The Show Goes On: Broadway Hirings, Firings and Replacements

by Ron Fassler

Conducting more than a hundred interviews and extensive research, Ron Fassler, author of "Up in the Cheap Seats," has cultivated a series of unique stories from a wide range of the New York theatre community that border on the heroic. What goes into a replacement making a role their own in the shadow of another’s highly lauded performance? What happens when an actor hops on the moving train that is a multi-million dollar production and replaces a flailing actor during an out of town tryout? How do understudies and swings miraculously go on sometimes without a single rehearsal? Answers to these and other questions are provided by way of touching and humorous anecdotes gathered together for the first time in one book.

462 pages, Paperback

Published November 24, 2024

About the author

RON FASSLER is an author, theater historian and drama critic. “The Show Goes On: Broadway Hirings, Firings and Replacements,” was recently published and Nathan Lane called Ron’s first book, “Up in the Cheap Seats: An Historical Memoir” (2017), “Well worth the price of admission.” For more information, visit www.ronfassler.org. Mr. Fassler is also a recovering actor.

Reviews

[Bernd · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than 400 pages of theater stories - ´Broadway Hirings, Firings & Replacement` as the subtitle goes. Already one of my favorite theater books ever, very breezily written. Even with often-told stories (e. g. Shirley MacLaine going into ´The Pajama Game` or Sutton Foster starting her career with ´Millie`), Fassler manages to make them interesting by unearthing new information, either from old sources or new interviews.
Same goes for Pearl Bailey in ´Hello Dolly´, the trouble with various revivals of ´Pal Joey` or Sheila Smith performing in ´Follies` and ´Company` the same evening. He also brought back stories I had forgotten already (Jeremy Piven in ´Speed-the-plow` or Mary Tyler Moore in Neil Simon´s last play). But there also lots of every-day replacements without rancor or fanfare, simply one actor taking over and how much or little help he got from management or the company.
My favorite story: Robert Goulet taking over for Daniel Davis in ´La Cage`- how different they treated Gary Beach was heartbreaking.

Really highly recommended, I had to take a break midway through the book because it was so rich...