Take careful note of the quotation marks, because the headline above doesn’t nod to theatre tickets or the wholesale embrace of casual fornication. The reference, sorry to disappoint you, relates instead to the titles of two stage works created in 1926, which as of January 1, 2022 should be entering the public domain.
As a result of changes in copyright law over the years, very little entered the public domain for an extended period which ended in 2019, once again starting the annual roll of works ceasing to be under the control of the estates of those who created them. Last year’s big entry into the field was The Great Gatsby. This year, when it comes to theatre, George Abbott and Philip Dunning’s Broadway and Mae West’s Sex are leading the pack of influential works now free to those who wish to produce, alter or adapt these pieces.
Obviously what was popular and even topical 95 years ago may not hold up now, but for those whose art may emerge from transforming vintage work, public domain material certainly beats negotiating with attorneys and studios. To be clear, this applies to all copyrighted work, including novels, films and recordings, so the tranche coming available every year is quite vast.
For those who like the saga of Edna Ferber’s Show Boat but find the musical (in its many iterations) a slog for some reason, the novel enters the public domain in 2022 while the musical has at least two years to go. The same is true for Anita Loos’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which appeared as both a novel and, co-authored with John Emerson, a play in 1926, so the adventures of Lorelei Lee are now fair game for new iterations. But keep clear of the musical Blondes, because anything newly created by Loos and her collaborators Joseph Fields, Jule Styne and Leo Robin are protected for over two more decades.
While the play Chicago, by Maurine Dallas Watkins, basis for the Kander and Ebb musical, also launched on Broadway in 1926, its first performance was on December 20, so it’s highly likely that its copyright wasn’t registered until 1927, meaning you can’t take the story for all your own jazz for another year. It’s a good example of why every literary work herein should be triple checked before you have at them: while copyright likely began the same year they premiered, you don’t want to get caught up by an exception, so as with all adapted works, a good legal check is in order.
On stage, Broadway brought plays by writers who were better known for other works, before or after their 1926 contributions. They include The Great God Brown by Eugene O’Neill, The Play’s The Thing by Ferenc Molnar in a version by P.G. Wodehouse (later adapted by Tom Stoppard as Rough Crossing), The Silver Cord by Sidney Howard (who won the Pulitzer for 1925’s They Knew What They Wanted), Saturday’s Children by Maxwell Anderson, The Constant Wife by W. Somerset Maugham, The Road to Rome by Robert E. Sherwood, Daisy Mayme by George Kelly, What Every Woman Knows by J.M. Barrie, and In Abraham’s Bosom by Paul Green.
While the writers getting produced in 1926 were predominantly male and white, it’s worth noting that West, Loos and Watkins led the field of women writers, which also included less remembered authors such as Glady B. Unger, whose Two Girls Wanted ran 324 performances and Margaret Vernon, whose Yellow lasted for 124, in an era when a twelve-week run could be considered a hit. There is markedly little diversity, sad to say, however the Spanish natives Gregorio and Maria Martinez Sierra had a hit with The Cradle Song.
Looking to novels which are now up for grabs, the list includes Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Franz Kafka’s The Castle, and P.C. Wren’s Beau Geste. Perhaps buried in this recounting, but no doubt in need of particularly careful parsing, especially as UK and US copyright terms vary and there are Disney encumbrances to dodge as well, is A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh, who emerged in the Hundred Acre Wood in 1926.
Why promote these old works coming out of copyright and into the public domain at a time when stages (and TV, film radio, podcast and so on) are increasingly making space for new and diverse voices? It’s not to try to elevate these works above what’s new or make any claims for their value today. However, there’s often something to be learned from the past, whether by being faithful or through radical transformation.In recent weeks, since the passing of Stephen Sondheim, we have been reminded of how Oscar Hammerstein II assigned the young artist the task of writing four original musicals as training, including a good play, a bad play and a non-play. Aspiring writers might well look to public domaterial as sources for such work because should they happen to be particularly inspired and successful in their efforts, they could, with little to no fuss, actually get the show(s) produced.
