Top 10 Broadway Re-Casts That Were Just as Good as or Better Than the Original
These Broadway re-casts deserve an encore. Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the best examples of replacement cast members who inherited a role mid-Broadway run and made it their own.
Transcript
00:00 "And you're perfect for the role." "Yeah, I knew it had changed the way I talk."
00:03 Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the best examples of
00:07 replacement cast members who inherited a role mid-Broadway run and made it their own.
00:12 "Oh, in any instant, and who I was has disappeared."
00:19 Number 10. George Hearn - Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
00:26 Stephen Sondheim's musical of Victorian-era cannibalism opened at New York's Euris
00:31 Theatre in 1979 with Len Carreyew as the title character.
00:35 "What happened then? Well, that's the play, and he would want us to give it away.
00:38 Not Sweeney."
00:43 After over a year, Carreyew left the show in 1980, and George Hearn stepped in. His memorable
00:49 performance would be revived on tour and in the 1982 film version of the show, alongside original
00:54 star Angela Lansbury. This would effectively make Hearn's chilling and hearty take the first
01:00 glimpse that many non-native New Yorkers got of the homicidal barber.
01:03 "Pretty women, sitting in the window, standing on the stair."
01:15 He would play the role several times again in concert,
01:18 memorably paired with another Broadway luminary, Patti LuPone.
01:22 "Because the lives of the wicked should be made brief,
01:24 for the rest of us, death will be a relief. We all deserve to die."
01:29 Number 9. Bernadette Peters - A Little Night Music
01:35 Although Catherine Zeta-Jones won a Tony for her role as Desiree Armfelt in the lackluster 2009
01:40 revival of this Sondheim show, Bernadette Peters was a noted breath of fresh air as her replacement.
01:45 "I must meet your wife, yes I must."
01:59 The difference in quality was marked by Variety critic Stephen Suskin,
02:02 who began his review with the phrase, quote, "What a difference a diva makes."
02:07 Peters, along with legendary co-star Elaine Stritch,
02:10 entered the show six months into its run, and gave it a shot in the arm.
02:14 "Liaison. What's happened to them? Liaison today."
02:22 By then, Peters was a master interpreter of composer Stephen Sondheim's work,
02:29 and her take on the role and its signature song is notably subtler.
02:33 "Where are the clouds? Send in the clouds."
02:42 Number 8. Maren Mazie & Jason Danieley - Next to Normal
02:46 Once the lauded original cast left Next to Normal in July 2010,
02:50 performers Maren Mazie and Jason Danieley headlined the production.
02:54 This musical is a challenging show, both thematically and vocally.
03:09 Its rock-infused score and emotional content requires accomplished performers.
03:14 Being married in real life, Mazie and Danieley brought a new and shattering dimension to the
03:19 roles of Diana and Dan, a couple struggling through grief and mental illness.
03:23 "We've been, you know, wanting to work together on Broadway for a long time,
03:27 and finally we get the chance to do it in such a magnificently orchestrated show."
03:32 "That's been really an exciting part of it, playing opposite each other."
03:35 Reviewers were delighted by their casting. Despite the emotional ground covered by original
03:40 cast members Alice Ripley and J. Robert Spencer,
03:43 Mazie and Danieley managed to unearth even more complexity.
03:46 Number 7. Rob McClure - Something Rotten
04:02 While Brian Darcy James originated the Shakespeare-hating Nick Bottom in the original
04:06 cast, Rob McClure earned heaps of praise for his spirited take on the role.
04:10 "And then, out of nowhere, he just starts singing?"
04:14 "Yes!"
04:14 Entertainment Weekly even politely suggested McClure's was the better showing. Taking over
04:21 from James in 2016, McClure stayed with the show until its closing before taking the show on its
04:26 national tour.
04:27 "We don't want to stop. Not long enough. Yeah, I don't want to stop. Do you want to stop?"
04:31 "I don't. I would do anything to just keep doing this show for as long as humanly possible."
04:37 "I hear they're doing a tour. You want to go on tour?"
04:40 His performance is the one many theatergoers saw live. Some fans prefer McClure's softer,
04:46 less angry take on the character. Whether or not you prefer one over the other,
04:50 they're wildly different interpretations of the role, and it might just come down to a matter of
04:55 taste.
04:55 "And that's another thing I hate about Shakespeare, is all the twits who bloviate about
05:00 Shakespeare, and how they prattle on about his great accomplishments, well, la-dee-da-dee-da."
05:06 Number six, Vanessa Williams, Kiss of the Spider Woman.
05:10 After icon Chita Rivera originated the character of Aurora, the so-called Spider Woman,
05:15 she left her replacement with some big, dazzling dancing shoes to fill.
05:19 "I'm so very glad to share this good advice. You've got to learn how not to be where you are."
05:34 In 1994, Vanessa Williams was a chart-topping singer trying to establish herself as an actress,
05:39 and she made her Broadway stage debut in the role. While contemporary reviews noted the
05:44 character's dancing was less vigorous, highlighting the singing more, this felt
05:48 like a necessary and welcome change to accommodate Williams' skills.
05:51 "A boss spider woman with a velvet cape. You can scream, but you cannot escape."
06:12 She was so good in the role that the production received a critically acclaimed second cast album,
06:17 just to showcase her and her fellow replacement cast members.
