“What’s the deal with all this high school theatre?”

That’s the kind of comment—spoken, written or tweeted—I’ve been getting regularly over the past four years since I began writing about instances of censorship of theatre in American high schools (and, on occasion, colleges). To be fair to those who may be skeptical about the extent of the problem, I myself have been surprised by the volume and variety of issues raised over the content of shows being done—and, in some cases, ultimately not being done—in school-sponsored theatre.

But between writing about these incidents, and directly involving myself as an advocate in some of them, I’ve come to believe that what’s taking place in our high schools and on our campuses has a very direct connection to what is happening (and will be happening) on professional stages.

So here are nine common questions that have arisen as my advocacy has increased, and some answers—although, as every attempt at censorship is different, there aren’t any absolute answers.

1. Why is there so much more censorship of high school theatre these days?

There’s no quantitative study that indicates the policing of what’s performed is any greater than it was 10, 25 or 50 years ago. Everything is anecdotal. But the Internet has made it easier for reports to spread beyond individual communities and for news-aggregation sites uncover and accelerate the dissemination of such stories. It only takes one report in a small-town paper these days to bring an incident to national attention; that was a rarity in the print-only era.

2. Isn’t this just a reflection of our polarized national politics?

School theatre censorship doesn’t necessarily follow the red state/blue state binary division, because the impulse can arise from any constituency. While efforts to quash depictions of LGBTQ life—as with Almost, Maine in Maiden, N.C., or Spamalot in South Williamsport, Pa.—may be coming from political constituencies galvanized against the spread of marriage equality, or from certain faith communities which share that opposition, that’s hardly the only source. Opposition to Sweeney Todd, both muted (in Orange, Conn.) and explicit (in Plaistow, N.H.) was driven by concern about the portrayal of violence in an era of school shootings and rising suicide rates, while Joe Turner’s Come and Gone was challenged by a black superintendent over August Wilson’s use of the “n-word.”

3. What’s the real impact of school theatre on the professional community?

The Broadway League pegs attendance at Broadway’s 40 theatres in the neighborhood of 13 million admissions a year and touring shows at 14 million a year. TCG’s Theatre Facts reports resident and touring attendance of 11 million. That totals a professional universe of 38 million admissions.

Based on figures provided to me by half a dozen licensing houses, there are at minimum 37,500 shows done in high school theatres annually, and conservatively guesstimating three performances of each in 600 seat theatres at 75-percent capacity, that’s more than 50 million attendees. In both samples, the numbers don’t represent the total activity, but high school theatre’s audience impact is undeniable, both as a revenue stream for authors and as a means of reaching audiences who might not see any other theatre at all.

4. Does it really matter what shows kids get to do in high school?

While there are valuable aspects to making theatre that apply no matter what the play choice may be, many schools view their productions as community relations, frequently citing that they want to appeal to audiences “from 8 to 80.” While the vast majority of students in the shows, and their friends who come to see them, will never become arts professionals, they are the potential next generation of audiences and donors for professional companies. If they are raised on a diet of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz (both currently very popular in the high school repertoire), how can we expect more challenging work , new work, or socially conscious work to sustain itself 20 years on?

5. Are school administrators fostering an environment in which censorship flourishes?

I’m unwilling to accept the idea that our schools are run by people who fundamentally want to limit what students can learn—or perform. But they are operating within a political structure topped by an elected board of education, and can be subject to political pressure that often makes the path of least resistance—altering text or changing a selected show, in most cases—the expedient way to go. Unless an administrator (or a teacher, for that matter) is independently wealthy, they can’t necessarily afford to risk their job fighting for the school play that may have challenging content. That said, students at Newman University rebelled against administration-dictated text changes, reverting to the script as written for the latter two of their four performances of Legally Blonde in November.

6. Isn’t this a free speech issue?

In a word, no. Schools have the right and responsibility to determine what is appropriate activity and speech under their control, and just because students are exposed to all manner of content in the media and even in their day-to-day lives doesn’t mean that schools can or must permit it, either in classrooms or performance. That The Crucible is in countless high school curriculums does not necessarily prevent it from being censored as a performance piece, despite the seeming double standard.