Regardless of whether you see The Sound of Music on stage or watch the perennially popular 1965 movie, here’s another word you won’t hear: Holocaust.
None of this is meant as criticism of The Sound of Music in either version. They are simply facts about the musical’s book and screenplay. Coming 14 and 20 years after the end of World War II, the stage and screen musicals (respectively) arrived in a period when a significant majority of the theatre and filmgoing public still held vivid memories of the war, and countless stories – both real and fictional – had proliferated in its wake, some coming while battles and atrocities still raged. Even casual mentions of associated terms and names surely brought instant recognition of the entirety of the perfidy that corrupted Germany and killed millions.
The real-life Trapp Family Singers
The Sound of Music focuses its attention on a heavily fictionalized account of the real-life Trapp Family Singers, who charmed Austria in the late 1920s and 1930s, leaving for America in 1938 following the country’s annexation by Germany (aka the Anschluss) so that the paterfamilias, a former naval captain, would not be pressed into service by the Third Reich. Rodgers and Hammerstein, the famed lyricist and composer working on what would be their final show together, and Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, the book writers, foregrounded the romance of Captain von Trapp and the governess to his children, Maria, with the rise of the of the Reich lightly threaded through the show, only to come into its fullest focus in the climactic escape of the family from Nazi clutches. Seven years after the Broadway premiere of The Sound of Music, John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Joe Masteroff would make the rise and intent of the Nazis much more explicit, and central, in the musical Cabaret.
While the overall structure of The Sound of Music remains the same in both the stage and film versions, there are many differences. In the stage version, the characters of Max Detweiler and Elsa von Schrader are, at the very least, appeasers of the German rise to power in Austria (“What’s going to happen is going to happen,” says Max, “Just be sure it doesn’t happen to you”) and at worst, potential collaborators. Indeed, unlike the film, where the Captain’s romance with Elsa is ended almost exclusively because of his evident love for Maria, in the stage version the couple break apart over their differing viewpoints of how to respond to the ominous political shift, laid out in the song “No Way To Stop It,” which does not appear in the film.
Program cover for LaGuardia High School’s The Sound of Music
This dramaturgical prologue is provided in order to consider the recent debate at New York’s LaGuardia High School – almost 60 years since the musical’s debut, 73 years after the end of the war – over the presence of swastikas in a high school production of the stage musical. As first reported by the New York Daily News, the school’s principal insisted upon the removal of swastikas from the set and costumes of the show just before it began its 10-performance run. Students involved in the production protested, and a compromise was reached, in which the presence of the swastika was greatly reduced, but not eliminated: it was prominently rendered as banners (on video screens) flanking the stage during the Kaltzberg Musical Festival where the family competes late in the show, and as a cloth flag somewhat inexplicably draped over a gate in the convent where the climactic scene takes place (a nun pulled it down at LaGuardia, echoing the film moment when Captain von Trapp removes and tears apart a Nazi flag hung on his house).
The swastika was also to have appeared, as it would have in Germany and its conquered territories in that era, on armbands worn by military personnel. The compromise saw it replaced by the stylized twin lightning bolts that were the symbol of the Schutzstaffel, the SS, originally Hitler’s personal guards which grew into the Nazi elite force, charged with planning and carrying out the eradication of Jews, as well as Romani, queer, disabled and other specified identities which did not conform to the ostensibly “pure” Aryan characteristics. That the SS symbol was acceptable while the swastika was not has to do with a lack of historical understanding of what the former represented, while the latter, alarmingly, is in ongoing use by neo-Nazi organizations and vandals to this day, and therefore better recognized and instantly repellant.
The script of The Sound of Music does not require swastika banners, though it does specify SS uniforms, where the swastika would have been seen. The placement of either symbol, or the frequency of its use, misses the larger issue that must be considered when producing The Sound of Music today, namely that the show minimizes the historical underpinnings of the story in favor of romance, and that today, in an era when white nationalism has raised its vile head in international politics and in America, productions shouldn’t lean in to sanitization. That’s not to say that the text can or should be altered, but by avoiding the most obvious symbols of a regime known for unspeakable atrocities, productions risk underplaying its horrors. That the swastika scares people is only appropriate.
