The run closed January 3, 1998
- Opened
- 1997
- Closed
- January 3, 1998
- Performances
- 91
- Previews
- —
- Theatre
- —
Of the 368 productions we hold that opened in the 1990s and record a performance count, this is the 149th longest. That is a rank within what we hold, not within everything that was staged.
Other stagings of Side Show 1 more that season
| 2014 | St James Theatre Revival · Anthony Van Laast | 56 perf. |
Who was in it18 named
Barry Finkel
Andy Gale
Emily Hsu
Alicia Irving
Devanand N Janki
David Masenheimer
David Mcdonald
Verna Pierce
Jim T Ruttman
Jenny Lynn Suckling
Susan Taylor
Timothy Warmen
6 of these 18 names have a person record behind them and link to one. The other 12 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.
Characters6 roles recorded
Emily Skinner Daisy Hilton
Alice Ripley Violet Hilton
Jeff McCarthy Terry Connor
Hugh Panaro Buddy Foster
Norm Lewis Jake
Ken Jennings The Boss/Sir
Only 512 of 13,459 productions carry role names, and these came out of a wiki table — the names arrived with the table's own cell markup on them and have been stripped back. They are not linked to person records because the identifiers in that table do not resolve to ours.
Creative team
- Director
- Robert Longbottom
- Choreographer
- Joey Pizzi
- Orchestrations
- Harold Wheeler
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
| Best Musical | Nominated |
Around this production
Side Show is a musical by Bill Russell (book and lyrics) and Henry Krieger (music) based on the lives of Daisy and Violet Hilton, conjoined twins who became famous stage performers in the 1930s. The musical opened October 16, 1997, on Broadway; Robert Longbottom directed and choreographed, and the cast starred Emily Skinner as Daisy and Alice Ripley as Violet. Despite receiving some positive reviews, the show closed after 91 performances. A Broadway revival opened in November 2014, and closed after 56 performances.
When we came in the door for Side Show, it was all flashes going off. It was like Hollywood. My waist was [tiny], and I was wearing this Chanel dress, one of my favorites I’ve ever borrowed, and I had jewelry. Here S To the Ladies Conversations With More of the Great Eddie Shapiro Oxford U, p. 216
- Side Show (10/ 16/97; 84 performances) became a sort of cult hit—the sort that is followed by fans whose memories of musical theater go all the way back to Carzs. Badly ~. (and cheaply) produced, with an amateurish score by Henry Kreiger and Bill Russell, Side Show nevertheless had touching performances by Alice Ripley… Broadway Its History People and Places An Encyclopedia Bloom Ken 1949 2nd Ed New, p. 456
- Hugh Panaro created the title role for the American production of Martin Guerre, which unfortunately was another short-running musical on the talented performer’s resume. Despite his boyish good looks and strong singing voice, his bad luck continued with the out-of-town closing of Martin Guerre, which followed the five… The Complete Book of 1990s Broadway Musicals Dan Dietz Paxton Mcnallie 2016 Rowm, p. 405
- This 1964 musical, first called The Natives Are Restless and then Side Show, was an experimental (some even said avant-garde) work. The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia Rick Pender Rowman Littlefield Publishing Lanh, p. 19
- Krieger (Dreamgirls), Russell (Side Show) and Hatcher (Tuesdays with Morrie) collaborate on this satirical, rags-to-runway musical geared especially for the elementary school set. Theatre World 2011 12 Season V 68 Willis, p. 237
- Gay characters became a fashionable add-on as writers inserted gay characters into revivals and revisals of musicals whose narratives did not initially include them—and most of these productions flopped; others include the 2008 revisal of Pal Joey, the 2011 revisal of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, the 2014 revis… Broadway Bodies Ryan Donovan 2023, p. 164
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 recording is held for Side Show at all.
- Reviews, box office, running order, understudies and designers: none of it is held for any production.