1776: All Over Again

Original Broadway Cast: William Daniels as John Adams, Howard DaSilva as Ben Franklin

My God, Paul, how many times have you seen this show? The thought synapsed through my brain as the lights dimmed on a covey of actors in revolutionary era brocade and buckles belting, “For God Sake, John, Sit Down!”

My quick recall: five times.

The original Broadway production, in 1969, when this teenage theater maven-in-the-making snagged a pair of half price matinee TKTS. The MIT Theater Guild’s college production circa 1975. A summer stock version with my own youngsters about twenty years ago: an easy spoonful of American History. The New Rep’s non-traditional-cast version four years ago, in which Ben Franklin was a woman, Martha Jefferson a male, and…whatever. Now, Diane Paulus and ART’s no-male casting of this rather hoary chestnut.

John Dickinson to John Adams:

You, sir, are merely an a-gi-ta-tor, disturbing the peace, creating disorder,

endangering the public welfare — and for what?

Your petty little personal complaints.

2002 Broadway Revival — still all men