Role: Jo March
Theatre: Virginia Theatre
Previews: December 7, 2004 - January 22, 2005 [55 Previews]
Opening Night: January 23, 2005
Run: January 23, 2005 - May 22, 2005 [137 Performances]
Sutton's Run: December 7, 2005 - May 22, 2005
Setting: Concord, Massachusetts and New York City. Christmas 1863 - Spring 1867.
Original Broadway Cast:
Sutton Foster [Jo March]
Jenny Powers [Meg March]
Megan McGinnis [Beth March]
Amy McAlexander [Amy March]
Maureen McGovern [Marmee]
Janet Carroll [Aunt March / Mrs. Kirk]
Danny Gurwin [Laurie]
John Hickok [Professor Bhaer]
Robert Stattel [Mr. Laurence]
Jim Weitzer [Mr. Brooke]
Synopsis: The story opens in New York City, 1866. The Civil War is over. Jo March, an impassioned, ambitious girl of 19, has recently arrived from Concord, Mass. To work as a governess for Mrs. Kirk and, more importantly, to try to launch a career as a writer of blood-and-guts thrillers (Overture). To ease the blow of yet another rejection, she reads and reenacts one of her stories to a boarder in the house, Professor Bhaer (An Operatic Tragedy). Taken aback by the violence he hears, he tells her that she is unique and could do better. Furious as him, Jo responds (Better), and in the process, her memory of the past comes alive, The scene segues back to Concord, three years earlier, a few days before Christmas. We are in Jo’s favorite haunt, her attic, where she has just completed her Christmas melodrama, which she and her sisters – the oldest and romantic Meg, the youngest and determined Amy, and the angelic Beth – intend to perform for the entire town (Our Finest Dreams). During the song Jo extracts from her sister’s promise that the four of them will remain together forever. Marmee, the girls’ mother and backbone of the family, returns home and after reading them a letter from their father, who is serving as an Army chaplain, she tries to write a letter of her own to her husband (Here Alone).
Jo works for her Aunt March, an over-bearing matriarch, who promises to take Jo to Europe to further her much-needed education, but only if Jo can change her unlady-like ways (Could You?). Jo gets her first real opportunity to change when she and Meg are invited to Annie Moffat’s St. Valentine’s Day Ball, an event that Meg feels she is not up to until Marmee, Jo and Beth reassures her (I’d Be Delighted).
At the ball, Jo and Meg meet Laurie, the engaging boy-next-door, and his tutor, Mr. John Brooke. After Meg goes off dancing with Mr. Brooke, Laurie confesses his desire for a friendship with Jo (Take a Chance on Me).
Laurie’s gruff and irascible grandfather, Mr. Laurence, is vehemently against any relationship between his grandson and the March family, but hearing Beth sing (Off to Massachusetts), he is so touched by her and the memories the song evokes that he joins Beth in a duet. Upon his departure, Laurie races in carrying Amy, who had fallen through the ice in an ice-skating accident. Jo and Amy have not spoken to each other since Amy, in a fit of jealous pique, burned Jo’s best story. Jo opens up her heart, forgives her, and together the four girls reaffirm, ‘the March sisters forever!’. Inspired, Jo invited Laurie into the fold as the brother they never had (Five Forever).
When Marmee is called to Washington to attend to her ailing husband, Jo’s world begins to unravel: She sells her hair to help finance Marmee’s trip and thereby loses her own trip to Europe when Aunt March is outraged by her behavior. She loses Meg when her sister becomes engaged to the recently-enlisted John Brooke (More Than I Am). And finally she loses Laurie, when her confidante and best friend, seemingly out of nowhere, proposes marriage to her and she turns him down. Left alone she cries out for a different life where she can be (Astonishing).
Act Two finds Jo in New York. Jo finally sells her first story: a rewritten version of An Operatic Tragedy (The Weekly Volcano Press), which she joyously reenacts for Professor Bhaer and Mrs. Kirk. But when she receives news that her beloved Beth has contracted scarlet fever, she abruptly returns to Concord, leaving behind a bewildered professor, who comes to see just how smitten with Jo he has become (How I Am).
Jo, desperate to heal her ailing sister, takes her to Cape Cod, where Beth gently tries to convince her of the truth (Some Things Are Meant To Be), and let her know that the hardest part is leaving her. The family mourns the devastating loss of Beth, but when a grown up Amy returns, one senses life does and must go on. Laurie , who had gone to Europe to get over Jo, returns with Amy, and the two confess to Jo that they have fallen in love (The Most Amazing Thing) and will be married in the spring. Unable to write, desperately missing Beth, regretting she had ever left Concord, Jo makes her way up to her long unattended attic, where Marmee finds her and passionately tells her that Beth’s memory must be honored (Days Of Plenty). Alone, Jo gradually recalls earlier times that she and her sisters had in this very attic (The Fire Within Me), which leaves her to discover her true calling, writing the story of her own life with her sisters: Little Women.
On the day of Amy and Laurie’s wedding, Professor Bhaer arrives in Concord with the manuscript of the novel that Jo had sent him. After struggling with his feelings, he professes his love (Small Umbrella In The Rain), and proposes marriage. And though Jo admits she will never be an obedient wife, this is a very good match. He then surprises her with the news that Henry Dashwood of The Weekly Volcano Press has agreed to publish her novel of Little Women. The lovers kiss passionately, and Jo, before joining her newly extended family, declares her deep contentment (Sometimes When You Dream), thus joyfully acknowledging her journey from a young girl to womanhood.
Songs:
Act One
An Operatic Tragedy [Jo, Clarissa, Braxton, Rodrigo and Professor Bhaer]
Better [Jo]
Our Finest Dreams [Jo, Beth, Meg and Amy]
Here Alone [Marmee]
Could You? [Aunt March and Jo]
I'd Be Delighted [Marmee, Meg, Jo and Beth]
Take A Chance On Me [Laurie]
Better (Reprise) [Jo]
Off To Massachusetts [Beth and Mr. Laurence]
Five Forever [Jo, Laurie, Beth, Meg and Amy]
More Than I Am [Joh Brooke and Meg]
Astonishing [Jo]
Act Two
The Weekly Volcano Press [Company]
Off To Massachusetts (Reprise) [Beth and Mr. Laurence]
How I Am [Professor Bhaer]
Some Things Are Meant To Be [Beth and Jo]
The Most Amazing Thing [Laurie and Amy]
Days of Plenty [Marmee]
The Fire Within Me [Jo]
Small Umbrella In The Rain [Professor Bhaer and Jo]
Awards and Nominations:
TONY AWARDS (1):
Best Actress in a Musical -- Sutton Foster
DRAMA DESK (3):
Outstanding Actress in a Musical -- Sutton Foster
Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical -- Maureen McGovern
Outstanding Orchestrations -- Kim Scharnberg
