Carousel, News | The Stage: Stephen Sondheim has suggested the “financially fragile” nature of commercial theatre is restricting the variety of musicals that get produced.
The celebrated composer and lyricist – known for his work on musicals including Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods and Gypsy – said producers in the UK and the US depend on show templates proven to be bankable, and rarely take risks on other styles or new ideas.
3 comments:
Theatre is so subjective, I can easily comprehend that when a producer finds a formula for a successful production they latch on and produce a cookie cutter version time after time. People enjoy easy to follow basic stories.
As someones who really, really enjoys commercial theatre, and as someone who aspires to one day work in commercial theatre what I am not looking forward to is the politics involved. It seems that producers sometimes withhold some of the artistic licenses of the creators of the production.
These past few Broadway seasons have been pretty remarkable in regards to breaking the mold for the traditional commercial show. Hamilton, The Curious Incident, and Fun Home are just a few of the commercial successes that truly broke the mold in terms of originality. On spring break I saw Kinky Boots. On the surface it seems like every other commercial musical. Big flashy dance numbers, glitter, moving scenery, and belting. Yes, it is all of those things, but more importantly it told a message of acceptance and love for everyone's differences. I am of the belief that theatre does not always have to break the mold to be amazing, it has to tell an important story.
I’m not sure if it is the nature of the audience that limits commercial theater, I think it might be the expectations and preconceptions of producers and other theater professionals. Hamilton very different than other musicals, and extremely successful. I don’t think that was a fluke. I think a well written musical, regardless of its similarity to other musicals, can be successful. If people feel like they gain something from seeing it, tell other people it is worth seeing, and a bunch of other factors work out, I think a very different production can be successful. I think the problem is that producing a musical takes a lot of money, and therefore is inherently a big risk. The tried and true is safer, especially if people feel like that is what audiences are going to like. This can cause a limitation in commercial theater, but that isn’t about the audience as much as it is about fear.
This article details the exact reason why I'm not particularly interested in being a Broadway lighting designer. The work you do is limited to the plays and material that will sell tickets, not necessarily things that have a deeper meaning or evaluation of the human condition. Spider-Man was less a deep dive into the psyche of a man spider, and more a cash-in on the success of the Spider Man franchise and Bono's music. It comes as no surprise, then, that Spider Man failed, but then many people were left with years of work on a defunct show that didn't particularly add anything to the art form. I also see people trumpeting Hamilton as a show that transcended musical theatre to immediately become a microcosm of our culture, and yet, it is just a variation on a theme by Manuel-Miranda's own In the Heights. By taking a genre of music that isn't particularly explored in musicals, and adding theatricality to it, you are given a "new" experience. However, at some point, the mere fact that a show is different on paper doesn't make it quantifiably different, it just causes the public expectation of the show to shift. If you are raised calling a dog a cat, then every dog will be a cat to you, regardless of how many people explain to you that the dog is, in fact, a dog.
Post a Comment