The same stringent oversight that affects school theatre is also often directed at school newspapers and media. However, while some school systems attempt to control all student speech, it is a First Amendment violation to infringe on student speech to the media about their dissatisfaction with the actions of a school, including censorship. Drama teachers, who are best equipped to make the cases for the shows they choose, are usually prevented from doing so by employment agreements which prohibit them from discussing school matters without the express approval of the administration, typically the superintendent.

7. Don’t shows get edited all the time in schools for content?

In all likelihood, shows are constantly being nipped and tucked by teachers and administrators to conform to their perception of “community standards,” whether it’s the occasional profanity or entire songs. But that doesn’t make it right, and it is censorship. Aside from violating copyright laws and the licensing contracts signed for the right to the show, it sets a terrible example for students by suggesting that authors’ work can be altered at will, undermining the rights of the artists who created the work.

Some writers and composers have authorized school editions or junior versions of their shows for the school market to recognize frequent concerns and to keep from denying students the opportunity to explore their shows. But the rights must lie with the authors, not each and every school. If that isn’t made clear early on, how can we expect to fight censorship anywhere?

8. When a show is canceled and then successfully restored through a public campaign, is that winning the battle and then losing the war?

That’s a genuine concern of mine—that once there’s a public battle over theatrical content, the school will thereafter clamp down even harder and apply greater scrutiny forever after to drama programs, academic or extracurricular. At the Educational Theatre Association’s national conference this past summer, one attendee asked the others if there were shows that they believed would be great for their students but which they couldn’t even raise as possibilities. Every single teacher in the room raised his or her hand. So the incidents that become public—ones in which a show is announced, then has approval rescinded—are the tip of the iceberg. Drama teachers and directors are already having their choices limited, often by self-censorship. There’s much more work to be done, but if blatant examples don’t come to light, it may never be possible to galvanize support for school theatre that challenges students to do great work and great works.

9. Can professional artists and companies make any difference when incidents of censorship arise?

Local theatres—professional, community and academic—make superb allies in fighting against censorship. Institutions and individuals within communities that are respected for their art occupy a position from which to speak out forcefully and effectively for school theatre programs. Whether it’s a nearby artistic director or a one-time resident who has gone on to a professional career, they bring a history and authority that will speak to both the local populace and the media. The vocal support of the Yale School of Drama and Yale Rep with the aforementioned Joe Turner, and of Goodspeed Musicals and Hartford Stage in the case of Rent in Trumbull, Conn., were key factors in the ultimately successful efforts toward restoring those shows to production.

In closing: The first time I inserted myself into a school theatre censorship debate in 2011, I assumed it was a one-off. I did not realize at the time that I had found a cause. Each time an incident comes to a conclusion, regardless of whether the outcome was, from my point of view, positive or negative, I think that surely the message is getting out there and this will be the last time. But then comes the phone call, the e-mail, the tweet, from someone I’ve never met and possibly never will, saying that a show is threatened or has just been shut down. And I begin my introductory speech, which is unfortunately well-honed at this point.

“This is no longer about education,” I say, “this is no longer about art. This is now a political campaign.” And off we go.

This post first appeared at AmericanTheatre.org

I created the fortnightly “American Stages” column for The Stage in London in 2013 with the mandate to cover news of American theatre news that didn’t necessarily warrant a standalone story and wasn’t being widely covered in other UK media. It gave me the ongoing opportunity to mix commercial with not-for-profit, Broadway with regional, as I saw fit, all targeted primarily at a readership of theatre professionals in the UK. Beginning in October 2014, the column became a weekly feature. Given the relatively tricky formatting of the original pieces, this pages serves as an index that will take you to each column as it appears on The Stage’s website, and will be updated on a rolling (and somewhat erratic) basis.

