With Hairspray beginning performances in London tomorrow at the Shaftesbury, there are now ten shows playing in identical productions on each side of the Atlantic, with Jersey Boys set to join the line-up when it arrives in the West End from Broadway early next year and two more titles (Grease and Rent) also playing simultaneously but in different physical stagings. There’s an unequal distribution in the direction of the traffic – of the ten shows playing in both London and New York, four of them were born in West End, the other six on Broadway.
But yesterday’s announcement that Monty Python’s Spamalot is to do a leading ladies swap in January – we’re sending them our Lady in the Lake Hannah Waddingham, they’re sending us Marin Mazzie – makes me wonder why we don’t do this more often. [Click below to continue reading]
It sometimes happens that the stars who originate roles in a production will become part of the original package when it transfers – we got Idina Menzel as Elphaba when Wicked first arrived here, and Christopher Sieber in Spamalot as Sir Dennis Galahad alongside Brit Tim Curry who had originated King Arthur. (Simon Russell Beale, who took over from Curry on Broadway, then did the same thing here). We also, by default, got Nathan Lane in The Producers (when he replaced the originally announced Richard Dreyfuss at the last minute) and Ann Harada in Avenue Q (when the local performer hired to play the role of Christmas Eve was released to do a TV series).
We, of course, also sent New York our original stars of The Phantom of the Opera (Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman) and Miss Saigon (Jonathan Pryce and Philippines discovery Lea Salonga), though not without protest at the time from American Equity, who sought to block both Brightman and Pryce until threatened by the prospect of the show not transferring at all. For Mary Poppins, we sent Gavin Lee to recreate his turn as Bert (and American Gavin Creel, who hadn’t played it on Broadway, came to take over in London). And for the imminent Broadway recreation of the Menier Chocolate Factory production of Sunday in the Park with George (opening at Studio 54 in February), the original West End duo of Daniel Evans and Jenna Russell will recreate their Olivier Award winning turns there.
But direct swaps of opposing numbers would seem to be a great opportunity to broaden the transatlantic traffic, and there are currently ten shows to do so with. Chicago has toyed with it more than most: Denise van Outen, Ruthie Henshall (swapping roles from Roxie to Velma as she travelled to New York), Ute Lemper, Brooke Shields, Clarke Peters (American but long-term resident in the UK) and Amra-Faye Wright are amongst those who have starred in the show on both sides of the pond. When Les Miserables returned to Broadway last year, Jenny Galloway recreated a UK turn she’d previously done as Madame Thernadier.
But otherwise, it’s still rare for shows to swap cast members in this way. Obviously the respective Equity trade bodies that look after the professional interests of their members want to protect local jobs; but an open trade of actors in the same role would expand their opportunities without compromising anyone.
