Miss Saigon introduced Lea Salonga to the musical theatre world (even earning her a Tony Award), so it was no surprise she returned the favor by appearing in the final month of the show's run on Broadway. She's pictured here at the closing party with Miss Saigon's final Engineer, Luoyang Wang and the final Ellen, Britain's Ruthie Henshall. The Sunday matinee marked Miss Saigon's 4,097th performance. The musical is inspired by the same novel that prompted the David Belasco play and the Puccini opera, Madama Butterfly: a novel called "Madame Chrysanthemum." Miss Saigon's action is largely set during the 1975 fall of Saigon, when American troops pulled out of Vietnam. With the Broadway production shuttered, the Claude Michel Schonberg-Alain Boublil-Richard Maltby Jr. show will see a smattering of regional productions, including TX's Theatre Under the Stars' production, set to run March 20-April 1.
