Why is Broadway so underwhelming in the 00s and 10s?

The cost is so exorbitant that no one wants to take a chance on anything new. And the writing has been so poor, so doing jukebox shows and re-made movies is safer. If you want good writing and creativity, go see a play, not a musical. This year might be the nadir of the Broadway musical. Any show that wins the Tony is undeserving.

The prices have gotten out of control. People are scared to pay the prices and be disappointed.

Producers have discovered that to increase profits you increase prices, put on shows dumb tourists and baby boomers want to see, and stick a star in the leading role.

Thus we have shit jukebox musicals.

And now everyone is rushing to convert hit movies to the stage. We basically now see the movie script tweaked a little and performed live.

Do we really need a staged Tootsie and BeetleJuice?

Hi liked the documentary called “Show Business: the Road to Broadway.” Story about the battle for best musical. All the nominees were included, but it was basically the story of Wicked vs Avenue Q and Avenue Q and its surprise win. Great movie.

R5 Avenue Q is forgotten now too.

Wicked losing is ridiculous

Would something like Kiss of the Spider Woman even be produced today?

Even with plays they have to cast film and tv stars in them to get an audience, and that's not always a guarantee of success.

The only reason Lobby Hero did so well was because it had Chris Evans.

There were people traveling from other states to see him on stage.

I went the week before it closed and it was packed.

Maybe the art form is played out. Things die. No one goes to vaudeville now, OP.

R6, Avenue Q is hardly forgotten. Still running off-Broadway in NYC, and does well in amateur theater productions and in productions around the world. A local production in my city has been extended twice, and earned the theater company enough revenue to cover their budget for the entire season.

Hamilton.

Ive never seen Hamilton, but when one of the songs pops up on Pandora when I'm at the gym I always give it a thumbs down, such shitty music.

Avenue Q is finally closing April 28 at New World Stages. It is HARDLY forgotten, but there’s no way it deserved to win Best Musical over Caroline, Or Change.

Hadestown is a good show. Not great, but good. It will be one of the weaker Best Musicals after an abysmal season this year.

Plays have been better. At least we got The Ferryman, Mockingbird, Gary and a few more promising entries yet to begin previews.

The art form is far from dying. You just have to look harder to find the good stuff.

Andrew Fucking Lloyd Webber ate Broadway alive and then puked it back up, and this is the result.

R16 you needed to sign off on your post as M Sheffield

The book for Avenue Q is dated asf.

Rent.

Yuck!

'George Bush is only for now'

[italic]Avenue Q[/italic] became dated the day Gary Coleman died.

Disney tourist attraction musicals.

The George Bush line has been changed to Trump.

Most shows set in the present begin to date themselves after a decade or so. The show transition from being current to representing a time capsule from an era. Worked out pretty well for the last Hair revival. Avenue Q is a perfect period piece of NYC life in the early 2000’s.

Shows like Light in the Piazza and Grey Gardens will always hold up better as they were set in the past already.

R23 Wasn't Light in the Piazza a flop?

Lack of writing talent. Being clever rather than substantial.

Light in the Piazza was put on by LCT and therefore can obviously be neither a flop nor a hit. It did run through a replacement cast though.

Certainly one would not equate a being a hit with quality and a flop with a lack thereof when there is so much evidence to the contrary.

There was a NYTimes article years ago about how CATS was ultimately the show that changed Broadway forever. Shows in the past (CHORUS LINE, HELLO DOLLY, FIDDLER, whatever) made money. But CATS made MONEY. Suddenly people looked at Broadway as a place to make huge profits, like Hollywood or Wall Street. Our crazy little cabal of artists and show people got overrun by big money, lawyers and businessmen with absolutely no sense of theatre or even interest in it. They just smelled money.

I suppose you could say the same basic thing happened in the movie industry. Just substitute JAWS or STAR WARS for CATS.

It’s stricken with the same deep mediocrity that has overtaken pretty much all media and arts. It’s pervasive cultural malaise, not something special to Broadway. The will to mediocrity, a powerful thing.

Would playwrights like Arthur Kopit and AR Gurney be successful today?

[quote]Avenue Q is a perfect period piece of NYC life in the early 2000’s.

Aka the era when it became culturally and politically homogenized.

Probably it is your perspective rather than reality. As you get older, less seems new or provocative because you have seen more. Also, people tend to idealize the past.

The 80s were absolutely terrible for Broadway. The 90s looked better in comparisons but not if the 40s, 50s, 60s, or 70s were your reference point.

It would helpful to compare actual shows. For example, are you seeing Hamilton as a poor equivalent to Annie? 1776? Dreamgirls? Are you looking at the number of good shows, the greatness of the individual shows, or box office?

This season has been a real challenge for me. There is triple the number of shows that I want to see as the last few seasons (I travel from DC and usually see 3 or 4 a trip).

R31, out of curiosity, what are all the shows you want to see this season?

I forgot to add, that in addition to Ferryman, Mockingbird and Gay, What the Constitution Means to Me is also excellent.

Few musicals today produce popular songs. I think that's one reason they're forgotten so quickly.

Julie Taymor

For a song to be popular, you have to want to listen to it more than once. The further you get from the Golden age of Broadway and the era when jazz was the dominant form of popular music, the less musically interesting it becomes.

[quote]For example, are you seeing Hamilton as a poor equivalent to Annie?

Yes, honestly. That at least has a catchy score. It’s overplayed because there aren’t as many musicals as good or better since then. And it’s a reminder of what the United States was like before Mr. Roosevelt took the weed away. No movie version has touched the Herbert Hoover song because of the play on words “weed” and “herb.” They don’t want children getting the wrong idea.

We need less gimmicks and more artistry.

Gary Coleman is dead?

And Sondheim fucked it up with his pretentious bullshit.

[quote]The further you get from the Golden age of Broadway and the era when jazz was the dominant form of popular music, the less musically interesting it becomes.

Jazz was never the dominant form of popular music.

[quote]For example, are you seeing Hamilton as a poor equivalent to Annie?

"Annie" has a well written book and a number of songs that became popular.

I recommend you listen to Annie with contemporary ears. While it is well crafted, there is plenty of filler, cloying misfires, and now-unwelcome 70s pop influences. But Herbert Hoover is really a good song! Actually, I would put Hamilton and Annie in pretty much the same bucket of quality. I think a lot of people underrate or overrate Annie based on comic books and kids, just as a lot of people under or overrate Hamiltion based on rap and the racial reframing of the framers.

Since r32 asked, this season, I’m looking to see Hillary & Clinton, Merrily, KMK, the Yiddish Fiddler, What the Constitution Means to Me, Burn This, Lear, Tootsie, Hadestown, Oklahoma!, and Gary. Last year/ season, through the benefit of hindsight, only Three Tall Women, Girl From the North Country, and Waverly Gallery were really high on my list.

The Yiddish Fiddler is outstanding. (I assumed we were only discussing Broadway here and not Off-Broadway as well.)

Kiss Me, Kate is very mediocre, sadly. The direction/production is so uninspired, though Kelli sounds great!

Merrily- they’ve hacked the score to bits. I was not a fan. Can any production ever live up to the wonder that is the OBCR?

