www.clydefitchreport.com: In a disturbing and all-but-hilarious New York Times story from London, it was reported that staff members at several West End musical theaters may now be wearing body cameras. This is to combat an apparent plague of “aggressive, alcohol-fueled theatregoers.” An usher at one of the theaters was quoted as calling the audiences for jukebox musicals the “worst behaved.” London’s “more upmarket productions,” it seems, “are not immune from rowdy behavior.”
2 comments:
I keep seeing articles like this (and I just responded to an article about how we should let opera die) where the author foretells or calls for the end of some artistic mode. I would be interested in seeing data for Broadway ticket sales versus blockbuster movie ticket sales as they have (or have not) changed over the past 10 or 15 years. Producers are always trying to make shows that will make money, and they’re always trying to predict trends in the cultural market. It seems likely to me that we are at a point where jukebox musicals are selling well, so producers are continuing to make them. That said, if you consider the frames of reference offered by the author, there is a much larger body of musical-ready popular music available today than there was at the golden age of the original score. I don’t believe that the original score is dying, but I do believe that jukebox musicals will continue to dominate ticket sales.
Simply put, people want to know they’re going to like a musical. Theatre on Broadway is nearly strictly commercial, and producers want to back what’s going to sell. Putting already popular songs into a musical is a sure-fire way to attract fans of that band or artist and the shows basically come with a built in fan base. Broadway also goes through stages; we look back on the 1920s and find that a version of the same thing was happening: the shows were about the songs, not the plot. Online journalists should not be so quick to predict the death of a form of art simply because there is a year of decline. Just because musicals with original scores are not prolific on Broadway at the moment does not mean they are not out there, waiting to be developed and brought to the forefront in time.
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