Alexandra Socha and Douglas Sills in Mack and Mabel at Encores!

In 50-plus years of theatergoing, I’ve made a few dumb mistakes—none bigger than not going to Mack and Mabel in July 1974, when it was then in a pre-Broadway tryout at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles.

Looking back, I have no idea how I let that happen. I’d attended the national tour of Mame several years before, which, at age 11, turned me into an ardent Jerry Herman fan. (Secretly, I hoped someone would discover and cast me as young Patrick, transporting me out of dreary Van Nuys, California and into glamorous Manhattan. “Long pants at last!”)

I was also a big  fan of the three star performers in Mack and Mabel: Robert Preston, Bernadette Peters and Lisa Kirk, all of whom I knew mostly from recordings. I even recall a night when several high school friends invited me to go with them, since cheap student tickets were easy to score. “No thanks,” said I…

Read the full review at Parterre Box.