Sam Gold’s Lear is torture. I know you probably want to see Jackson, but the production is DIRE. I truly hated what he has done to the play.

Well, Merrily is also Off-Broadway. And to be fair, many on my list will turn out to be disappointing. I left off Network and Mockingbird and The Ferryman, which all delivered what I wanted. Point is, there is a lot of great theater in NY - which has caused me to overlook some DC productions.

I trust we DCers have done an excellent job of prepping New York for the trainwreck known as Beetlejuice. Unless they fixed it, expect truly DIRE.

I’m sure Eddie "King Kong" Perfect will deliver another sterling score! He’s our generation's Irving Berlin!

I am very scared for Beetlejuice. I have tickets for an early preview. After hearing such bad things from friends in DC I’m hoping for a trainwreck.

It’s mostly jokes that fall flat (or should), distasteful tastelessness, and tedious writing. Performances are ok except for the lead and the father. I just wanted it to end by the second song, but they just kept singing and moving the sets around.

[quote]I recommend you listen to Annie with contemporary ears. While it is well crafted, there is plenty of filler, cloying misfires, and now-unwelcome 70s pop influences. But Herbert Hoover is really a good song!

I completely disagree.

The show is well crafted and has proved to be durable. What ever "flaws" there may be, are no more bothersome than they are in so many other classic musicals. And as with other classics, things can be tweaked.

The show has been performed all over the world. Stage, film, sequals.

Songs from the Annie score have had great afterlife.

Whether you like "Tomorrow" or not (and I don't much) the song has been covered in recordings by singers as varied as Streisand, Grace Jones, Elaine Paige , Lou Rawls, Patti Smith...

The song has been featured in films and advertisements. It is by now an anthem of sorts.

"A Hard Knock Life" sampled

....

r33, the split between popular music and Broadway began in the 1970s. Right around the time Follies hit the stage, come to think of it. It hasn't been helped by the fact that popular music itself started heading down the tubes in the 1980s.

Has "Gentlemans Guide" toured successfully, or was it too arch to appeal to mainstream audiences? It seems to have been already forgotten along with "Something Rotten".

Because you all misunderstood my VISION, OP.

It started with hack work like this.

I think we’re done here...

Does Aaron Tveit get anked in Moulin Rouge?

^ naked, that is.

shanked?

Irving Caesar, the lyricist of Swanee, walked out of My Fair Lady on opening night saying, "They're not singing any really good songs" It's all going downhill. DLoungers should put on a bway musical, How Tossed Was My Salad. That would revive The Gay White Way for sure!

[quote]Irving Caesar, the lyricist of Swanee, walked out of My Fair Lady on opening night saying, "They're not singing any really good songs" It's all going downhill. DLoungers should put on a bway musical, How Tossed Was My Salad. That would revive The Gay White Way for sure!

I've always heard it was Rudolf Friml who walked out of the first act of My Fair Lady, saying loudly as he strode up the aisle, "Nobody sings!" And it wasn't opening night.

Whether it was Irving Ceasar or Friml, the evidence proved them wrong: B'way in the 1950s was still generating plenty of popular songs.

But if Ceasar were to have said today: "They're not singing any really good songs", the evidence would prove him right. The B'way of today rarely produces songs that have any kind of afterlife.

BTW: I met Irving Ceasar in the 1970s. Lovely man.

[quote]Irving Ceasar

Irving Caesar

[quote]Ceasar

Caesar

[quote]Ceasar

Caesar

[quote]We need less gimmicks and more artistry.

This thread needs better grammar.

r51 I saw a regional production of "Gentleman's Guide" a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it. (And it was a Tony winner, unlike "Something Rotten.") I hope it has a long life ahead of it.

Hollywood used to go to Broadway for inspiration. Now it’s the other way around.

I recently saw Wicked again. It’s shit

however, Defying Gravity is a rare recent musical song that sort of made it big. at least with the American Idol try-out set.

Because all the creatives (writers, directors, composers, designers, etc.) who should have been at the height of their mature abilities during the 00s and 10's died of AIDS a decade and two earlier. We lost an entire generation of creatives, and their creations. The current up and coming have no immediate predecessors to flow from. They are, essentially, flailing around in the dark.

Do you think Madonna will want to have a say in her musical or will she pass on and leave it up others?

Howard Ashman was such a loss and that’s just for starters. R67 is so right.

[quote]however, Defying Gravity is a rare recent musical song that sort of made it big. at least with the American Idol try-out set.

There was already a better song called "Defying Gravity."

Jesse Winchester's arguably better original version of "Defying Gravity":

Because it's run by people with no personality or talent hiring their same friends over and over who also have no personality or talent.

R71 If that song represents the best of today's B'way, then yes, it's in bad shape.

Do you think Hamilton is going to have much of a shelf life beyond professional productions? It’s hard for me to imagine.

Broadway lover here. I have at least half a dozen original cast albums memorized in my head.

The first time I heard Defying Gravity, I cringed. So poorly written; I never actually saw Wicked because of it. Is that a shame on me? Am I missing our? The world seems to think so.

Apparently Hollywood has been sucking Miranda’s ass lately because everyone wants the rights for the movie version. I think it’ll be an overpriced bomb like the Rent film. The cringey, try hard rap score will crash and burn with a general audience of people who aren’t rich white liberals who will pretend to like something because they spent $500 on tickets and their friends did.

It will be mocked by urban audiences for being corny and the only people who will buy the Blu Ray are high school English teachers for when they have a hangover some morning and don’t want to do a lesson.

I don’t mean to go off topic because I’m really curious about how bad this Beetlejuice musical. I find it curious thatvtheres very little online about it.

Beetlejuice? Really? What do you think? R76 TOTALLY.

I think the Hamilton movie will be a smash and will win Best Picture as Chicago did.

Fun Home.

I think Hamilton will end up more like The Producers than Chicago.

r67 that's essentially what Fran Lebowitz said. Not only did AIDS kill off so many talented artists, but it also killed off a very discerning audience as well. Our culture has never recovered from that loss. Fran starts talking about it at 19:24....

IN THE HEIGHTS is gonna bomb too. Have u seen that cast listed so far? I love that show and I'm not gonna see that. Corey Hawkins? yuck yuck yuck. He has bitch gay face.

r76 I think I love you.

[quote]Not only did AIDS kill off so many talented artists, but it also killed off a very discerning audience as well.

The revival of "Promises, Promises" a few years ago really summed that up to me.

I didn't see the show, but there are clips on YouTube. Look at the "Turkey Lurkey" number and compare it to Michael Bennett's. It's laughable.

The revival is so lame: ugly costumes, dance numbers right out of high school...yet it got good reviews!

The theatre queens of 30-40 years ago would have torn it to shreds.

Because the AIDS epidemic wiped out an entire generation of talent. So we got old Disney movies. CRAP!

Alright, lot of grievance both legitimate and unfounded so far.

How exactly could a show written and produced in the next few years overwhelm you all, then? What would that show look and sound like? What would it feature? What calibre of book would it have to match? Be constructive.

R36 - I’m sorry if I’m being dense but were you kidding about there being weed innuendo in the Herbert Hoover song? I saw the original run as a teen and that song really stood out as being both pointed and funny. I remember jokes about chickens in every pot & Cagney”s “dirty rat,” but nothing approaching Cheech & Chong territory. What did I miss?