To be sure, schools will want to take care that images of the show featuring Nazi symbols and paraphernalia are not taken out of context, something that can occur all too easily in this era when everyone has a camera at the ready in their cell phone, and when such images can quickly be shared widely via social media. In the wake of the reports on the LaGuardia dispute, many teachers have written on social media about the care they take during rehearsals and performances regarding the use of props, costumes and photos thereof, often keeping those materials under strict control. One teacher wrote on Facebook of ritually burning the Nazi armbands after the final performance, so they could not be misappropriated.
Signage at LaGuardia High during the run of The Sound of Music
In a program note, presumably written and printed prior to the eruption over swastikas, the LaGuardia principal Lisa Mars, who also billed herself as executive producer of the show, wrote of the need to delve “deeper into the plot,” citing both Nazism and the Third Reich; an accompanying note from director Lee Lobenhofer invokes facism. A program insert, likely added in the wake of the controversy, headed “Stand with us, United Against Hatred,” explained that the students and faculty of the school had asked that a portion of ticket proceeds be donated to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. “LaGuardia Arts stand united against hatred and we ask that you join with us in denouncing all forms of hate and intolerance. When we say, ‘Never again will those atrocities of war be repeated,’ never again must be a promise kept.”
All of these statements and sentiments are not merely admirable, but necessary. Unfortunately, whether in advance or in response to outcry, the materials provided to the audience, which thanks to the number of performances and size of the theatre was some 10,000 people, didn’t say enough. While students involved in the show, or throughout the school, may have participated in some supplemental educational initiatives designed to ensure that they understood the full scope of what is only touched upon in the musical, the public statements made an assumption of knowledge that simply may not be the case. There should have been several pages in the program explaining all of the terms pertinent to the era, both those used in the show and those left out, as well as an overview of what took place in Europe during Hitler’s rampage. A related lobby display could have reinforced the messaging. We do need to delve deeper, but that excavation was not in significant evidence for the public at LaGuardia.
In April of this year, a survey by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany found a widespread lack of knowledge in the United States about Hitler’s rise to power and the scope of the Holocaust. As a result, LaGuardia – and all schools, community groups, and even professional companies planning to produce The Sound of Music– must take every opportunity to educate not only students but all audiences on the real facts (not alternative facts) about the viciousness of Nazi Germany and those who facilitated its rise, either overtly or through inaction, and the terrors that came to pass under its rule.
Yes, introducing the full reality of Nazism may mitigate the romance and sweetness of The Sound of Music, but at a time when Holocaust ignorance and outright denial has found increased footing, no opportunities should be missed. If the show is produced solely so we can sing along with “Do Re Mi” or “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” then its educational value is reduced, regardless of how often “the flag with the black spider” appears.
Producing The Sound of Music without swastikas plays into the hands of those who want to minimize or eradicate the truth of Nazi Germany, of why that symbol holds such terrifying power. But retaining that ugly symbol is only the start even with school productions, where successive generations (and their parents, siblings and friends) must be clearly taught what happened in that era, to more than just Austrians during 1938, so that we can educate against virulent policies that seek to turn certain groups into “the other,” to be insulted, excluded, and eradicated, in direct renunciation of our common humanity. We must not risk blessing only one homeland forever, as the song goes, but all of them that wish to unite in peace.
There’s been a song running through my head for the past week, prompted by a series of press releases I’ve received. Anyone on a press list will tell you, notices from publicists flooding your inbox don’t normally move one to song.
The tune in question is “Bobby and Jackie and Jack” from Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along. If you don’t know the song, it’s a cabaret number devised by the lead characters, spoofing the cultural array offered up by the Kennedy White House in the early 1960s. I’ve always been taken with the line, “We’ll have Bernstein play next on the Bechstein piano/And Auden read poems and stuff.” There’s lots of material like that.
