Monday, April 09, 2007
Broadway tries casting its lot, one TV voter at a time
Los Angeles Times: "LIKE a bear roused from hibernation, Broadway emerged from the winter doldrums to sense a honeyed, if troubling, shift in the spring air. First came the announcement that Fantasia Barrino would be making her Broadway debut in 'The Color Purple' — news broken when the pop singer returned to 'American Idol' for the first time since she was selected its 2004 champ. On the heels of her subsequent appearance on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show,' hits on the musical's website soared from 2,000 per day to 20,000, and advance sales, which had grown anemic, skyrocketed by $6.5 million. "
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3 comments:
I don't understand the argument for these shows. Andrew Lloyd Webber says that if not for "How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?" he would have never seen Connie Fisher. Well, why not? If she had the tenacity to audition for a live TV show, why wouldn't she have gone to a casting call for the musical? Shows in which "America" votes have the danger of casting someone who is neither the best fit for the role nor the most talented.g
I've commented on this topic before, I am utterly disgusted by the fact that Broadway is turning to reality tv to cast their shows. To me there is no reason that someone as talented or more so wouldn't be found for the part of their show. If not the person in the show. Plus the casting process would go by so much quicker. I understand that this broadens the audience but at the same time I believe that it cheapens the quality of the production.
In concordance with both comments above, I think this is a really terrible move and only shows that Broadway is seemingly becoming more and more about the numbers in the box office than putting on quality theatre. Sure, Fantasia is talented, same for Connie Fisher, but the implication that they would do well in the role because they're on television is ridiculously inaccurate. I feel that these moves are only made to bring in fan bases, which is really sad for a huge concentration of the industry to be taking part in, particularly one we're supposed to be looking up to.
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