Sex and the City’s Cynthia Nixon makes directing debut in New York, 6 February 2015

Proof that you don’t need a star to break even on Broadway, 30 January, 2015

Julie Taymor directing Anne Hathaway set to be this spring’s hot ticket, 23 January 2015

Ruth Wilson and Jake Gyllenhaal open Broadway premiere of Constellations, 16 January 2015

The Last Ship leads winter Broadway closures, 9 January 2015

The year ahead in US theatre, 19 December 2014

Matilda recoups its investment, 12 December 2014

Bradley Cooper opens in The Elephant Man, 5 December 2014

Sting tries to stop The Last Ship sinking, 28 November 2014

Glenn Close returns to Broadway after 20 years, 21 November 2o14

Up Here musical to premiere at La Jolla Playhouse, 14 November 2014

Holly Hunter and Martin Short return to New York theatre, 7 November 2014

Sting’s The Last Ship opens and Halloween on stage, 31 October 2014

Al Pacino to star in China Doll by David Mamet in 2015, 24 October 2014

Anna D Shapiro steps up at Steppenwolf and Doctor Zhivago musical heads for Broadway, 17 October 2014

Steve Martin’s new musical and America’s top ten plays, 26 September 2014

Broadway’s first female-penned play in two years, 12 September 2014

Is Broadway getting a new theatre?, 29 August 2014

A sneak preview of Broadway’s new season, 15 August 2014

Re-revivals and Icelandic oddities, 1 August 2014

Song catalogues continue to woo producers and bullets for Broadway shows, 18 July 2014

Les Mis reinvented, 4 July 2014

Chicago picks up the slack for Broadway’s summer lull, 20 June 2014

Californian premieres, busy Rees and Off-Off-Broadway finally hits Broadway, 6 June 2014

Blood, mud and magic of Shakespeare heads across the Atlantic, 23 May 2014

Irish revival, Lucille Lortel Awards and Abba goes Greek, 9 May 2014

Tony determinations kick off the awards season and God gets the theatre bug, 25 April 2014

Radcliffe on Broadway, King and I rumours and Carole King off stage, 11 April 2014

If/Then kicks off Tony Awards madness, 28 March 2014

Bryan Cranston plays the president, Randi Zuckerberg plays guitar, 14 March 2014

Disappearing clowns, prog-metal Sweeney Todd and The Bridges of Madison County, 28 February 2014

King Kong heads home, Hugh Jackman helms the Tonys, 14 February 2014

Bradley Cooper, Hugh Jackman and Fatboy Slim – the stars aline in New York, 31 January 2014

Ghostly appearances from Satchmo, Tupac Shakur and Patti LuPone, 17 January 2014

Hugh Jackman disappears from Houdini, Rebecca Hall makes Broadway debut, 3 January 2014

The Iceman Cometh (but not quite yet), unpaid interns and The Sound of Music, 20 December 2013

Punchdrunk’s new restaurant, Daniel Kitson and dinner with Alan Ayckbourn, 6 December 2013

Nelson’s quartet complete plus Broadway openers and closers, 22 November 2013

Bruce Norris returns, A Time To Kill dies and Idina Menzel flies back to Broadway, 8 November 2013

A costly Betrayal, Julie Taymor returns and new musical composers on Sesame Street, 25 October 2013

Orlando Bloom, Emma Thompson and the Donmar on Broadway, 11 October 2013

The House of Mouse, Shakespeare spoofs and Terminator 2 on stage, 27 September 2013

New York City Opera in trouble, Sondheim celebrated, 13 September 2013

Nineteen sixty-two was too late for vaudeville, and surely the Roman comedies of Plautus were known only by Latin academics. But with the debut of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, these two great comedy epochs were inextricably linked right from the first notes of “Comedy Tonight,” one of the great opening numbers of any musical.

Instead of introducing us to the characters or putting the plot in motion, it seeks only to tell the audience what kind of show they’re about to see. The song is a litany of quick, descriptive rhymes (erratic/dramatic, convulsive/repulsive, surprises/disguises) that set only mood, a lightning bolt of perfection instigated by choreographer and show doctor Jerome Robbins after two prior songs had been discarded out of town.

It’s ironic that Forum delivered such a show-stopping standard in the first five minutes, since it has been confirmed by composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim that his show’s songs were meant to give audiences a respite from laughing, as had songs in the theatre of Plautus. While Sondheim is repeatedly critical of Forum’s score in his book of annotated lyrics, Finishing the Hat, it has considerable charm, most notably “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid,” a paean to feminine domestic help, replete with built-in encores.