Promises revival:

Promises 1969

In either "Turkey Lurkey Time," why were they wearing sleeveless dresses in November?

Simple. What they spend on excessive TV advertising could pay for better stage people.

Look at us, we're 5000 years old and still going strong.

The Turkey Lurkey revival voices all sound the same, and they're horrible (pronounced the NY way, not the Flyovia way).

[qoute]In either "Turkey Lurkey Time," why were they wearing sleeveless dresses in November?

It's 1969. It's an office/cocktail party. Women went sleeveless and mini. And indoor heating did exist back then.

R88: You just said it again when you said “pot.”

Despite being there for the ratification of the amendment that repealed alcohol Prohibition (which did nothing to deter Miss Hannigan from drinking), FDR is the president who banned cannabis, coincidentally, by signing into law the Marihuana Tax Act Of 1937.

I really like Dear Evan Hansen

I really like Dear Evan Hanson too. It's a great modern musical/classic. But that's just one. There is no great modern romantic musical comedy or drama.

"It's a great modern musical/classic"

A statement that beggars belief but no matter.

"Jazz was never the dominant form of popular music."

Really? Then how do you explain syncopation? Alexander's Ragtime Band? Rhapsody in Blue? Swing? Ella FItzgerald? Harold Arlen? West Side Story? And the arrangements and orchestrations for nearly every Broadway musical from 1920 through 1970? Jazz IS the backbone of American music.

"The current up and coming have no immediate predecessors to flow from."

To a certain degree I agree with Fran Leibowitz, including the observation about the audience. And yet...and yet...I feel it's a dodge. Contemporary creators have the legacy of all of Western Civilization at their disposal. There are no new ideas under the sun that haven't been done before--and better. Look at the artists of the burgeoning Renaissance who, crawling out from the Dark Ages, hearkened back to the Greeks for inspiration. You want a model and inspiration? Get cracking and read books, listen to symphonies, read Shakespeare, visit museums. It's all there, waiting for you.

"How exactly could a show written and produced in the next few years overwhelm you all, then? What would that show look and sound like? What would it feature? What calibre of book would it have to match? Be constructive."

It would have a meaningful story told well, a score that carries the drama and communicates feeling, directed with sensitivity, designed with imagination, and cast with actors of nuance and skill, with whom the audience could identify. It's been done before, it will be done again.

"The will to mediocrity, a powerful thing."

Arguably the most true and profound observation I've read here. It prompts a response from me that I shall, however, restrain from posting for fear that the thread might go up in flames (or I would, haha).

[quote]Really? Then how do you explain syncopation? Alexander's Ragtime Band? Rhapsody in Blue? Swing? Ella FItzgerald? Harold Arlen? West Side Story? And the arrangements and orchestrations for nearly every Broadway musical from 1920 through 1970? Jazz IS the backbone of American music.

Jazz and jazz influenced music was marginal on B'way.

Ella Fitzgerald? What did she ever have to do with B'way?

Harold Arlen wrote some things with a jazz influence but mostly not.

Swing? Not on B'way.

West Side Story? In fact, the sound of it's score was considered unusual in 1957. Yes there is some jazz influence along the way, but it's big numbers "Tonight", "Maria" are Puccini-esque not jazz. Bernstein other scores "Candide" , "Wonderful Town", "On the Town "...sure aren't jazz scores. And Sondhiem is on the record as hating jazz.

[quote] And the arrangements and orchestrations for nearly every Broadway musical from 1920 through 1970?

Rodgers & Hart, Rodgers & Hammerstien, Irving Berlin, Jule Styne, Cy Coleman, Jerry Herman, Charles Strouse, Harold Rome etc etc....either never wrote in a jazz idiom or when they did it was an exception.

Cy Coleman never wrote in a jazz idiom? On The Town (among countless other shows) doesn't swing? Have it your way.

I don't think you understand the word "jazz".

Besides Coleman also wrote "Seesaw", "Little Me", "I Love My Wife", "Will Rodgers Follies", "Wild Cat"....etc.

Where is the jazz influence in those scores?

Good Lord look at the over-done facial expressions in that 1969 Turkey Lurkey Time.

R102 There are no close-ups in the theatre.

You're welcome.

I've Got Your Number....

R104 LOL. Go ahead picking exceptions to the rule. Listen to the rest of the score.

The show's title song.

R105 Have you ever listened to the score of Little Me? Again "I've Got Your Number" is and exception in the score.

The title song is in classic B'way vernacular. Hardly jazz.

The other big hit from "Little Me" is a waltz. Hardly jazz.

Well, here's another "exception" for you...

Audiences rejected the modern Broadway composers like Guettel and Brown and producers went with the Disney movie and bio musicals, which didn't have to bother with a new score, but had catchy tunes.

Oh right ....."Wonderful Town" with songs like "Ohio" (probably the most well known song from the score).

If we're talking about the popular music of the 30s and 40s, we tend to think it was jazz because that's the music that stood the test of time. Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong etc. The real mainstream music, what today we would call Top 40, was shit that's now completely forgotten such as Rudy Vallee, The Boswell Sisters, Ted Lewis and Mildred Bailey.

Why is this THREAD so underwhelming?

[quote]If we're talking about the popular music of the 30s and 40s, we tend to think it was jazz because that's the music that stood the test of time. Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong etc.

Music of the 30s and 40s, I think of Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, Jimmy Dorsey, Harry James, Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra, Margaret Whiting, Judy Garland....the songs of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Harry Warren....

Light in the Piazza is a fantastic modern romantic musical. Maybe the most romantic score since The Most Happy Fella. JRB’s Bridges score was also highly romantic and Kelli never sounded better.

The Boswell Sisters were amazing and Connee was one of Ella's influences. Bailey was great too - the jazz reissue label Mosaic put out a big box set by her.

r112: The Boswell Sisters were amongst the jazziest singing groups. Ella Fitzgerald called Connee Boswell her greatest inspiration.

Ha! I love it - Great minds think alike, r116!

Has anyone here seen Be More Chill? That one seems to be popular. It got great reviews in DC.

Be More Chill did not play DC. It played New Jersey, where it got bad reviews and should have died. The cast recording became a sensation on YouTube and based on that it was brought to off-Broadway last season.

It finally moved to the Lyceum and the reviews were decidedly mixed, with Brantley writing a pan for the Times.

I saw it in previews and thought it was junk. It could never live up to the social media hype; the ultimate in emperor’s new clothes.

I had hopes that Next top Normal would have much more of a post-Broadway life.

PRODUCERS holds up.

Shut up!

Encore's revival of Promises was sunk by the totally misguided casting of Martin Short in Jerry Orbach's role but they did have the good sense to recreate Bennett's original staging of Turkey Lurkey Time. It was sensational and totally brought down the house the night I was there.

I usually skip the Broadway threads so this has probably been asked but do people who live in or around New York even go to Broadway shows anymore? It just seems like it's all geared for tourists who are willing to pay north of $150 a ticket, and at that price, producers figure they need to have a show that they basically already know. So jukeboxes, musical versions of films of the last 30 years, or revivals. Love them or hate them, shows like Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, or Come From Away that don't fall under those categories are few and far between. There's too much risk financially to put something out there like that regularly

R123 What? Not one dance step is the same. See the clips of the original vs. the revival (posted above). The revival's Turkey Lurkey is laughably bad.

