Breakfast at Tiffany's Tickets
Breakfast at Tiffany’s the musical was one of the biggest failures in Broadway history. The musical is based off Truman Capote’s novella, as well as adapted from the highly successful film adaptation of Capote’s work. The adaptation was written by Edward Albee, a highly acclaimed playwright, with the score composed by Bob Merrill, highly successful in his own right as well. The cast for the play featured such stars of the stage and screen as Mary Tyler Moore, Richard Chamberlain, Sally Kellerman, Larry Kert, and Priscilla Lopez.
While an incredibly impressive cast was put together, things did not go well for the production from the outset. The script went through a large number of rewrites, and the actors were constantly given changes in the script right before they were about to go on stage. This lack of continuity of the scripts, as well as a change in directors, was the beginning of the issues for this doomed musical. The original scriptwriter, Abe Burrows, who also doubled as the director, was fired from both roles as Albee installed Joseph Anthony as director instead. This series of moves created tension amongst the cast as well.
The lead role in the play, the role of Holly Golightly was filled by Mary Tyler Moore. Despite Moore’s acclaim as a member of the cast of the Dick Van Dyke Show, she claimed that she was in line to be fired right after its opening. In addition, during the previews, Moore complained of suffering bronchial pneumonia. The opening previews were fraught with problems, as in addition to the constantly changing script; the musical ran for an exorbitantly long time. Stretching well past the four hour mark in each of the four previews, producer David Merrick is famous for stating that he did not want to “subject the drama critics and the public to an excruciating, boring evening.”
Since that ill-fated attempt in 1966, no one had attempted to put on another production of Breakfast at Tiffany’s until 2009. Put on in London’s West End, director Sean Mathias has based his play off the Truman Capote novella as well; however, this version has not been fraught with the same issues as it is still running to this day.
