Caught the first show featuring the all-new cast of ALL-IN: COMEDY ABOUT LOVE
I returned to the Hudson Theatre tonight to catch the all-new cast for All In: Comedy About Love (just noticed there's no hyphen in the title - oh well), having previously caught the first preview. The content and format of the show have been well-published at this point, so I won't get into that. Instead, I'll just say I think I liked it (at least a little) more this time around (having kind of liked it the first time). Maybe it's because I knew what I was going into, or maybe it's because the new cast is delightful.
Some other quick observations on the ride home:
• The last cast was seated, from audience left-to-right, Richard, Renée/Chloe, John, and Fred. They're now seated, from audience left-to-right, Lin, Aidy, Andrew, and Nick.
• Though they're seated in that order, which "seat" is performing which character/story has been shuffled around a bit, either since that first preview or for this new cast. For instance, Lin now has two of John's stories. He performs the opener ("A Guy Walks into a Bar") and voices the protagonist for "The Big Nap". (He did a terrific job with both.) Andrew, though, has the protagonist of "Learning the Ropes", which John had when I originally saw it. Nick performed at times where either Richard or Fred had; again, scrambled.
• I'm just guessing, and I could be way off, but I would say the cast was on book for at least half of it. There also seemed to be more stumbles with the dialogue this time around.
• The song that Renée and Fred performed at the end of the show, that was present during at the start of the run, is now gone. (I could be wrong, again, but I swear there was also at least one more Magnetic Fields song performed by The Bengsons.)
• The whole cast stage doored. They came out after maybe 10 min. Definitely not longer than 15 min. The security guy said only Playbills, posters, and photos, but they still signed some magazines that folks had. Lin signed my Hamilton Playbill. Also worth nothing: The crowd seemed to be much bigger than it was with the last cast! I think where I was standing was three rows deep, compared to a single row last time.