06:20 "But if you want to get my attention, let's make love."
06:30 Number five, Sara Bareilles, Waitress
06:33 Tony winner Jessie Mueller was Broadway's first Jenna, but since then she's been played by some
06:38 of the industry's best and brightest. Yet there's something so satisfying and so profound about
06:43 watching the show's composer, Sara Bareilles, in the role.
06:46 "If I'm honest, I know I would give it all back for a chance to start over, rewrite an ending or two."
07:02 Her personal connection to the words she wrote is clear,
07:05 and the show's bubbly, warm humor is a great match for her years as a pop star.
07:09 "That reminds me of a thing we would say, me and my mama in the kitchen when we'd bake.
07:16 She'd say, 'Jenna, you could tell a whole story with a taste.'"
07:21 In 2023, her interpretation was forever cemented in the filmed production. In a lot of ways,
07:27 Waitress served as a soft launch for the pop singer-songwriter's revamping as a theater star.
07:32 "Make it up, it's a prize then. Tell them all my secrets but disguise them so they dance."
07:42 Number four, Fantasia Barrino, The Color Purple
07:46 With its soaring songs and story of a woman reclaiming her agency after years of hardship
07:50 and abuse, The Color Purple is a demanding show for a novice performer.
07:54 "Take a deep breath, I'm gonna hold my head up, I'm gonna put my shoulders back,
08:04 and look you straight in the eye."
08:07 American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino may have been a successful singer,
08:11 but she was untested as a stage actor when she made her Broadway debut in the role of Celie.
08:16 Replacing LaChanze in 2007,
08:18 the announcement that she was taking over the role spurred a huge surge in ticket sales.
08:23 "And I'm here."
08:32 What's more, she was, by all accounts, incredible in the show. She's so well-thought-of that nearly
08:38 15 years later, she made another debut, this time as a film actress,
08:42 in the 2023 Hollywood adaptation of the musical.
08:45 "Ever very close, for you, for you, and I, and I, and I."
08:54 Number three, Lea Michele, Funny Girl
08:57 It seems like the Glee actress has been auditioning for the role of Fanny Brice
09:01 since her Rachel Berry days. At long last, she played the role made famous by Barbara
09:05 Streisand on the Broadway stage. But that chance came in an unexpected way.
09:09 "Get ready for me, love, 'cause I'm a comer. I simply gotta march my heart to drama.
09:15 Don't bring around a cloud to rain on my parade."
09:18 The talented but miscast Beanie Feldstein didn't impress in the role,
09:24 and after weeks of speculation, Michele was announced as her replacement.
09:28 "Face the facts, you don't got it."
09:30 "You think beautiful girls are gonna stay in style forever?"
09:35 Her vocals were noteworthy, and the media coverage ended up rescuing the seemingly
09:40 doomed production from an early closing. It's hard to ignore that Funny Girl is the show
09:44 Michele was born to headline. "No more hunger and thirst, but first be a person who needs people."
09:55 In an incredibly unconventional but unsurprising move,
10:01 it's Michele on the production's cast album and not the star who opened the run.
10:05 "Wait, they're gonna hear a voice, a silver flute.
10:11 They'll cheer each toot, and it's terrific, huh? When I expose it."
10:17 Number 2. Reba McEntire - Annie Get Your Gun
10:20 Bernadette Peters opened the 1999 revival of this tried and true Irving Berlin classic,
10:26 but it was country star Reba McEntire who endeared herself to a whole new group of fans.
10:30 "But a man never trifles with gals who carry rifles.
10:35 Oh, you can't get a man with a gun. With a gun. With a gun."
10:43 People were comparing her deft and hilarious take on Annie Oakley to some of the best acting
10:47 they'd ever seen in a musical. Reba may have drawn on her experience playing Oakley in a TV movie,
10:53 but doing eight shows a week and following one of Broadway's biggest stars was a whole new ballgame.
10:58 "Yes, I can."
11:04 "No, you can't, can't, can't."
11:06 "Yes, I can, can, can."
11:09 It was a challenge she was clearly game for. Audiences who were lucky enough to see her in
11:13 the show still talk about it to this day. "Still I think I'm a lucky girl.
11:19 I've got the sun in the morning and the moon at night."
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11:43 1. Pearl Bailey - Hello, Dolly
11:46 Carol Channing would forever be linked with the role of Dolly Levi, the matchmaking widow of
11:51 Yonkers. However, she was followed in the show's original Broadway run by legends like Ginger
11:56 Rogers, Ethel Merman, and Betty Grable. But few made the role their own like Pearl Bailey,
12:01 who led the show for two years alongside an African-American cast.
12:05 "It was the rain that set it all on fire."
12:17 Due to the strength of the cast and Bailey's anchoring performance,
12:21 the original production of Hello, Dolly became one of the few to record a second cast album.
12:26 Bailey brought a delightfully bombastic energy to the role.
12:29 "We'll stay where we're at, darling. Time will never go away."
12:36 She was so good, she was awarded a special Tony Award,
12:39 despite not being in the show's opening night.
12:42 "But when you discover that your life is dreary, don't come a-knockin' at my door,
12:49 'cause I'll be all dressed up and singin' that song."
12:54 Who was your favorite Broadway replacement? Tell us in the comments.
12:57 "Your starlet won't quit big hit music, oh!"
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