North Idaho's Broadway connection scores again

Critics report that audiences love "First Date," the newest Broadway show co-produced by local theater maven Laura Little.

But Little, of Hayden Lake, didn't need to read the reviews to know that. She was in the audience in the days before the show's official Broadway opening on Aug. 8.

"They just love it," she said.

A New York Times reviewer wrote that the audience erupted in "guffaws of laughter."

The show stars Zachary Levi, from NBC television's "Chuck," and Krysta Rodriguez, of "Smash" fame.

"A quick drink at a busy New York restaurant turns into a hilarious, high-stakes dinner," states the media release about the show. "As the date unfolds in real time, the couple quickly finds they are not alone on this date...Dinner is served with sides of Google background checks, fake emergency phone calls, supportive best friends, manipulative exes and protective parents, who sing and dance them through ice-breakers, appetizers and potential conversational land mines."

Little isn't the only Coeur d'Alene-area connection to this show. There are about five local investors in "First Date."

"It's really important that everyone gets their money back," Little said. "I would just go sit in the theater at night, and listen to the audience, and my heart would explode, and I'd think, yes, we picked the right one."

Laura Little Theatricals previously co-produced "Peter and the Starcatcher," a Broadway musical that garnered five Tony awards, and is now on a national tour.

Little is the former director of Coeur d'Alene Summer Theatre, and is currently in the process of producing "Traditions of Christmas," a holiday show that will be presented in December at the Salvation Army Kroc Center in Coeur d'Alene.