Show History

History

Inspiration

After cowriters, Maltby and David Shire, graduated from Yale, they wrote many songs together and created the musical revue, Starting Here, Starting Now. After the revue, they decided to create another musical so that they could be involved in the "creative authorship" of a new original work.

Productions

Baby opened on Broadway on December 4, 1983, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Directed by Richard Maltby, Jr., and choreographed by Wayne Cilento, it played for 276 performances. The original cast included Liz Callaway, Beth Fowler, Catherine Cox, James Congdon, Martin Vidnovic and Todd Graff. Baby used nothing more than a continuous curtain on figure-eight tracking to suggest the various locales. The orchestra was onstage and visible throughout.

An updated version of the musical was presented by the Paper Mill Playhouse in 2004. The cast included Carolee Carmello, Chad Kimball, LaChanze, Norm Lewis, Moeisha McGill and Michael Rupert. This version has also been presented internationally, in such countries as the Philippines and Brazil.

Trivia

• For the national tour, several significant changes were made, including the elimination of a film that originally played in between scenes to show the development of a fetus.