Variety: Producers of Broadway revivals always have to battle the seen-it-before malaise that can infect audience perception of a new staging of a familiar property. But this fall, the deja vu is particularly intense. With the recent addition of the Scarlett Johansson-toplined "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" to the Main Stem sked, no fewer than four of this autumn's play revivals -- "Cat," "Glengarry Glen Ross," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Cyrano de Bergerac" -- have appeared on Broadway in the past seven years. Heck, "Cat" itself has been seen twice before in the past decade.
2 comments:
This article brings up a valid question...how soon IS too soon for a revival of a show when it just closed recently. "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" was just on Broadway several years back and now it is returning this season? That seems a little too soon to me. I do agree with the 10 year return rule...however, I believe there have been successful instances where bring a show back earlier has worked. For instance..."Fela" closed on Broadway and then just opened again for a limited engagement after touring the country and world. I'm not sure how I feel on these shows that are returning this season, but I hope the succeed!
I think that one of the key things about how soon is too soon for a revival is how far away from the last version can you make the play. For example, if you had two recent productions of say, Hamlet, but one was set in its original time frame and the other was set in the future, then that might be able to be brought back sooner than if the concepts behind both plays were too similar
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