CMU School of Drama


Saturday, September 13, 2008

After 27 Years, the Curtain Is Going Down on ‘Forbidden Broadway’

NYTimes.com: "The Off Broadway mainstay that has lampooned Patti LuPone, mocked Stephen Sondheim and found many other unwitting foils among Broadway’s greats and not-so-greats for more than a quarter century is closing its curtain, perhaps forever, after more than 9,000 performances."

5 comments:

arosenbu said...

I wish I had the chance to go see this, especially at a time when I knew most of the new shows. I think one of the things that was not mentioned in this article, but which also might play a factor would be the drop in the economy means less people go t o shows, which mean less people understand some of the jokes. A sparce is better if you have seen the shows. Before, more people went to more broadway shows because they could afford too. Also, it was way less "theme-park" like.

NatalieMark said...

Its sad that this show is closing. I understand the lack of upcoming material but the reflection of broadway is something that is necessary. I hope that broadway "renews itself", and that 'Forbidden Broadway' comes back.

Anonymous said...

It's sad that Forbidden Broadway is closing. For as long as I've been going to the tkts booth, I always remember seeing it up on the list. I never actually saw it as I'm probably not theatrically oriented enough to actually get the jokes, but it's nice that there was a show like that that made fun of its own medium.

David Beller said...

Forbidden Broadway provided a forum to mock the conventions that we have created in the theatre, and bring out the absurd. I have seen two of the shows, and laughed hard at each. However it is infinitely funnier when you know of have seen the show that is being referenced. And I agree with previous comments that as less people see theatre, there is a smaller audience base to mock it.

Sam Thompson said...

This is yet another sad result of the glossy, repetitive, and uncreative theatre which makes up Broadway's core today. I've seen Forbidden Broadway twice, about 3 years apart, and the more recent one was not as good as the first one I saw. I did appreciate the creativity and value of what Forbidden Broadway did, and I think it's sad that it is closing because nobody else is being creative.