Big Deal, 1986

The run closed June 8, 1986

Opened

April 10, 1986

Closed

June 8, 1986

Performances

70

Previews

—

Theatre

Broadway Theatre

Of the 465 productions we hold that opened in the 1980s and record a performance count, this is the 180th longest. That is a rank within what we hold, not within everything that was staged.

Who was in it26 named

Ciscoe Bruton Ii
Gary Chapman
Desiree Coleman
Lloyd Culbreath
Kim Darwin
Bruce Anthony Davis
Mel Johnson Jr
Alde Lewis Jr
Emanuel Macdonald
Bernard J Marsh
Amelia Marshall
Frank Mastrocola
Mennie Nelson
Bill Newman
Roumel Reaux
George Russell
Candace Tovar
Barbara Yeager

8 of these 26 names have a person record behind them and link to one. The other 18 are set from the identifier in the cast list, which is a slug of the name — so hyphens and full stops are lost and a few come out wrong. We hold nothing else about them. Nobody here is matched to a character: the cast list records who was in the company and not what they played.

Creative team

Director

Bob Fosse

Choreographer

Bob Fosse

Orchestrations

Ralph Burns

A producer is one string on this record, however many people or companies it names. Directors and choreographers are held both as text and as identifiers; where an identifier exists the name links to a page.

Tony Awards 0 from 1 nomination

Around this production

Big Deal is a musical with a book by Bob Fosse using songs from various composers such as Ray Henderson, Eubie Blake, and Jerome Kern. It was based on the 1958 film Big Deal on Madonna Street by Mario Monicelli. The musical received five Tony Award nominations, with Fosse winning for Choreography. The production was Fosse's final work, as he died the next year.

In a painfully diplomatic letter to Fosse just as the show was loading into the Broadway Theater for its New York opening, the Shuberts gingerly enumerated several key concerns. Big Deal Bob Fosse and Dance In the American Musical Kevin Winkler Oxford Univer, p. 289

• There have been other musicals inspired by The Beggar’s Opera, including Beggar’s Holiday (1946, lyrics by John LaTouche and music by Duke Ellington); Big Deal, which opened in Chicago in 1961 (book by Paul Sills, lyrics by David S... Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals the Dan Dietz, p. 617
• Another 1984 musical did not fare as well at this theatre. It was a new version of the old Ziegfeld show, The Three Musketeers (with a revised book by Mark Bramble). It lasted only 9 performances. At This Theatre 100 Years of Broadway Shows Stories and Botto Louis Viagas Rober, p. 211
• Subsequent musicals include the 1986 revival of Sweet Charity, Big Deal (1986), Into the Woods (1987) More Opening Nights On Broadway A Critical Quotebook of Compiled By Steven Suski, p. 1113
• Fosse staged a revival of Sweet Charity in 1986, which was followed by his final musical, the ill-conceived Big Deal (1987). More Opening Nights On Broadway Steven Suskin, p. 1093
• (11) “Dancin’ Dan” (sequence includes “Me and My Shadow,” lyric by Billy Rose and Al Jolson, music by Dave Dreyer; later in Big Deal, 1986) The Complete Book of 1990s Broadway Musicals Dan Dietz Paxton Mcnallie 2016 Rowm, p. 360

Passages naming this production, found by keyword across 178 books. Where it turns up in the literature, not curated notes about it.

What this page does not know

• No photograph of this staging. 48 of 13,459 productions hold one.
• No character names. We can say who was in the company and not who they played.
• No recording is held for Big Deal at all.
• Reviews, box office, running order, understudies and designers: none of it is held for any production.