When first I saw the film version directed by Richard Lester, I got a taste of what the whole show might be. But I’ll admit to some disappointment, generated perhaps because I was watching alone, perhaps because film is the enemy of spontaneity, perhaps because the fully realistic design was fighting the complete artificiality that is farce. It did, however, blend Broadway originals Zero Mostel and Jack Gilford with Michaels Hordern and Crawford.

It was only when I was at university, and cast in the supporting role of henpecked, randy husband Senex in a dramatic society production, that I came to know Forum fully – and to realise that bookwriters Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart were the true masterminds, even though by then I had completely fallen for Sondheim via Sweeney Todd.

Forum’s criss-crossing plots – the slave Pseudolus’s desire to be a free man, the Roman boy Hero’s search for love, the virgin Philia’s resignation to a life bound to a man by contract, Hysterium’s impotent efforts to keep order, Erronius’s search for his lost children – built one upon the other. This carefully wrought framework made room for leggy chorus girls, repeatedly mistaken identities, well-honed schtick and some wonderfully low puns. Whatever the merits of that college production, the show’s brilliant construction ensured that we were met by gales of laughter each night.

Convulsed audiences seem almost guaranteed in Forum – theatre history bears out its Broadway success originally with Mostel and a decade later in revival with Phil Silvers, then two decades after that with Nathan Lane, followed by Whoopi Goldberg. Frankie Howerd launched the show in London in 1963 and now another British comic favourite, James Corden is rumoured for the forthcoming Broadway revival. The talk of Corden seems both genius and a no-brainer, since One Man, Two Guvnors‘ Francis Henshall is a direct spiritual descendent of Pseudolus in his appetites, his self-made muddles and his manipulative ingenuity under pressure.

There is perhaps something perverse in championing Forum, since it flouts so much of what we’re told a musical should do. The songs say little about the characters, and don’t advance the story. It requires choreography, but demands little true dancing. In its emphasis on plotting, it does away with music altogether in the latter half of the second act (as does another favourite, plot-heavy musical, 1776). But Forum, a couple of millennia after Plautus and more than a half-century since its debut, is a marvel of gleefully saucy yet wholly innocent vintage and modern farce that wants nothing more than to leave you spent from laughter, humming a catchy tune. What’s not to love about that?

as originally seen in The Guardian

Note: I fear the headline that ran with this piece was misleading, since the column focused more on how companies not known for traditional musical theatre were making it a part of their producing mix. That said, if the resources expended on opera were allocated to new musicals then, well, wouldn’t it be loverly?

Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson in Sweeney Todd. Nathan Lane reprising his career-making role in Guys and Dolls. Film actor Billy Zane and musical veteran Jenn Gambatese in The Sound of Music. Three intriguing stage productions with one common thread: none was produced by a theatre company.

Respectively, they were mounted by the New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall and Chicago Lyric Opera. They drew upon Broadway artists, but none were on Broadway.

It seems that when non-theatre companies want a sure thing they turn to musicals. While theatre companies, subsidized and commercial alike, seek to sustain audiences amid an array of entertainment options and ever-escalating price barriers, musicals are offered as budget balancers by symphonies and opera companies, with ever greater frequency. That’s on top of theatre companies which were once devoted solely to dramatic works having made an annual musical de rigeur. And when it comes to the big halls, it’s big names, both for titles and performers.

These events owe a great deal to the Encores! series at City Center, which has proven the significant audience for limited run versions of great musicals, some rarely seen. But they also attest to the broad appeal of musicals when companies step outside their own repertoire.

Thirty years ago, it was considered startling when the late New York City Opera embraced Sweeney Todd. Theatre only seems to attempt opera perhaps once every decade or so, notably with Baz Luhrman’s La Bohème and Peter Brook’s La Tragédie de Carmen. It seems that when it comes to producing across disciplines, for theatres it’s primarily a one-way street.

With the English National Opera’s announcement of plans to produce commercial musicals, it’s not quite the “unique” venture cited in their announcement. In their efforts to “embrace the new climate where audiences seem to enjoy the blurring of boundaries between opera, theatre and musicals,” one cannot help but wonder how the balance will play out if a West End berth, as stated, is a goal for these projects. Several years ago, the Metropolitan Opera announced a joint venture with its neighbor Lincoln Center Theater to develop works along such lines, but it has yielded little.

