Citing high costs, the producers opted to replace out-of-town tryouts (originally scheduled for the Mechanic Theatre,
Baltimore,
Maryland) with a longer than usual nine-week preview period of 71 previews in New York City. During this time the musical underwent extensive script rewrites, multiple song replacements, and a major cast change. (It was surpassed by a record of 15 weeks of previews for the Broadway musical
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark which finally opened on Broadway in June 2011.) The Broadway production, directed by Laurents and
choreographed by Tina Paul, finally opened on December 8, 1991, at the
Marquis Theatre where, unable to overcome the bad publicity and brutal reviews, it ran for only nine performances. The cast included
Barry Bostwick (Nick Charles),
Joanna Gleason (Nora Charles),
Christine Baranski,
Debra Monk,
Faith Prince, and
Chris Sarandon. The show was nominated for the
Tony Award for Best Original Score. An
original cast recording was released on That's Entertainment Records (TER), and was re-released on Jay Records in 1997. In his memoir
Original Story By, Laurents confessed he didn't realize until the show was in previews that the characters of Nick and Nora Charles were identified so closely with
William Powell and
Myrna Loy that the public would have difficulty accepting anyone else in the roles. He also felt the lengthy preview period, during which theatre gossips and newspaper columnists spread largely unfounded rumors about the show's mounting problems, helped destroy any chances of success it may have had. ==Original Broadway Cast==