Playing With / Original Cast Precedent

Basic Trope: The creative choices of the original production are maintained in successive productions.

• Straight: In Tropetown, the original actress playing "Belinda", Alice A. Abbott, was a redhead with distinctive glasses, and even though Claire Clarendon, the actress who takes over the role when Alice leaves, is a brunette without glasses, she has to wear a wig and glasses for the production.
• Exaggerated: The role of Belinda is so associated with Alice that when Diana Desmond, a black actress, takes over the role, she has to wear white makeup and dye her hair red for the role. When Evangeline Edmunds takes the role and refuses to dye her blonde hair red, reviews turn so sour that Tropetown closes early.
• Downplayed: All successive actresses wear Alice's distinctive glasses, but they are a singular prop passed down from actress to actress.
• Justified: Alice won a Tony for playing Belinda, and when she leaves the producers don't want to stray too far from her acclaimed performance with successive actresses.
• Inverted: ???
• Subverted: When Alice leaves, Diana takes over the role and doesn't dye her hair red or wear glasses.
• Double Subverted: When Evangeline takes over for Diana, she dyes her hair red and wears the glasses.
• Parodied: While Alice is still the principal player for Belinda, her understudy Claire takes over for a night's performance and wears an unconvincing red wig for the night and jokingly attempts to imitate Alice's performance.
• Zig Zagged: After Alice leaves the role of Belinda, Claire takes over and wears a red wig and the glasses. When Diana takes over for Claire, she refuses to dye her hair and wear the glasses. When Evangeline takes over for Diana, she wears the glasses, but doesn't dye her blonde hair. When Frances Florence takes over for Evangeline, she returns to the iconic red hair and glasses look.
• Averted: There is no iconic look for Belinda, each actress plays Belinda in her own style.
• Enforced: The producers want to make sure that every succeeding actress playing Belinda tries to invoke the acclaimed performance of Alice, even if just in aesthetics.
• Lampshaded:
  Claire, as Belinda: I'm the same old Belinda I always was. See my red hair and glasses?
• Invoked: It's Claire's idea to retain the red hair and glasses.
• Exploited: Trying to get the role of Belinda, blonde Gabrielle Gates dyes her hair red prior to her audition.
• Defied: When Alice leaves, the producers specifically cast Diana to make her stand out from Alice.
• Discussed: "No, no, we can't cast Hazel Harper as Belinda! She's a brunette! Belinda is a redhead!"
• Conversed: ???
• Implied: Once the amateur production rights are sold, Tropeville High's production of Tropetown casts redhead and glasses wearing Irene Ingram as Belinda.
• Deconstructed: Many good actresses are turned away from the part of Belinda because they don't have red hair.