, this is all part of the game. Producers send a show on the road (usually to Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, New Haven or any combination of two or three of them) so that the out-of-town critics can point out the mistakes that have to be corrected before the production faces the New York critics. But if the flaws pointed out by the provincial critics are major, fixing a show on the road becomes a hectic, often panicky, race against time...
...show's producer and authors started to rewrite the show, practically from scratch. Within a week, the director, Peter Glenville, had been replaced (by Joe Layton). Within a month, a whole new first act was on stage. This is no small job, considering the complexities of putting together a Broadway musical...
Realizing that his show -- now the most expensive in Broadway history--would be a sure flop unless more radical changes could be made, producer Cohen decided to postpone the opening indefinitely, with all performances in New York designated as "previews" until he considered Dear World ready for an opening before critics. While critics accept this practice of previews as an addition to the road tryout period, they could not abide by Cohen's plan to play the unfinished show into the distant future before paying audiences. Several of the first-nighters threatened to show up at the show unannounced...
...show can even close on the road before reaching Broadway in any form. Last year, Merrick's Mata Hari (which cost as much as Tiffany's) folded in Washington shortly after a disastrous benefit - premiere during which scenery collapsed and the leading lady was caught nude on stage in a costume change. Merrick evidently found the show unfixable, sent director Vincente Minelli back to California, and auctioned off the sets to to Washington University play-houses...
Lately about four plays per season close on the road in this manner. This fall's big road flop was the musicalization of Bruce Jay Friedman's novel, A Mother's Kisses. Friedman did his own adaptation (on the heels of his successful off-Broadway comedy, Scuba Duba), and it closed in Baltimore...