Hamilton is a flash in the pan - no notable songs whatsoever. Wicked is horribly boring. There were so many great musicals several decades ago (42nd St, anything Rogers & Hammerstein, Guys & Dolls, maybe Hello Dolly and A Chorus Line) that they seem to have run out of good songs/storylines.

R125, read his post again. He was not talking about the revival that played the Broadway with Hayes and Chenoweth. He was talking about the Encores production with Martin Short. Encores DID recreate the choreography.

The revival was very misguided. Hayes was surprisingly the best thing about it. Chenoweth was miscast and they added all those songs for her. The direction was atrocious and didn’t trust the material. Encores was better.

New Yorker here and yes we do go see theater all the time. I usually go twice a week. There’s a lot of off-Broadway/Encores type stuff to enjoy that’s not geared toward tourists. Remember Hamilton started off off-Broadway and every New Yorker wanted to see it. They had a sale the first day the box office opened on Broadway where you could get $57 seats- I bought three sets.

You can see shows cheaply and often if you know how to work the system.

Hamilton a flash in the pan? Oh my sides! Years later and it is clearly 3 million a week. The only show to remotely be making that much money. It is the Chorus Line or its time multiplied by 1000.

R125, reread what I wrote. **Encores** did a revival of Promises several years before the Broadway revival. **Encores** used the original Turkey Lurkey choreography, which was spectacular. The Broadway revival did not.

r128, for those of us in the nongnoscenti, what is **Encores**?

R128 Ooops sorry about that.

The most 70s-ish song in [italic]Annie[/italic], ironically, is “Tomorrow.” The movie basically conceded that when Ralph Burns’ arrangement made it sound like the theme from [italic]The Young and the Restless[/italic].

On the flip side of that, “Easy Street” replaced a song called “That’s The Way It Goes” because it sounded too modern. That’s on the 20th anniversary OBC reissue CD.

Here’s the song:

This is the Martin Short/Kerry O'Malley Encores version. Very different from the revival and apparently thrown together with only a week of rehearsals.

This number is pretty amazing, considering. Also I think this Promises, Promises was seen as a dud until the revival with big star names and full 'Mad Men' production values happened. Once people saw that they began to remember this version more fondly.

Even so, the revival with Hayes and Chenoweth ran and was a big win for Chenoweth in terms of not closing right after the Tonys.

R124,

As R127 said, yes, there are many of us New Yorkers who go to the theater all the time. Just not Broadway most of the time, save for these few weeks in March and April when a lot of interesting shows open on the Great White Way in contention for awards. Off-Broadway is where we go the rest of the year, and that's where Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, What the Constitution Means to Me, The Band's Visit, etc. all started. (And that's where I saw the original productions and casts of Waverly Gallery, Lobby Hero, etc.)

Musicals make the most money and generate the most interest, but they're incredibly hard to create, and they're so expensive. It's wickedly hard for young, unknown talent to even get a foot in the door, as producers are loathe to take even the slightest risk because the costs are so damn extreme. High costs = Low risks. Hence all the jukebox musicals and film adaptations.

At least for now. Summer lost its money on Broadway. Though it will likely recoup on the road, it is considered a failure. And things are looking grim for King Kong, Pretty Woman and the Cher Show, all of which have been open less than a year. And have Head Over Heels and Getting the Band Back Together already been forgotten? (And the latter was a show written and assembled by a producer and his bro friends, and deserved the timely death it received, cause its book was horrible and score unmemorable. But did it deserve those incredibly mean reviews? Don't think so. At least it had a sense of fun and humor.) And my guess is Beetlejuice is facing a nasty spring as well. And that Temptations musicals is already getting more mediocre responses than expected coming into town...

Only when one popular title or jukebox show too many tanks will producers possibly get wise to this. Possibly. The costs are so extreme, but the rewards when something hits are so grand. And that means producers might stick with the tried and true till lightning hits again.

I think the Promises revival was an embarrassment for Chenoweth. Easily her worst performance and reviews to date. It didn’t shutter quickly, but it still closed at a loss (was a flop).

She also did not receive a Tony nomination for Best Actress and the it didn’t even receive a nomination for Best Musical Revival. (Hayes was nominated for Best Actor and Finneran of course won for Featured Actress in a Musical).

The entire reception to the revival was a slap in Chenoweth’s face.

[quote]apparently thrown together with only a week of rehearsals.

Considering that, it's ok. But otherwise it's a dud.

[quote]I think the Promises revival was an embarrassment for Chenoweth.

I think she's an embarrassment. How does a B'way actress get away with having such an annoying speaking voice?

Thank you, R127 and R134, for your responses to my question. Since I am not a New Yorker, I honestly wondered. I figured off-Broadway to be a more popular option and that's usually my preference when I visit - more affordable and more interesting (generally).

Actually that PROMISES revival may not have fully recouped, but it came close.

Do you think Sondheim will ever have a new musical again? I think the awful Assassins was his last one.

R134, do you think all these failing jukebox musicals created by one or more of the creatives or producers of Jersey Boys is proof they weren’t the geniuses they believe themselves to be. Those Jersey Boys people were more nauseatingly high on the horse than lin Manuel and his Hamilton creators. But at least in their case they’ve proven they can create original material. What a come down for those aging bullies. You can buy a BJ with Jersey Boys money from your spouse who doesn’t really love you, but apparently you can’t buy another hit.

The Donna Summer musical was very good, but I can understand why it underperformed. The flyover touristfrau audience isn't exactly the target demographic.

[quote]the only people who will buy the Blu Ray are high school English teachers for when they have a hangover some morning and don’t want to do a lesson

My sophomore year English teacher had us watch Oliver! on her hangover/heavy flow days. We weren't even reading Oliver Twist; Great Expectations was the only Dickens on the syllabus.

R131, that was terrible. Looks like community theater.

And what is the target demographic, R142? It must be sophisticated New Yorkers if it's not the tourist crowd.

Summer was a piece of shit and only for the tourist crowds. It did well over the summer when the tourists were in the city, but business slumped in the fall and then died completely after the holidays.

It’s only the tourists who go to these jukebox musicals mostly. Even in previews it’s not New Yorkers. Summer was easily one of the worst bio-jukebox out there. Horrific.

Where are the new Kander & Ebb-style teams?

[quote] Do you think Sondheim will ever have a new musical again? I think the awful Assassins was his last one.

Sondheim's last musical was Road Show, which I saw years ago at the Public Theatre. It was just a pastiche of all his other music. It didn't seem to have any originality in it.

That man is 5 zillion years old. I doubt there's another show in him

I LOVED Summer. The music was thrilling and the choreography so vivid and interesting. That said, I'm a fan of Donna Summer. Not sure it would land well with people who didn't love her music.