The Sondheim wordplay is on my mind because there has been a steady drumbeat of cultural interest by the Obama White House in recent weeks, though not remotely for the first time. Without being political or trumpeting national pride, I have to say this makes me rather happy.
A number of Broadway shows were in Washington DC on Monday to tape Broadway at the White House for broadcast next week by TLC, one of our countless cable channels, on our Thanksgiving holiday. It features Michelle Obama as a special guest, with performances from several Broadway shows including On Your Feet, An American in Paris (in poignant timing), School of Rock and Fun Home. On Wednesday, the White House hosted a livestream salute to the Americans With Disabilities Act in its 25th year, which included a performance by the cast of Spring Awakening, which reached Broadway after being developed by the company Deaf West in a tiny theatre in Los Angeles.
This is all on top of New York City’s traffic-stopping special performance of the musical Hamilton two weeks ago, with the Obamas in attendance, in a high-price-ticket fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee. The event was widely known about and seen thanks to news reports about the president’s onstage remarks. And it’s worth noting that this was the second time the Obamas, who have visited Broadway regularly throughout his terms, have seen Lin-Manuel Miranda’s look at early US history (although Miranda’s alternate was on the first time they went).
Sondheim’s ribbing of the Kennedys notwithstanding, it’s incredibly affirming for every theatre geek in the country to know that the form of culture we participate in and love finds favour in the highest corridors of power. To be sure, some might make the charge that theatre is an elitist art if they’re trying to tear down the politicians who attend, but TLC wisely made the taping of their show part of a daylong event for students from arts programs in public schools around the country. Who can argue with that? As for Spring Awakening, the stream was free for all to see.
Diehards like me cling to moments when theatre is recognised by the wider culture. I’m happy to tell you that in the 1950s, the sitcom I Love Lucy sent Lucy and Ricky to Frank Loesser’s The Most Happy Fella, while more recently South Park featured Stephen Schwartz and Andrew Lloyd Webber in a brilliantly absurdist episode. There is symbolic power in politicians sitting in the dark watching the performing arts live, because it’s going to reach some portions of the population who might just decide to check this stuff out for themselves.
As Broadway is showcased before our political leaders and donors, it’s worth noting that even though some of the aforementioned shows originated with subsidised companies, there’s a vast array of theatre that isn’t defined by commercial success. Maybe before leaving office the Obamas might stop in at one or more of those companies. Or invite them to their home for the holidays.
This column originally appeared in The Stage newspaper in London.
Labor negotiations only tend to break into the news when they concern large public sector unions or when things are going badly. This does not concern the former or, so far as I know, the latter. But there is an item on the table in the current negotiations between The Broadway League and the Stage Directors and Choreography Society (SDC) that I find of interest, even if it is rather inside pool for the theatre industry, and even more specifically, Broadway.
SDC has put forward a proposal asking that, with their new Broadway contract, the Associate Directors and Associate Choreographers who work on Broadway shows be included as part of the bargaining unit for the first time. The goal is not to establish minimum salaries, but to seek health and pension payments for the associates during the term of their employment, which, with a successful show, can extend for years.
Because the term ‘associate’ is often confused with ‘assistant,’ and I’ve made the mistake myself more than once, it’s worth understanding the title. Associates are typically the people who remain with a show week after week to maintain the production, whether it’s notes for actors as productions roll along, rehearsing understudies and even “putting in” new cast members. Associates may travel with shows as they tour, and in some cases on shows with numerous subsequent incarnations, an associate may rehearse the cast for several weeks before the director or choreographer arrives to handle the final phase of the staging. I’m skimming the surface here. But in short, we are not talking about people who run to get the tuna sandwiches for lunch.