Given the budgets for major operas, or the musical richness of a full symphony, it’s easy to see why musical theatre artists would be eager to work outside their usual sphere. But so long as musicals are viewed as cash cows, economic pressure will dictate reliance on the tried and true, with the same repertoire being repeatedly mined by ever more groups. What musical theatre really needs is more resources and new models for sustaining new works beyond the hit or flop reality of Broadway and the West End. If only the symphonies and opera companies could help out there.

It is unquestionably a sign of his achievements at The Young Vic that David Lan has been named consulting artistic director for the planned arts centre at the site of the former World Trade Center in lower Manhattan.

Selection to be a part of this important element in rebuilding Ground Zero, the site of the 2001 terrorist attacks, was also a mark of achievement for, among others, Signature Theatre Company, architect Frank Gehry, and The Joyce Theatre.

But in the ensuing 10 years, the Signature abandoned its for Ground Zero and successfully built and opened a three-theatre complex on West 42^nd Street. Gehry’s involvement going forward is in limbo. The Joyce, a home to numerous dance companies, still hopes for a role in programming the arts center, but has seen plans for the largest theatre among the three still under discussion drop from 1,000 seats to 550, only slightly larger than their longtime home. In the scheme of New York theatres, the city’s relative paucity of 1,000 seat venues other than on Broadway might have been more useful to the ecology of the arts.

Mayor Bloomberg, whose administration was involved in discussions for the redevelopment plans over his 12 year tenure, is out of office now. Before leaving, he allocated $50 million in city funds to a rival new arts facility, the Culture Shed, but none for the Ground Zero project. The city’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, has yet to appoint a cultural affairs commissioner and is quiet on the project.

Even Mr. Lan’s participation seems somewhat fleeting, in that his appointment is only through September and he has told The New York Times that he does not foresee a programming role for himself. Maggie Boepple, president of the arts center’s seven member board (Stephen Daldry was recently named to the group) told the Times that there was no need for full-time artistic leadership because performances won’t begin until 2018 or 2019. What creative influence will Lan’s temporary engagement have in the next six months?

When the arts centre concept was first announced, the talk was heartening. The city committed to the idea that the arts had both a spiritual and economic role to play in healing lower Manhattan. Over time, the importance of that message has eroded.

Given the planning, emotional and political implications that surround the rebuilding of Ground Zero, it’s difficult not to be sceptical. The Wall Street Journal cites a daunting cost of $469 million, with only $155 million allocated by the federal government. Fundamentally, the Ground Zero Arts Center is a real estate project first and an arts project second, and that often places impractical burdens on creative work. Even during his limited engagement, I hope Mr. Lan can talk frankly and practically, challenging all existing presumptions, if the project is to ever succeed.

When theatre professionals turn catty about work they’ve seen and disliked, they arrogantly and foolishly compare it to the work of amdram troupes (who are deserving of appreciation, not derision). But when they really want to draw a condescending laugh out of their peers, they invoke the institution of dinner theatre, imagining diners noisily chewing their way through shows. Who remembers the parody in the film Soapdish, which had Kevin Kline performing Death of a Salesman amid clattering tableware?

While dinner theatre may never garner respect under that name, the genuine merging of food and theatre is making inroads in the US at scales both grand and intimate. And in doing so, it fulfills two popular concepts that are much discussed in the arts these days – engagement and immersion.

In the past few weeks, I’ve experienced the spectrum of theatrical dining: a homely table laden with both store-bought and homemade desserts to accompany the faux village ceremony at the heart of Dog and Pony Theatre Company’s Beertown (a Washington DC import at NYC’s 59 E 59 Theatre). Then there was a Russian sampler at Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet (at a tent in Times Square’s theatre district). At Queen of the Night (in the long-empty subterranean Diamond Horseshoe nightclub) there was a complete banquet with speciality cocktails and heaping platters of lobsters and beef. In each case, the food was completely integral to the show, rather than adjunct; this wasn’t just a quick bite during a lunchtime play or, God forbid, meatloaf juxtaposed with Miller.