R125

Chenoweth is basically a sit-com personality who never had a hit sit-com. But in order to keep her publicity machine running she had milked her 'Broadway Star' status year after year on talk show after talk show but the reality is that on Broadway just like TV she only stands out when playing a perfectly crafted 'featured' second female role and even then 4 out of 5 times the show bombed anyway. Not 'failed to recoup' -- but outright 'Epic Proportions/Steel Pier' b.o.m.b. bombed. 'Promises Promises' gave her the opportunity to graciously accept her real status on Broadway as a generous supporting player in a solid show rather than the spoiled self-destructive pill popping trainwreck she pretended to be on Glee. Without the reality check, her tendency to be in big flops might have started to reflect poorly on her. Especially as she let her publicity people try to turn her Wicked success into some sort of weird rivalry with Idina where she ended up the loser in some sort of cat-fight that never happened.

[quote] I think the Promises revival was an embarrassment for Chenoweth

The revival revealed what a terribly dated show it is.

[quote] Hamilton is a flash in the pan - no notable songs whatsoever.

I can't think of a notable song from any musical in the last decade

Ugh

Not 125 I meant to link to R135

New Yorkers would never stoop to seeing any show that was primarily for tourists. I can assure you that not one native New Yorker attended Summer. Not one.

R152

I know my enjoyment of the first song is just because the boy is cute and the scene is funny. But Haled's song is lovely.

Sorry, that Encores Turkey Lurkey Time was also a dud. Maybe not as low energy as the Bway revival but the chick dancing lead looked like she was marking through half the number.

R156

You are supposed to have figured out that the girl on the left was the one to watch.

R150, uh, that cat fight absolutely happened and continued for a very long time if not up till this day.

When were the golden years of Broadway ?

R158

Pushing the cat fight narrative has only happened on Chenoweth's side of things which is utterly confusing from a publicity POV because Cheno appears to have started the fight, lost the fight and made the fight a talking point in interviews long after Idina had traded her for a younger prettier and more successful blonde.

Even if Idina actually hates Chenoweth, she never actually publicized her side of the so called feud, making it appear to be a weird one sided attention-seeking ploy that Kristin's team pulls out in order to make Chenoweth seem kind of petty and unhinged.

I guess petty and unhinged is better than letting on how much of a person's identity goes into maintaining an eating disorder?

I always think the Broadway musical ended as a potent cultural form in the mid-Sixties, which is the last time you had shows have songs that became #1 pop hits: "Hello, Dolly!," "Man of La Mancha," and "Fiddler on the Roof." there after some shows fielded about one song each that became minor popular hits ("A Chorus Line," "Annie," "Evita," "Cats"), but that was mostly it. And when was the last time a Broadway show produced ANY sort of song that became a popular hit?

I think after the mid-Sixties there have been some good shows, but they are so different in flavor from what the musical used to be that it's almost unrecognizable. I remember when I saw "Wicked," I liked the story and I liked the performers and the sets, but there was only one song I liked, and it's the short little "Wizomania" number that's embedded towards the end of "One Short day" (the part that begins "Who't the mage whose major itinerary is making all Oz merrier?") After I saw the musical I read an interview with Stephen Schwartz about the show, and he said that little bit (it's just a minute or so) was intended to be a throwback to the old style of the Broadway musical, and of course he couldn't do a whole musical of songs like that today. it made me sad because I realized I'd go to musicals more often if they had more songs written in that old-fashioned style.

The last musical to launch multiple hits was "Hair"(1968).

Mega hits: "Aquarius", "Hair", "Easy to Be Hard", "Where Do I Go?", ""Good Morning Starshine".

And none of those songs were in the mold of classic B'way.

The Turkey Lurkey clip from Encores! barely suggests how good the number was in the theater. It was probably shot the night of the final dress, which always has an invited audience. For those unfamiliar with Encores! the shows only get two weeks or less of rehearsal and then run Wed. - Sunday for one week. Final dress is on Tuesday and sometimes the shows improve tremendously by the time they close.

The dancers that B'way had in the 60s and 70s are no longer.

Perhaps what your Broadway needs is something more mysterious. Something from another shore, a new wildcard element with sound giving passion but also precision. I daresay it needs more...ME.

"it made me sad because I realized I'd go to musicals more often if they had more songs written in that old-fashioned style."

Except that almost all contemporary musicals contain vestiges of "old-fashioned style," primarily because few contemporary composers have any discernible style of their own and are, by necessity, reliant upon a variety of styles to flesh out their songs. So you have a grab-bag of "anything goes" kind of scores that encompass everything from the ubiquitous, lazy Celtic-flavored pop sound to straight-ahead 4/4 "show tunes."

Has any of you given a standing ovation lately ?

Bobby Lopez writes songs that are fun to sing. Yes, he writes pastiche and quotes beloved musicals in style and format but that has been both intentional and affectionate. Between Avenue Q, Book of Mormon and then eventually Frozen his approach has decidedly been to stay within the form of the musical and musical theater without creating songs that could reasonably break out of the rigidly defined musical theater world.

That is part of why Menzel's 'Let It Go' confused everyone. Frozen fractals and the cold never bothered me anyway is hardly meant to be a number you can lift out of the moment and dance to in a club.

But it was a hit. So was Do You Want to Build a Snowman. And they are in a Broadway show now as well as on the records as platinum and gold record hits.

The final nail in Broadway's coffin.

Oh God... that sounds like all of those hideous Disney scores.

For me, Alan Menken & Howard Ashman started a trend in B'way music that's ruined everything.

For me, it started with Rent

Chenoweth was just miscast in Promises, Promises. She tried her damndest, but she wasn't right for that role and she and Sean Hayes had zero chemistry (he had much more chemistry with Katie Finneran). I don't blame her for wanting to give it a shot since it's pretty far from her usual schtick, but it just wasn't a good fit. I hope it doesn't discourage her from trying more mature and interesting roles, though. I think she'd be a killer Dolly one of these days and probably a super scary Rose in Gypsy with her manic perkiness. I could see her playing it like a real white trash deranged beauty pageant mom.

I'd say she might make an interesting Sally in Follies, but that's a role that's cut from the same cloth as Fran in Promises, Promises and Chenoweth doesn't really do that waif-y vulnerability well. She's much better in broad, brassy characters.

[quote] The Turkey Lurkey clip from Encores! barely suggests how good the number was in the theater. It was probably shot the night of the final dress, which always has an invited audience. For those unfamiliar with Encores! the shows only get two weeks or less of rehearsal and then run Wed. - Sunday for one week. Final dress is on Tuesday and sometimes the shows improve tremendously by the time they close.

Sure, dear. And Imelda was actually restrained in Gypsy, we just needed to see it live.

I DID see it live, the show was an overall disappointment for Encores! but that one number was exhilarating and fantastic and led to a loud, long, cheering ovation. None of that come through in the youtube clip.

What R133 is too polite to point out is that the Encores version of Turkey Lurkey is NOT a recreation of the original Michael Stewart choreography.

It rhymes with the original at times, but it is no more the original choreography than the Broadway revival was.

R172, Chenoweth would easily sing Losing My Mind well, but I agree with you that she’d be wrong for Sally. It would be much more interesting to see her tackle Phyllis. The shiny veneer ready to crack. Her Could I Leave You might be explosive.

She would be a good Desiree in Night Music and she could make for a demented and perky Mrs Lovett too.

