Pre-Broadway changes of director and performers
During the pre-Broadway tryout in Detroit, director Edwin Sherin was replaced by Michael Bennett. Also, leading lady Lainie Kazan was fired, and Michelle Lee was hired to replace her. Original choreographer Grover Dale stayed on, but his work was supplemented by choreography from Bennett, Bob Avian and Tommy Tune. Tune also replaced Bill Starr in the supporting role of David. Kazan agreed to stay on in her role through the end of run in Detroit, while Lee rehearsed the new version of the show that was being prepared. It seems that Starr also remained as David for the whole run in Detroit, although it's not clear when he was told he was being replaced. It may be that he was not told until after the Detroit closing.
Orchestrations
The original orchestrations were agreed by everyone to be awful. Larry Fallon, who had been hired to do the orchestrations even though he had no experience orchestrating for Broadway, was replaced by Larry Wilcox. Jonathan Tunick also did some work on the show, but the orchestrations heard on Broadway were largely Wilcox's work, for which he did not receive credit. Even on the post-Broadway tour, Fallon was still credited as the orchestrator (and there was no credit for Wilcox), even though all (or virtually all) of Fallon's work had been replaced.
The Broadway opening had originally been scheduled for February 27. It was first postponed till March 3, and then to March 8, and finally to March 19, while changes continued to be made. At some point, book writer Michael Stewart quit and demanded that his name be removed from the credits.
There has been some confusion about the date that Broadway previews started. Some online sources give February 19 as the date, while Michael Bennett was quoted, in a New York Times article about the show's tough road to Broadway, as saying that previews began on March 2. The daily theatre listings in the New York Times and the Daily News leave no doubt that the date on which Broadway previews started was February 23.
The production scheduled only one tryout run, which was at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit. Consideration was given to adding a second pre-Broadway engagement in Washington, D.C., but there was not enough money to do this. Part of the reason for the lack of money was that Michael Bennett thought the original sets and costumes were not serving the show well and he insisted on new sets (at a cost reported to be $100,000) and new costumes (reported to cost $80,000). In addition, a fair amount of money must have been spent on preparing the new orchestrations (discussed in the note at the top of this).
Perhaps because of all the turmoil during the tryout and Broadway previews and the many changes made during that time (including the firing of a number of chorus members), when the production opened, the only role for which a standby or understudy was listed was Gittel Mosca. For that role, the standby was Patti Karr, who reportedly played the role approximately 50 times before taking over as the regular performer in the role. As the run went on, a standby was added for the leading male character, Jerry Ryan, and understudies were also listed for several of the supporting characters. One oddity is that Judy Gibson was the understudy for the character Julio Gonzalez, normally played by Giancarlo Esposito (who was replaced during the run by David Craig Moskin). It may be that the character was renamed Julia if Gibson went on in the role.
A number of roles listed in the playbill during early New York previews were eliminated by opening night. One of those roles, Oscar, originally played by Gerry O'Hara, was added back to the show at some point during the run. When the character was put back in the show, Kenneth Carr played the role.
During the run, the production left New York to play a week's run at the St. Louis MUNY. When it returned to New York, it switched theatres to the Mark Hellinger rather than returning to the Uris, where it had opened.