What could be more immersive than eating? How can one possibly remain at a detached distance while sharing a table with other audience members, or when you’re exhorted to pile up a plate of goodies before taking your seat? Communal dining breaks down one’s reserve – even more so when alcohol is part of the repast. At Great Comet, selling drinks is not only a part of the experience, it’s part of the economic structure of the production; while a drunk audience might get out of hand at the sensual Queen. There’s even a theatre company named Three-Day Hangover that specialises in producing Shakespeare in bars, not simply in rooms above the pub, and encourages consumption via drinking games, just the thing for the much-desired “next generation of theatregoers,” provided they’re not abstainers.

Considering that “dinner and a show” is part of the lexicon for many arts attendees, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the two might be wrapped up in a single experience – and ticket. Going back to the 1980s, Tamara The Living Movie, a long-running hit in Los Angeles (with a briefer New York stay) fed audiences members rather lavishly at intermission, a respite from chasing actors playing out multiple storylines across myriad rooms years before Punchdrunk. Today, Sleep No More may not have fully integrated drinking and dining with its mashup of Hitchcock and Shakespeare, but bars and a restaurant echoing the design of the show share space at the retrofitted McKittrick Hotel in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighbourhood.

This is not to suggest that every show can be made immersive by adding a meal. The much-discussed clafoutis in God of Carnage would prove a messy distraction if passed out to each and every audience member, and it’s quite possible that a good show could be brought down by mediocre food. Even theatres that have dining rooms wholly separate from their performances have learned the pitfalls of becoming restaurateurs, as the art and business requires a different skill set from that needed for the stage.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that of the examples here, none have been produced in spaces purpose-built as theatres; finding such spaces in New York or London places an added production challenge on any show.

We seek to lure audiences away from their satellite TV, their Netflix subscription and their video games, on ever-larger TVs, all of which they can enjoy over take-out food or with sustenance they prepare. Perhaps looking at theatre as a package deal rather than an a la carte offering can make sense, engaging not only minds but mouths.

A star being replaced early in a Broadway show’s run is usually a sign of trouble. They’re unhappy with their role, perhaps, and getting out at the earliest opportunity. Maybe they’ve been offered a better paying gig, and it’s worth it to them to buy out their contract and move onto greener pastures. So what does it mean when even before a show opens, the star’s replacement has already been announced?

In the case of the recently opened revue After Midnight (which boasts renowned trumpeter Wynton Marsalis as artistic director), it means the producers have deployed a whole new strategy, in which the show is designed to accommodate a rotating roster of headliners. While Fantasia Barrino, an American Idol runner up who has gone on to a successful recording career and who previously appeared on Broadway in The Color Purple, will steer the show through its first four months, she’ll be succeeded in February by KD Lang, who, after one month will in turn yield the stage to Babyface and Toni Braxton who will appear for just two weeks.

The producers have given Barrino top billing as ‘special guest star’ to indicate the transient status of the position, and she performs only four numbers in the show, which like most revues is essentially modular. It will be fascinating to learn what the producers have in store for those who follow in her footsteps, since their individual style may not naturally mesh with the same material.

Obviously, for people who enjoy the show, return visits will yield partially different rewards, since a handful of numbers in the 90-minute piece will at least vary in style and might, perhaps, be swapped for different songs. For members of the public less engaged with Broadway, they may be lured in by these pop performers appearing in an intimate venue. Without any pejorative connotation, After Midnight – modeled on revues at legendary nightspots like The Cotton Club – even evokes memories of vaudeville. If you don’t like this week’s bill, come back in two weeks.

This approach is a logical progression from similar efforts on the Great White Way. The producers of the long running production of Chicago have made a specialty of rotating stars of varying fame in and out on a regular basis, generating new waves of press every time a ‘bold-faced name’ steps in as Roxie, Velma, or Billy Flynn. Once again, the vaudeville style of the show itself ends itself to easy transitions; it’s not as if a new Lear was joining an acting troupe every four weeks. The Play What I Wrote also employed weekly mystery guest stars, and, as an aside, it’s worth noting that this Morecambe and Wise-derived show marks the only time Kenneth Branagh has performed on stage in the US to date.