Really though, composers should be writing roles tailored to her talents. That’s something we really lack nowadays.

R176, that’s precisely why the twats who deride Broadway actors who were supposed to be the next big thing then weren’t have their heads up their asses. No one writes anything for stars.m anymore. You could be the most unique and compelling talent to come across Broadway in decades, but they won’t write anything for you. So what happens is that we get actors over and over who are castable across many things, which is the definition of utility actors, not star actors. And why talent these days fails to take on much of a following and, on Broadway these days is like dry toast. Laura Osnes, for example. If sexless obedient ingenue with red lipstick and Midwest inoffensiveness is stardom, then no wonder no one gives a shit about Broadway stars anymore. The unique talents are given the middle finger and run out of town.

That's how I feel about Audra. I have yet to see Ms McDonald, one of the rare breed of contemporary performers with both the requisite talent and marquee value, play the kind of musical theatre roles that capitalized on the charm and ebullient personality she communicated in her early career and which, along with her notable vocal gifts, catapulted her to stardom. Instead, she's played a snooty New Englander, an attempted child-murderer, a successful child-murderer, a spinster and two drug addicts (I never saw Shuffle Along so I can't comment on it.). Roles are roles and actors go where the work is, but it speaks volumes about the current state of our musical theatre that shows weren't built to showcase this virtuoso talent and her vibrant, life-affirming character.

L.A. Times reviewed "Kiss Me, Kate" this morning and what was interesting was the take on the choreography: "Warren Carlyle’s exhilarating choreography, which looks ready to compete in a new category at the next Summer Olympics, with tap-dancing Corbin Bleu in line for a gold medal."

"f the dancing during “Tom, Dick, or Harry” were any more phallic, this Roundabout revival might find itself shut down on indecency charges."

"The hard-charging choreography sets out to wow the audience and breathlessly succeeds."

I caught an episode of that dance challenge TV show, and yeah, there's no room for nuance or grace in modern dance - it's all relentless and sweaty RHYTHM. It's the same with the singing competition shows. All the voices have to be BIGGER THAN LIFE. Great leaping bullfrogs, what is going to come along to bring back a sense of proportion?

[quote]I caught an episode of that dance challenge TV show, and yeah, there's no room for nuance or grace in modern dance - it's all relentless and sweaty RHYTHM. It's the same with the singing competition shows. All the voices have to be BIGGER THAN LIFE. Great leaping bullfrogs, what is going to come along to bring back a sense of proportion?

I've caught some of those shows and I find myself wondering the same thing.

Bombast rather than charm, grace, nuance, sophistication.

Because people have become numb to sensation, numb to feeling, numb to life. Why do you think zombies are in vogue? The populace identify with the walking dead. The only way to communicate with the dead is to scream loud, hit them over the head with a sledgehammer or drive a stake through their heart.

Are zombies in vogue now?

The Walking Dead is still running, so I guess.

I guess Fiyero is a sort of a zombie by the end of Wicked.

Marie Christine was written specifically for Audra and If/Then was written specifically for Idina. Exceptions, not the rule, but still worth noting.

I just reviewed Elaine Paige's wikipedia page in order to back up my memory of her with her whole career. Man she was the Queen of musical theater just when musicals started to make major bank.

I've done a few Encores in recent years.

Only the leads and occasionally dancers (if it's a big dance show) are given 2 weeks of rehearsal. Most of the cast is only given a week -- Tuesday-Sunday. There is only ONE dress rehearsal and it's the Tuesday afternoon after the day off on Monday.

On Tuesday night there's a second dress rehearsal but it's with a full-house invited audience and press photographers. There's no rehearsal on Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday night is opening.

It's an incredibly short rehearsal schedule and it's amazing anything comes out as good as it (occasionally) does.

MFL has a thrilling score but only one hit song - On the Street Where You Live.

Does Fiddler have even one hit song (not counting those played at Jewish weddings and bat mitzvahs)?

Elaine Paige had a number 6 hit from Cats and a number 1 hit from Chess. One show was a beast and the other flopped -- but she made money and the crossover pop appeal of musical theater in Europe in the 80s shaped US musical theater in the 90s.

Ironically Paige made her West End debut in 'Hair' and of course is known here for originating Evita and stepping into Judi Dench's place in Cats, etc.

I think what happened was the english musicals WERE a euro-pop option in the 80s and the major success of ALW and Tim Rice etc kind of fed into the Disney resurgence on Broadway.

That's a vaguely antisemitic thing to ask, R188. Unless you're Jewish and don't realize the impact of songs like "Sunrise, Sunset," "If I Were a Rich Man," and "Matchmaker, Matchmaker" on everyone with ears to hear.

Fer cryinoutloud, Eydie Gormé covered "Matchmaker"!

[quote]MFL has a thrilling score but only one hit song - On the Street Where You Live.

Actually the entire score to MFL was a huge hit.

"The (original cast) album became a massive seller, topping the charts on the US Billboard 200 for fifteen weeks at different times in 1956 (eight consecutive weeks), 1957, 1958 and 1959. In the UK, upon its release in 1958, the album reached No.1 for 19 consecutive weeks and became the biggest-selling album of the year."

Those are incredible numbers.

Certainly "On the Street Where You Live" was it's most famous song, but "I Could Have Danced All Night" and "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" also had notable covers

R189 The songs to "Fiddler" were performed on every TV variety show during the 1960s. The entire country was familiar with the score.

R190 And let's not forget "Do you love me?"

.....

....

I'm not sure what the point is supposed to be.

The problem, as noted upthread, is Disney and artlessly done jukebox musicals simply filled the void left when the theater world finally acknowledged all of the nee, "acclaimed" composers (Brown and La Chiusa and - dear God Flaherty and Ahrens) produced interchangeable, tuneless, humorless pretentious crap.

The 4 exceptions over the last 15-20 years are Adam Guettel's exquisite A Light In The Piazza, the team who brought us the wonderful Grey Gardens, LMM's Hamilton and the Dear Evan Hansen duo.

[quote] Elaine Paige had a number 6 hit from Cats and a number 1 hit from Chess

Both of those were 35 years ago.

R197

I was just pointing out that the way musicals made money in the 80s was influenced differently by the pop music scene. And the hits from the UK had a lasting impact on Broadway. Chess didn't last in theaters the way Cats did -- but Rice was still writing Broadway shows for Disney in the aughts.

[quote] Elaine Paige had a number 6 hit from Cats and a number 1 hit from Chess. One show was a beast and the other flopped

Chess ran over 3 years in London. It was not a flop.

I would add Ahrens and Flaherty's score for RAGTIME to your list, r196.

Ragtime is an amazing score.

Passing Strange is the best new score (and book) of the 21st Century. A remarkable show in every way.

Band’s Visit has a great score. David Yazbek has turned out to be a solid composer. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Full Monty, Women on the Verge- yes, most of the score IS good despite the mess of a production- Band’s Visit and now Tootsie.

Other scores of note: War Paint, Bridges of Madison County, [title of show], Matilda, Groundhog Day, Marie Christine, LaChiusa’s Wild Party- ok it’s not a lot.

Shuffle Along was a fascinating flop and Audra gave an excellent performance. A career highlight.

