Welcome to a new Musical Theatre Monday! This month, we’re celebrating the late Chita Rivera with rarities from her final Broadway show — The Visit, John Kander and Fred Ebb’s rich adaptation of a darkly comic Swiss-German play about a wealthy woman who returns to her impoverished hometown and agrees to make a large donation in exchange for the death of a former lover. The Visit had a long, tortured history with several regional productions that failed to earn a Broadway transfer — first at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in 2001 and then Arlington’s Signature Theatre in 2008, between which an off-Broadway mounting was planned and scrapped. The show was resurrected again in 2011 for a one-night-only concert in New York, leading to a new one-act revision that premiered in 2014 at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. A version of this production then finally made the leap to Broadway in 2015, where it starred Chita Rivera and Roger Rees, both capping off their stage careers.
Although it was originally slated for Angela Lansbury, Rivera was attached to the project since its 2001 Chicago debut. So, in honor of this dynamic diva, I thought I’d share — with subscribers who comment below to alert me of their private, non-commercial interest — a handful of audios tracking the course of what ended up being her last Broadway turn. We start at the Goodman Theatre, where Rivera starred opposite John McMartin. Here’s an excerpt — Rivera, McMartin, and their characters’ younger counterparts with “You, You, You.”
Next up is an audio from the 2008 Signature Theatre production with George Hearn. Here’s Rivera and the Entourage with “I Would Never Leave You.”
From there, I’m offering untracked audios of both the 2011 concert featuring Rivera and John Cullum and the 2014 Williamstown version, with Rivera now opposite Roger Rees, along with two recordings from the 2015 Broadway run — one in previews with Rees (untracked), and on closing night with his replacement, Tom Nelis. Here’s a sample of the preview audio.
Come back next month for another musical rarity! And stay tuned for more sitcom fun!