Another precursor to this format was the series of post-show guests employed by Million Dollar Quartet, a largely fictionalised retelling of the one-time recording session of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. To bolster its sales, the show began offering two or three song mini-concerts after the final curtain to add to its marketing draw. Though I’d seen the show early in its run, I arranged to sneak in at the tail-end one night to see the real Jerry Lee Lewis duet at the piano with his Tony-winning doppelgänger Levi Kreis. It was, I have to say, a thrill.

I’m not advocating a parade of stunt casting. The risk is too great, even if, upon seeing stage novice Melanie Griffith in Chicago, New York Times critic Ben Brantley wrote: “Ms Griffith has only minimal command of the skills traditionally associated with musical comedy. She dances very little, and her well-known baby-doll voice has only a casual relationship with melody. Yet she is a sensational Roxie.” But that rave shocked even the show’s producers.

In this era of star appearances in theatre that run for only 12 to 16 weeks, perhaps this is a new paradigm which recognises that many stars can’t commit for long runs, and creates a way to deploy their drawing power in a manner totally organic to the show, for the benefit of audiences and investors. I for one can’t wait to see Madonna in After Midnight in 2017.

Sesame Street music director Bill Sherman with Elmo and Zoe on the set. Sherman won a Tony Award for In the Heights in 2008 and has recruited Broadway peers to compose for the children’s show. (Photo: Howard Sherman)

You know how to get to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice. But do you know how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?

Turns out there’s a shortcut from New York’s theater district — and it’s landed a number of Broadway’s top songwriting talents on the venerable children’s program.

The man to see is Bill Sherman, a 2008 Tony Award winner for his work on orchestrations for In the Heights. Sherman is in his fifth season as music director for Sesame Street. Back when he started the job, Broadway’s songwriters were an obvious go-to.

“I knew them,” he shrugs. “It was easy access. I was trusting songwriters I knew and loved.”

He’s since discovered that no matter whom he calls, Sesame Street meets with universal enthusiasm. “Everybody will stop some really important thing they should be doing and really focus on this.”

From A College Buddy To Strangers In The Biz

Sherman’s first call, five seasons back, was to Lin-Manuel Miranda, composer and lyricist of In the Heights. “Lin has been my best friend for 10 years,” Sherman says. “We went to college together, so asking him to write a song was very easy.”

Miranda was followed by other Heights alumni, Alex Lacamoire and Chris Jackson, and by composers Jason Robert Brown (Parade, The Last Five Years), Justin Paul (A Christmas Story) and Tom Kitt (Next To Normal). And while some of these artists typically write both music and lyrics, Sesame Street primarily taps into their composing skills.

“So much of what we do is curriculum-based that it has to go through many levels of approval,” Sherman explains. “So most of the lyrics come from the [Sesame Street] scriptwriters.”

Miranda, an adept lyricist, says being forced to focus solely on the music was “enormous fun.”

“The writer will say, ‘It’s very Harry Belafonte; it’s Ravel’s Bolero; it will build and build.’ You get a sense of what they were thinking, of the rhythm that’s in their heads.”

With “Elmo the Musical,” More Shots At The Spotlight

Sesame Street‘s musical universe expanded further when the show introduced its “Elmo the Musical” segments — stand-alone bits, eight to 10 minutes long, that take place entirely in the imagination of the childlike red fuzzball.

The Elmo the Musical segments are through-composed — musicalized from start to finish — “so each composer had their chance to really sink their teeth into the music,” Sherman says. “It became their episode, their thing. We tried to figure out a way to use the composers’ strengths for whatever particular episode it was.”

An installment called “Detective,” for instance, “asked for this complex, jazzy [sound], and Jason Robert Brown is known for that.”

Like all the composers, Brown — who’s never met Sherman — jumped at the opportunity.

“I had a 2-year-old who stared at Elmo all day long,” Brown says. “So there was nothing better than that.”

Then came the kicker: That episode’s script was to be written by John Weidman, a Sesame Street veteran and co-creator, with Stephen Sondheim, of iconic musicals like Assassins and Pacific Overtures.