Fela! showed jukebox musicals could be creative and interesting.

Broadway's last great musical was Chicago.

By date R202? Hardly. I think The Band's Visit was the last great Broadway musical.

R201 is right. The score is lovely and a complete surprise because Yazbek has not really hinted at being someone capable of focusing himself musically well enough to create such a coherent musically original work. He has been a supremely competent chameleon for his entire career so to have suddenly created a piece that has such a unique musical voice is a shock. Nevertheless it is a beautiful play and a great musical. It is somewhat 'little' but not too little to be on Broadway.

I wish I had r201's bad taste so I could enjoy contemporary Broadway.

Have you even listened to the music from the show R204?

Don't make your case worse, r205.

[quote] Fela! showed jukebox musicals could be creative and interesting.

That's because no one knew the music before they saw the show. For all they knew, it was an original score.

I thought the Cher Show was doing well and going to the West End?

I miss the show SMASH. Such great writing and perfect casting.

Too many "biographical" shows using existing songs of the featured performers. Honestly, I thought the Cher Show sucked - glossed over/ignored the inconvenient parts of her life. And there are 2-3 more shows coming just like it. Prefer original theater - Come From Away, Dear Evan Hansen, The Prom are all great shows. And please - no more revivals.

Bless you, r204.

I saw War Paint and my overall impression was that every aspect - actors, sets, costumes, staging, songs - was at the peak of “broadway professional” but the story was so slight (or more pointedly any real conflict in the story was nonexistent) so the whole thing was just inert.

I agree with everything you say except I think the score for War Paint just wasn't good enough, especially for a show without much of a story.

OP, if you're plagued by the idea America had some terrible '00s stage then you best avoid contempo Japanese musicals at all costs. Japan's commercial efforts outside of the deservedly-lauded and bulletproof Takarazuka Revue (which has been going strong and beautifully since WWI) have generally been considered an affront to the theater genre on all levels by purists. It's thought their stages are often poor because players rehearse intensively under harsh direction without a view to artistry or innovation or aptness. It's recently getting better with injections of cash from big corporations like TOHO, but pre-2010 it was a bleak landscape...

Ever hear of the '2.5D musical'? I can't explain beyond 'Cute Guys, Horrible Everything Else' and 'So Bad, It's Good'. For the morbidly curious, try streaming a Tenimyu (テニミュ) show; I can recommend either 'The Prince of Tennis: Fudomine (2005)' or 'The Imperial Match Hyotei, in Winter (2005-6)' with the revue/variety show 'Dream Live 3rd' (2006), then go from there if you dare and have the time and braincells to spare. If you'd ever sat through more than a couple of these under duress before, you wouldn't complain about Broadway.

To show you exactly what I mean here's a little Tenimyu backstage rehearsal & dress for you to witness (poor Zukki-san, the subject of this affectionate tribute video, knows he can't sing a note so it's ok).

R212 The fact they never met made the story hard to tell.

OMG R214

That just makes me want to Yuri On Ice, The Musical!

Let’s not forget “One Night in Bangkok” from Chess — that was probably the last WEST END song to be a top 10 hit in the US.

It's probably in the works, R216. Awful as 2.5Ds often are, they make big money and play to big crowds. Some runs of these musicals have exceeded 500 shows and play for years all across Asia.

The trend started with: Sailor Moon (セラミュー) musicals in the '90s, followed by; a HunterXHunter production in 2000, and The Prince of Tennis shows (which are ongoing; there are almost 30 of them at the time of writing), then; Naruto, Bleach and Yowamushi Pedal in the late '00s. Right now Black Butler is popular. There's even an art school program on these musicals now, at the Tokyo School of Animation.

Of course, the Takarazuka show Rose of Versaille started it all, but that's of a different better calibre altogether.

I assume that what you are describing is the 'anime style' of musical which is pretty damned interesting. I assume the anime sound is similar to what they were going for with Steven Universe -- so I'm for it because I like Steven Universe.

Alan Menken has been writing songs for Broadway stars in Disney movies and TV for decades -- but it took Steven Universe to actually be the first animators to hire Patti LuPone. Her song is completely weird but she not only signed on when she saw the part, she apparently dragged Ebersol into it too.

R218

Is this related to the show you've linked to? I can't really bring myself to get into it enough to watch old anime. I heard Yuri was hilarious and infinitely bingable and it was.

Also this crazy stuff is a lot of why Frozen did so well in Japan. If Wicked would pay attention and animate the movie and carefully produce the Japanese version Universal can have its own billion dollar blockbuster.

Broadway, like a lot of things in NYC, can be completely overrated. War Paint is such a good example and this is the same town where avocado toast is $14, people stand in line for cereal and milk and Andrew Rannells' Sunday schedule is deemed newsworthy.

That's it exactly, R220. You're right that older anime is sometimes less accessible for a 21st C./2010's audience, but even with only passing interest it is worth it to watch Rose Of Versailles simply because of its immense influence on popular storytelling in both the East & West; for context since its publication as a serial comic in the early 1970s it is still ranked the 14th most popular manga ever published worldwide, and the stage shows based on it have run internationally for almost 50 years (2024 is the 50th). It is a cultural behemoth in Japan & SK but also Europe, particularly with readers & theater-goers in France & Italy. I also wonder why more isn't done with stage-adapting animated shows here in the West. It could be a force...

In fact only a month ago 'The Rose of Versailles at 45', a commemorative costume concert, was held at the Umeda Arts Theater in Osaka. Stars and cast-members of past ROV shows all gathered to sing numbers from their respective shows in character to an audience of thousands of fans. This was a major deal, and yet it's so funny to realise that almost no-one in the States has ever even heard of the show at all.

Now I'll leave you with this clip of the 45th birthday proceedings, and let you all get back to your Broadway.

R215 - the fact that they never met made the story non-existent. Sunce they trumped up that fake meeting at the very end that should have just faked an actual frenimies type relationship all the way through.

Ugh - why do i never notice the typos till after I hit post. “Since.” And “they.” Oy.

R222 I will do my best to catch up. Thanks for a different way to look at it.

I was never able to get through much of Revolutionary Girl. But I would love it if someone would discuss whether the pants roles on opera (Der Rosenkavalier) was the thing that triggered this whole genre. Because it is utterly daft and impossible for me to figure out.

R223

Yup. I'm not saying that they should have gone full Wicked and made the room-mates. But they should have gone full Wicked and at least let them have a cat-fight in a corn-field.

R205 Tell us you're joking.

R222

OMG. What the fuck did I just watch? What about random youtubers that find that? Comments are disabled. It is so confusing.

It does not sound nice to my ears - but golly those women have held up well over the years.

[quote][R215] - the fact that they never met made the story non-existent. Sunce they trumped up that fake meeting at the very end that should have just faked an actual frenimies type relationship all the way through.

But that's actually an old theatrical tradition. How many plays and films about Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots have a climactic scene of their meeting when in fact they never met?

Is there a genuinely good musical about Elizabeth R and Mary Queen of Scots? My mind is drawing a blank.

We did have the dreadful Pirate Queen, where we got to find out just how much of Stephanie J Block's swagger could carry a show. Grace had an actual meeting with Elizabeth I which apparently made it into the play. Two Queens shading each other couldn't save that production.

