Company, Original Cast in Concert - Rehearsal - Sondheim - Donna McKechnie - Elaine Stritch 

What a lovely commentary! Made my day to hear your own relationship with this wonderful show.

So very kind. January of 2006 it would have been more accurate for me to say.

I saw the original documentary on PBS, and insisted to my parents that we go to see the show. From Wikipedia: "The making of the original cast recording was captured by award-winning documentary filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker shortly after the show opened on Broadway as a pilot for a TV series highlighting the different ways a cast-album recording session could be conducted. However, a week after the original screening, all the original producers for the proposed series were hired to go out to Hollywood and head up production at MGM. As nobody was left in New York to spearhead the project, the series was scrapped. Only this lone pilot film remains of an idea never brought to fruition." Funny how your mind plays tricks on you - I always thought I had seen Dean Jones in the original production, but now I realize it must have been Larry Kert. The documentary was not shown till October of 1970 - long after Dean Jones had left the show in May of that year. But I listened to the cast album endlessly, and that is the performance that was preserved, so that is who I saw. www.nytimes.com/1970/10/25/archives/after-18-hours-just-tears-elaine-stritch.html You would think that the performers would not like being filmed as they worked to record the album (within one day, if I'm correct, because of union rules).. but I guess since they're performers maybe they liked the additional exposure. The documentary was ahead of its time, there are now many tapings of cast album, or vocal album recordings, as part of the promotion.

@@seventiesmemories5116 It was on the Sunday following the opening, per the program, though it stretchedinto the early hours of the next day. Pennebaker, who made the pilot program, had lights rated for 16 hours, and a few of them had failed before they had finished recording at something like 4:00 AM. The rest of the cast were dismissed, as Elaine Stritch wanted to record "The Ladies Who Lunch" without an audience. For whatever reason she was unable to elicit an acceptable performance that night. She was overacting wildly, and her singing had disintegrated into shouting and talking. The results, as shown in the documentary, weren't even close to acceptable, and got worse the longer they tried. Eventually they gave up, recorded an orchestral track and told her they'd try again in a few days. It was apparently Wednesday, as she had her makeup and hair done for the matinee (on Sunday she has neither, and looked very different). She was like a completely different actress, her voice was excellent, and they recorded easily the excellent version on the OBC album.

Thank you for commenting. I completely concur, nothing will replace the original. ;)

@@DamienSlattery68 I just can never get enough of Donna McKechnie - what a delight she is - both onstage and in person. Is that Susan Browning in "You Can Drive A Person Crazy" ? Poor thing, she seems to have hurt her foot! She passed away too soon, just 13 years later.

@@seventiesmemories5116 She had hurt her foot alright and she will always be my favorite April. 😉

Some years ago I went with two friends to see a video of the original show at the NY Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center. It was fairly dreadful - blurry beyond belief, in black and white- it seems to have been a video done for technical purposes - to help light or block the show perhaps. We gave up after half an hour or so. Yes - it's too bad that they didn't record the shows for historical purposes. But many performances are preserved because of the Tony broadcasts, so be thankful for that.

@@seventiesmemories5116 oh, no :( I was hoping there was a decent one there.

Gary HS it was and still is illegal to tape...documentary aside... I totally agree but nobody dared blatantly shoot something like this. Some skunk would have reported it.

@@beverlyedwards8103 There are recordings of many shows. Why they were made I don't know, but they are preserved in archives in NYC, and available for viewing, so they were legally made. I've talked to people in the business and they say those recordings are hugely valuable for people staging revivals.

I do a lot of community theatre and those are the best directors.

He was great here on camera, but he was famous for having a bad temper. Still, it's great fun watching him direct something so spontaneous and make such smart decisions. He really knows how to keep the action moving and the staging look balanced. Thoroughly remarkable, even on a crude video like this. Dean Jones, who had almost no stage experience and almost never sang in films, still sounds very much as he had 23 years earlier. Remarkable.

@@markmiller3279 yeah, I’m just going by what I see here not rumor but that could have been true. I’m sure he wasn’t a pleasure for every day on every set. Beyond that he may have been a jerk but he made some great theater.

Yes. the original cast are the definitive. I totally agree.

I completely agree!

Thank you!

Michael Bennett showing his style.

Actually, it's vice versa. Dean Jones was the original Bobby, and Larry Kert replaced him early on in the original run. This was due to Dean having real emotional problems with performing the song "Being Alive" since he had recently got out of a harrowing divorce by the time the song was written.

Thanks.Was Larry Kert still living when they did this concert event, do you know?

All I know is that Larry Kert died on June 5, 1991. I don't know when this concert took place, so I can't say whether or not he was around during this.

Larry Kert replaced Dean Jones right after opening night- he was not in the original cast. Dean Jones left to try and save his marriage. The late great Elaine Stritch gave an interview about it

The concert was on January 23, 1993. Dean Jones performed the role of Bobby.

I am afraid not.

@@DamienSlattery68 I wish someone would have asked me to move. I'm the guy in the purple shirt during the first song.

@@josephmarzullo4416 You were there!! 💕

1993. :)