Breaking Character: Fall is officially here. And with that, opening night for Broadway’s newest productions and the launch of the 2015-2016. Here at Samuel French, we’re particularly excited – already, nine SF shows are slated for revival. You can check out a full list of announced shows for the 2015-216 season here, but for now, let’s take a look at some of these exciting pieces and their original productions.
3 comments:
I think revivals are really interesting to thing to study as theatre practitioners. They types of shows that are revived and that end up doing well is so vast. The shows could have failed and run less than fifty performances and still be revived then go on to be huge successes. Some shows are revived time after time and do well each time. And still there are the cases where shows that did extremely well when they first premiered and then tanked as a revival. I think the question that we have to ask ourselves is why should we produce this production again now? Does it have something new to say that it did not when it first premiered? Revivals have the potential to retell stories ("Pippin") or merely bring a classic tale back to life that it is timeless and will always have an audience. I'm excited to see how this year's round of revivals and go and how they are received.
Anyone who has spoken to me for more then 6 minutes at a time knows that revivals are a bit of a sensitive topic. On the one hand, shows tend to be revived because they were very popular the first time, and they deserve to have another crack taken at them. Some really fabulous revivals have gone up over the past few years, such as "Pippin," for the most part revivals are entirely unnecessary. Reviving a play or musical without putting a new perspective or stamp on the story is derivative and boring.The only revivals that succeed critically are ones that make the story FEEL new, by changing the casting, the interpretation, or the design. Shakespeare plays are done all the time with new and interesting interpretations. I don't see why plays and musicals have to be any different. Without fresh innovation, these shows are an irrelevant rehashing of old work that blatantly grabs for tourist money. I think that the theatre community is better than that.
I adore revivals, and it drives me crazy when people complain about them. Yes, sometimes they can be repetitive, but so often there are new incredible interpretations of shows or the same show that means something entirely different when performed in a different time period. It's so interesting to see how shows develop over time, and how different designers, directors, performers, etc. take on the challenge of making something new out of something old. There's a thousand ways to interpret a piece of art, and while we can't revive each show a thousand times, reviving it once or twice certainly couldn't hurt.
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