Elena Shaddow (Lili), Charles Pollock (Paul Berthalet), Paul Schoeffler (Marco), Jennifer Allen (Rosalie), Eric Michael Gillett (Jacquot) and Nick Wyman (Schlegel). In her The New York Times write-up of the Paper Mill revival, Naomi Siegel characterizes Carnival as "an also-ran among American musicals [which] simply never entered the Broadway pantheon" and specifies the dark elements she feels make Carnival overall problematic – "the bleakness of the leading characters -- Lili, a forlorn orphan looking for love in all the wrong places; Marco, a second-rate magician with a Lothario complex; and Paul, a former dancer, wounded in the war and now forced to perform as a puppeteer and miserable in the process...[Also] the underlying theme of child exploitation...with a subtle but present sexual subtext" – before assessing the Paper Mill production as "[a] revival [which] reminds us of the genuine charm of the work and provides several show-stopping numbers for its talented players [but] does little to dispel the shadow that the play casts." Paper Mill had first presented Carnival in 1964, opening 11 February with Liza Minnelli, then seventeen, in one of her earliest stage roles as Lili. Minnelli debuted in the role in a production at the Mineola Playhouse which opened January 28, 1964. Darko Tresnjak directed a revival of Carnival which ran from August 12 to September 18, 2010, at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam CT under the auspices of Goodspeed Musicals which had previously mounted Carnival in 1986. The 2010 Goodspeed production of Carnival, which retained Francine Pascal's revisions for the 2007 Kennedy Center production, had in its cast Lauren Worsham (Lili), Adam Monley (Paul Berthalet), Nathan Klau (Jacquot), Mike McGowan (Marco), Michelle Blakely (Rosalie) and Laurent Giroux (Schlegel) with the last-named role taken over by Michael Kostroff. In his review of the 2010 Goodspeed production, Frank Rizzo of Variety described Carnival as being both a "bittersweet tuner that touches on sadness, desperation and remoteness" and "an entertainment...that features magic, puppetry and aerial work as well as a luxurious score ...Carnival isn't a natural for wide crossover appeal, but this tasteful, multilayered production does re-enforce the view that it is still a gem to be valued." The Gloucester Stage Company mounted a revival of Carnival which ran from July 5 to July 22, 2012. The company's artistic director Eric C. Engel directed a cast headlined by Victoria Thornsbury (Lili), Gus Curry (Paul), Daniel Robert Sullivan