nypost.com: Broadway is looking more like Universal Studios than the epicenter of great theater these days. Mainstream brands are squeezing out scintillating art that once dominated the boards. Exeunt: “Sweeney Todd,” “Gypsy” and “Rent.” Enter: “Margaritaville,” “SpongeBob SquarePants” and “Frozen.”
2 comments:
This article makes a lot poise and pointed comments towards today's cycle of broadway burn outs. A part of me really wants to disagree with this article just because I think that shows like Frozen and Spongebob the Musical has a lot to give when it comes to technical and artistic design aspects even if both shows are still ripped off from a franchise that already exists. Nonetheless, it has a point, broadway has thrown out an immense amount of integrity in the past couple of years as its been trying to expand its audiences to include people who aren't "theatre people". When put into perspective, it is kind of disheartening to know that in the past couple of years there's only been a handful of shows that have been originally conceived and had the same impact as some of the more classic musicals that have made most theatre people who they are today. I hope that moving forward, more experimental theatre like Great Comet makes a larger presence on Broadway rather than Spongebob, there's no way of going back to the classics because that era is over, but there is still hope in terms of creating new, fresh perspectives that have nothing to do with a popular children's movie or tv show.
Do not get me wrong I do love a good cop out commercialism show, this article makes a lot of good points. This season is super lacking on original musicals. All of them are adaptions from movies or are juke box musicals. There seems to be nothing new and exciting. While all of the shows might not be bad overall the Broadway season is not as good as years passed. Also the musicals that are adapted do not seem to fair well against their counterpart. SpongeBob seems to be the one that got good reviews. One thing that is sad is that fact the bands visit is not getting as much attention as the other shows. This will change when it wins the tony for best musical but still. This show is going to get lost in the season of mean girls and frozen. Hopefully the upcoming seasons bring more originality than this one did.
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