Weissler set up a pre-Broadway tour that stopped in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Boston, allowing Applegate & Co. ample time to hone the production. But even before it left town, Sweet Charity got caught in the shallows. First, Cy Coleman died. Then New York Post theater gossip Michael Riedel reported that Neil Simon wasn’t speaking to the director—though Simon’s wife was showing up at rehearsals. (The rift has since been repaired.) Then the reviews came in. “Christina Applegate’s thin, reedy voice is never going to be mistaken for a brass band,” began Variety’s review of the Chicago show, alluding to the number “I Am a Brass Band.” “That will stay the bad news all the way to Gotham, big spenders, but she’s no celebrity charity case, either.” The notice went on to defend her honesty and “teenlike joy.”

And then came Applegate’s big bad break. The day after a Chicago performance that Applegate claims was the best yet—“everybody was on fire and then this crap happens”—she entered stage left, twirled around an ersatz Central Park lamppost, and while saying, “Did you ever have one of those days that was perfect? I have!” she broke the fifth metatarsal in her right foot. Applegate kept going for twenty minutes before giving way for the on-site understudy.

“She was destroyed,” Barry Weissler said. “But what do you expect? Tommy Tune was the same way, the night he had to go to the hospital after breaking his fifth metatarsal. That show [Busker Alley, a Weissler production] never came in. I couldn’t find someone to quickly go on. Here, I have Charlotte.”

That would be Charlotte d’Amboise. The daughter of ballet pioneer Jacques d’Amboise was contracted to replace Applegate if the run went long enough. She was already starring in another role originated by Gwen Verdon: Roxie Hart in Weissler’s revival of Chicago. But she lacked a marquee name, and had yet to open a show in a starring role. At 41, she was long overdue for the kind of star turn youngsters Shoshana Bean and Sutton Foster have enjoyed after their own 42nd Street–style melodramas (in Wicked and Thoroughly Modern Millie, respectively). And Weissler eagerly played up that theme, telling Riedel, “Charlotte d’Amboise has been waiting to become a Broadway star. If anything is going to do it for her, it will be this show.” Perhaps UNDERSTUDY TRIUMPHS would sell more tickets than TEEN IDOL COMEBACK anyway—particularly a teen idol who hadn’t been winning over the critics.

“I hung up the phone. I don’t even remember what I said. All I know is that I didn’t stop until I heard what I wanted to hear.”

So the announcements rolled out, one after the next: Christina out! Charlotte in! Weissler didn’t exactly fire Applegate, but the Monday after the break, he told Riedel that the notion of Applegate’s opening the show on April 21 was “a little crazy.” Still, it was clear Applegate did not like the news. Noooooo! On Wednesday, Applegate’s husband and publicist went to the barricades. They divided up the labor: Publicist Ame Van Iden told the New York Post, “She is absolutely not down for the count,” while actor-husband Johnathon Schaech went to the Daily News with a pluckier “She’s going to open that show.”

The day of the critics’ opening in Boston, not even the posters outside the gloriously ornate Colonial Theatre knew who the star of the show was. They still bore Christina Applegate’s innocent pout, but a pink sash draped just over her head read NOW STARRING CHARLOTTE D’AMBOISE, DIRECT FROM BROADWAY’S CHICAGO!

Onstage in front of an empty house, D’Amboise was scrambling to learn the part. Fran Weissler stood in an aisle, wearing a black poncho and a worried expression. “My stomach hurts,” she said. “Was it those potato chips?” someone asked. “No. I wish it were the potato chips! Whatever happens, one of these extremely talented, lovely actors is going to be heartbroken. That’s never unimportant.”

D’Amboise certainly seemed to be on the verge of her big break—particularly if the next day’s papers raved. What a great showbiz story! Milling around backstage were not only the Post’s Riedel, but also New York Times reporter Jesse McKinley, who was working up a 2,500-word star-making portrait of D’Amboise for the top of the Friday “Arts” section.

As Sweet Charity’s would-be savior fiddled with her wig before the curtain, her face was visibly tense. “I’ve got a lot to think about,” said D’Amboise. “I don’t feel safe to relax in any way.” A few years back, D’Amboise had told a reporter she was a “replacement queen”—a remark she’s come to regret. Was this finally her shot? “First of all,” she said, “I have no idea if I am completely opening it. I have never gotten a final on that.”

So then, opening night. Cue the orchestra, dim the lights! Oh, why bother. It was—ask anyone, really—a mess. A stray piece of a drumstick flew into the critics’ rows during the “Brass Band” sequence. Songs went by too fast, or off-key. D’Amboise flubbed a new line tacked onto an almost brand-new ending. But there was a doomsday giddiness in D’Amboise’s voice later that night as she tramped three blocks to Chau Chow City restaurant through a spring snowstorm. “It wasn’t great. I don’t know if you noticed, but I was pretty much improvising the choreography in ‘I Am a Brass Band’!”