I imagine that 'War Paint' is going to find itself revived simply because it is such a great opportunity to get two legends on stage in the same theater. Regardless of how little narrative drive there is to the actual play and how little drama went into the first run it looks like the kind of affordable production a theater can do for a limited run in order to lure audiences in to see two older stars for the price of one.

You could say the some thing about LEGENDS...but who wants to produce/see that?

No script, no score, no show.

r230, there are no longer any theatre "legends" who could star in a revival of "War Paint." And can the anime people start their own thread? They seem to be having a different sort of conversation than the one we are trying to have here. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

The anime belongs in this discussion because one of the complaints about Broadway in the 00 and 10s is that American Musical theater has become 'Disneyfied.' Since Disney was all right in the 90s -- looking into the influences that made Disney dreary in the 00s to today is part of the argument.

So a quick look into what went wrong with Disney between The Lion King (great theater) and Frozen makes sense.

One thing that happened was Disney began to look more at the Euro-pop talent that led in theater blockbusters in the 80s and 90s to the expense of the musical theater sound. (Compare Beauty and the Beast to AIDA.) Then when Rice didn't pan out as Disney's blockbuster creating replacement for Menken they hired Lopes to create the monster hit that was the movie Frozen. Lopes managed to copy all the right bits of Wicked and pare it down to a small feel-good series of singable tunes. But more importantly, Frozen the movie was a HIT with the Anime fans in Japan and the K-pop fans in Korea because the Let It Go sequence was instantly iconic across cultures.

Somehow the translation to the Broadway stage has been a disaster. Part of the disaster might be how Frozen Broadway decided to pretend it had some sort of subdued Shakespearian roots as a personal story about an indecisive princess considering suicide rather than embracing the full on crazycakes Anime elements about superpowers and ice castles and unexpected gender-bending stuff.

Lion King didn't play it stupid and safe in terms of tradition. Disney created a Broadway defining hit. Frozen should have tried harder. The fact they didn't is a big sign that Broadway is in a bad place because Disney isn't bothering to really bring its A-game any more when creating Disney blockbuster theater.

But a quick look at what anime based live action musical are also works as an argument in Disneys favor because a dreary pretentious tone is better than the over the top cheese fest catering to an anime audience produces.

An astute analysis, r233. I would only add that, thanks to Taymore, TLK not only had its own Shakespearean template, but, more important, a universal mythic (and spiritual) subtext made explicit through the use of world theater arts and crafts. It's that triple whammy of soulful conception and brilliantly-rendered execution (despite a pedestrian score) that has kept it on the boards forever, and cast a very long shadow over the anemic ventures that have followed in its wake.

The blame for what’s wrong with Disney’s shows can be laid at the feet of that tasteless and pretentious queen Thomas Schumacher. A fired Disney animator married to the voice of one of Nickelodeon’s [italic]Rugrats[/italic] once compared him to Anne Robinson from [italic]The Weakest Link[/italic]. The only ones that don’t stink on ice began their lives away from New York.

[quote]TLK not only had its own Shakespearean template

And what was I, chopped liver?

Yeah - Disney made some terrible choices with talent. Rather than sticking with Taymor and accepting the occasional terrible misfire in hopes of another artistic success they opted for theme park level shows. And yeah Schumacher's lack of ambition is a big part of how Disney Broadway has failed theater but undercutting theatricality and the art form whenever possible.

BUT it is worth looking at the bonkers Anime inspired stuff to consider what worldwide theatrical tradition Schumacher failed to capitalize on with Frozen. Once you do - the decision to not embrace the Korean Drag Queen Elsa spectacle some of us really kind of wanted begins to look defensible. If you don't look at what Japan is doing the unwillingness to embrace the bonkers anime super-hero aspect of Frozen is a terrible mistake. But if you DO look at the weird shit being posted on this thread, it starts to look like a reasonable decision.

So that brings up back to the mistake they made in opting for bland obedient directors rather than snatching up Taymor after she failed another studio with Spiderman.

But that said, 'Spongebob Squarepants' was a hugely creative production with a strong directorial vision...

They don't make 'em like Vickie Eydie anymore.

R235 - I’m not into the behind the scenes aspect enough to know about Schumacher. To a more casual observer it seemed to me it was Eisber’s decent High-Middlebrow taste and cultural aspirations that allowed Tamor to be hired & also left alone enough to do good work (as he more obviously did with architecture under his tenure)- where that has not been the case since his departure. Do you think that also has something to do with it?

R239

I guess. Disney is a whole new monster today. So who knows how that will influence Broadway going forward. Much of Disney's current standing was triggered by the billions they scored off Frozen (no - the MCU and Star Wars have not returned the same on the investment because merchandizing as well as record and movie sales made Frozen a financial wellspring that literally financed the purchase of Star Wars while the MCU mostly pays for itself and its own marketing) as well as driving home how dead end the behaviors at Pixar had become in developing multiplatform marketable properties. (Kids didn't want more Cars toys, they want Elsa costumes and songs to sing.) But Frozen's impact on Disney's executive structure is also a big work in progress.

The irony is that Disney's influence on Broadway has not been nearly as enormous as Broadway's influence on Disney.

Interesting observation, r240. One wonders which has proven more profitable: WICKED or its ripoffs FROZEN ....and MALIFICENT?

Well, I have worked with Schumacher and he is a total fraud.

Are you all aware that Disney has just paid billions of dollars to buy Twenty-first Century Fox? They own all of it now except Fox News, which they didn't want.

Yes R242

I don't like it when companies get so big -- but I do agree that the Marvel properties needed to be brought together in order for anyone to properly capitalize on the properties. Also it is good to see The Simpsons, X-Files and all the cool Fox properties are no longer associated with Fox News.

But even with this 5 year push to acquire all things comic book, Disney has also recognized that their musical properties are important financially viable properties. They made a blockbuster live action Beauty and the Beast and as a musical it broke records.

It was hilarious when Idina Menzel announced that she was going to do the Frozen 2 movie back when the powers that be at Disney had no intention of doing another princess movie at all, much less a Frozen sequel. (They had the animation line up set according to what Lassiter wanted. Even after the success of Frozen they didn't want to continue with princess musicals. Moana was very vaguely greenlit by Lassiter in 2012 as a polynesian myth story about Maui.) And they did put all of the Frozen resources into the Broadway show and some under-produced shorts while the battle over the creative future of Disney animation was settled with Lassiter finally being dethroned over sexual harassment stories rather than the anti-trust and abusive wage fixing issues he had been involved with. (For Disney/Pixar animation, #metoo was a fortunate diversion from Lassiter's involvement in wage fixing abuse of animators and his negative impact on the animation industry in the US. The downside of his being fired over #metoo is that Disney has done nothing to undo the damage he wrecked on western 2-d style animation.)

I do hope that Frozen 2 is fully musical beyond what the Lopeses got to do with Coco (which was still wonderful.)

R214 what a bizarre phenomenon.

This was...made. I mean, it sure was a song..that was made..once.

There’s a lack of tunes. ‘Hair’ and ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ had extremely catchy songs.

Now there is Slave Play.

Bump