while i'm back on my pippin kick, i want to mention this production. it featured andre ward as the leading player, micky dolenz (yes, from the monkees) as charlemagne, teal wicks as catherine, and one of my personal favourite under-appreciated musical theatre actors, joshua park, as pippin.

it ran from august 9th to september 24th, 2006 at the goodspeed opera house in connecticut, and the same production with a few cast alterations toured briefly following this run.

i'm particularly interested in this production as one that sits in a pretty sweet spot in "pippin" history. schwartz said in a playbill interview about the goodspeed production, "i came upon an ending that they were doing in a fringe production in london several years back that seemed to me vastly superior to our original ending. that's now been instituted." obviously this refers to the 'theo ending' that pretty much every licensed production of the show has used since, and is pretty widely beloved (and, in my case, preferred) by fans of the show. this places the goodspeed production as one of the first licensed and schwartz-endorsed productions to use the ending.

this production, from what i can glean, gained mixed-to-positive reviews. the times and variety both covered it, the former receiving it more positively than the latter. frank rizzo, writing for variety, takes a more than a few (misguided...) digs at the text itself and its protagonist, so his review is to be taken with a pinch of salt if you're a fan of the musical as a starting point. however, he speaks highly of the production's orchestration, choreography, and costuming. the costumes and staging appear from what little video-photographic evidence i can find to be wonderfully cabaret-inspired with hints of the circus direction the 2013 revival would wholly commit to. most-praised by rizzo is gabriel barre's direction, which accentuated the show's darker elements, something i feel is always necessary for a successful pippin production.