“I called him and said, ‘So we’re finally writing a show together, only it’s for a furry red puppet,’ ” Brown says. “When I got the recording of Elmo, I could not have been more excited if it had been Frank Sinatra, if it had been Joni Mitchell.”

This fall, as puppeteer David Rudman laid down Cookie Monster’s vocal track on Tom Kitt’s “If Me Had a Magic Wand,” Kitt described the song using an old-school musical-theater term. It’s “a soaring, emotional ‘I want’ moment,” he said, a readily identifiable, recognizably Broadway kind of sound.

But as Sherman is quick to point out, the “Broadway sound” is very much in flux.

“I’ve been part of musical-theater situations that pushed boundaries, that brought new sounds to Broadway. Taking this job, like [working on] In the Heights, was an opportunity to put new sounds in kids’ ears. People assume musical theater is vaudevillian, epic ballads and tap-dance numbers. So to turn that on its head and bring in audiences that don’t go to Broadway shows is important to me.”

Is it a challenge for these sophisticated writers to gear their work for toddlers? “Sometimes,” says Sherman, “composers think that because it’s Sesame Street, they have to dumb it down. … [But] these days children have unbelievably sophisticated ears. I think dumbing it down is disrespectful to kids.”

“That’s Not What Cookie Monster Sounds Like”

When composers have kids of their own, they’ve got an in-house test panel. Brown did demos, complete with character voices, for his daughter.

“Her response was, ‘That’s not what Cookie Monster sounds like,’ ” he reports.

Sherman has met with greater success at home.

“If my 3-year-old hears something, and 15 to 20 minutes later she’s still singing it, then I know I did the right thing,” he says. “If the 1-year-old dances to it, then I know that it sounds right.”

There might well be more musical theater in Sesame Street‘s future; Sherman admits he’d like to work with Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Pippin) and Marc Shaiman (Hairspray).

And there’s one more big fish he’d like to land — the whale of the business, really.

“We toyed a bit with going after Sondheim,” he said. “We haven’t gone that route yet, but to call up Stephen and see if he was down [for it], that’d be funny. Why not?”

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“It’s one of my lost plays that I feel we can bring back,” says British playwright Alan Ayckbourn of 2003’s Sugar Daddies, which will make its U.S. debut this month at Seattle’s A Contemporary Theatre, directed by the author.

ACT has previously staged 10 Ayckbourn plays with other directors. So what prompted this in-person visit by the playwright himself to stage a work little seen beyond his home base of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, England?

“They asked me, is the simple answer,” explained Ayckbourn. “I met Kurt Beattie the artistic director when he came to Scarborough two years ago. He slipped me the ground plan of their Allen Theatre, which is conveniently in the round, and he asked if I’d fancy working there.”

Ayckbourn says the plays – about a young woman who helps an elderly crime boss who she helped after he’s hit by car, and ends up as his protégeé –  is based in part on the Faust legend. “It is, in the end, the story of a girl corrupted by worldly goods, “ Ayckbourn says. “Do you sell your soul or do you hold on to it? There’s nothing particularly English about it.”

Still, Ayckbourn notes that he’s not planning to Americanize the play for the Seattle production. “I’d been down the road of Americanization early in my career. It turned out to be a very unfortunate choice. If you’re not an American writer, your vocabulary when you’re translating is much narrower. It’s the same as trying to squeeze Tennessee Williams into Cheltenham.”

The author of 77 plays (not including one-acts, children’s shows and holiday entertainments), Ayckbourn has directed American acting companies in two plays previously, Henceforward at The Alley Theater in 1987 and multiple engagements of By Jeeves after its stateside debut at Goodspeed Musicals in 1996. Does he find a difference when working with U.S. actors?

“Here [in Scarborough] I have the advantage,” Ayckbourn notes, “of having a rolling company and they are, to an extent, imbued with the ethos of the way I work and the style in which I write. It used to be difficult for American actors, because they went after the jokes in my stuff and fell flat on their faces – because there are none. Most of my jokes come from monosyllables like ‘yes’ or ‘no.’

“I have to ask people not to treat it like a broad English comedy. The more seriously you play my stuff, the funnier it gets. But these days, because of my age and reputation, if you like, they treat me a bit too reverently. I have to knock the reverence out of them.”