Saturday, September 01, 2007
Broadway goes back to school
Variety.com: "Reports of the death of the Broadway play may have been exaggerated. After a spring slate full of non-musicals, the fall sked is equally packed with straight plays -- a dozen of them opening before the end of the year."
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7 comments:
It's easy to say how commercialized Broadway has become, especially when looking at the musical. At the same time, the return of the play gives hope to those of us who want to do theatre for the art as opposed to just the money. One can still achieve artistic happiness as well as a relative financial return.
It seems that the growing feeling that Broadway has lost its integrity with big flashy musicals has grown loud enough for Broadway producers to change their tune slightly and atempt to regain a little bit of respect among their productions. However, instead of trying to producer a quality musical that makes a heavy point, they are jumping to straight-plays, beause in general a straight-play is considered more respectable than a flashy musical. The real challenge for a producer will be to make the musical a respectable production, instead of hiding behind the text of Stoppard.
It makes sense to me, this trend towards plays and away from musicals. Broadway is currently dominated by several mega-musicals, (wicked, hairspray, jersey boys, mamma mia, legally blonde, lion king etc.) with two more coming (mermaid, frankenstein) A producing group that can not put up the millions for a musical, when failure is the normality, should do a play, as it certainly a cheaper and smaller option.
In response to dereks point...
It is true, particually of an older audience, that musicals have this flash-n-trash genre, where many people woulud say... "oh, i dont go see musicals" I also hope to see the emergence of musicals with more meat behind them. LoveMusik was a good one last season.
Capitalizing a musical has become a huge risk. They're more expensive than ever. For any producer who is not corporate, doesn't have corporate backing, or isn't independantly wealthy, capitalizing a first-class musical is almost out of reach. A play is far easier to capitalize and still has sufficient reward potential.
If you think *most* Broadway producers - musical or otherwise - are in it for the art, you're mistaken. Broadway is a business. The people who do it well, and the repeat producers who show up time and again, are business people.
In my eyes it is a great marketing scheme to attract a more diverse and curious audience. Take for instance, Wicked and Legally Blonde. Just another attempt to gain a following; in this case, a bunch of teenage girls. Although those two were both musicals, I feel this line up of new plays offers a great selection for people with all sorts of interests. The problem is, how do you attract an audience that consists of people with "different interests". Nonetheless, I see this move as a great attempt to bring quality back to the theatre.
I feel that the straight play will always have a home on Broadway, but will never pull in the audiences that the big musicals do. I do believe that more and more musicals are becoming smaller with more serious (or in a way, adult) subject matter, such as "Spring Awakening" or even "Avenue Q". When it comes down to it though, many more people have heard of "Spring Awakening" than have heard of "The Coast of Utopia", the year's Tony winners for Best Musical and Best Play, respectively.
Although the play will never die on Broadway, it will never have the mainstream success that the musical does, at least for many, many years.
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