The position has evolved over the years, as shows have run longer and productions have become more technically complex. Some of the work I’ve mentioned cursorily was traditionally the sole purview of the production stage manager, and on some productions, it can certainly remain their responsibility. (There are superb stage managers out there and nothing I’m saying here should in any way be construed as minimizing their essential roles in maintaining shows as well.) But on the bigger shows, engineered to (hopefully) last for years, associates are much more de rigeur. Certain directors and choreographers of note tend to work with the same associates for long periods of time, because of the trust developed that allows those artists to reliably delegate tasks and productions, secure that their vision will be sustained. It’s important to note, however, that while directors and choreographers have significant say in who they want to work with, and on a practical basis the associates work for them, legally all associates are employed by the production, not the artists themselves.
The only reason I’ve heard about this topic in the current negotiations is because the associates have been organizing themselves on Facebook, and in my wide circle of “friends,” so many of whom I’ve never met, some are Broadway associates – and some are the directors and choreographers themselves. It was only yesterday that I saw the associates’ campaign for recognition move beyond a private Facebook group and onto SDC’s own Facebook page. There’s been no press release, no phone calls soliciting support.
But it came as a surprise to me that with the many unions establishing work rules and compensation minimums on Broadway, somehow the associates have slipped through the cracks, despite the responsibility and skills that the position now requires. Some of this surely stems from how the role has evolved over the past 30 years or so.
Is being an associate a training ground for the next generation of directors and choreographers, something we all should care about? It can be: a cursory look at the IBDB shows me that Marc Bruni, director of Beautiful, was associate director for nine Broadway productions before getting the top gig with the Carole King show; Warren Carlyle was the associate choreographer on two shows before he started creating the dances – and directing – Broadway shows on his own. But there are plenty of associates for whom that may well be their particular calling, who find perpetual satisfaction and success in their expertise at channeling directors and choreographers to keep shows fresh and tight, as we now see productions running for 10 or 20 years or more.
I understand why the producers of the Broadway League may be reticent about this; after all, I’ve been a theatre manager, and sat in union negotiations representing producers (albeit not-for-profit ones). There’s always the belief that when a new union comes in, or when new disciplines are added to an existing bargaining unit, the inevitable result is to drive up costs and perhaps create limitations on employee responsibilities. Even though the request right now is only for health and pension contributions, and salaries are entirely negotiable, I’m sure the producers are concerned that once assistants are in the bargaining unit, there may be additional requests in future negotiations.
It’s worth noting that associates working on productions like The Lion King and Aladdin are afforded these benefits, because Disney negotiates its own union contracts. All of its workers are corporate employees of Disney, and participate in standard Disney employee benefit programs. Of course, other producers, who are primarily independent, may say that Disney can afford to do this precisely because they are a large corporation, not a limited partnership formed to mount a single production. But Disney shows still have to balance expenses against income, like any other show.
I have to say that I look at the current situation not as an avowed ally of either the associates or the producers, but rather as the son of an insurance salesman, as well was someone who traded in my bar mitzvah savings bonds at age 16 because I realized I could get a better rate in a mutual fund. I also look at it as someone who had no opportunity for a retirement savings plan, let alone an employer contribution, until I was in my 30s, and who has had to buy health insurance on the open market for the past several years (and I say with genuine appreciation, thank you, President Obama).
My voice doesn’t really matter one little bit, because I’m not at the table or directly connected to the interested parties. But I don’t think its unreasonable for enterprises which may be grossing anywhere from $500,000 to $2 million a week to give long-term employees who are surrounded by countless colleagues who do receive health and pension benefits the same level of security. And while audiences may never realize it, it matters to them too, especially if they’re seeing a show after the first couple of months on Broadway or in a subsequent sit-down company or on a tour.
It’s a funny thing about milestones, the way certain thresholds get set in our minds. If you follow reporting on the movie industry, breaking the $100 million gross barrier is a major achievement (and for those of us in the arts, an astronomical figure), although its not always connected to the cost of the film under discussion. But that number has been a yardstick for years, once cause for double page ads in Variety whenever it was reached, regardless of whether the movie that achieved it was released in the 60s, 70s, 80s or today – despite inflation making the success happen a little faster with every passing year. To be sure, plenty of movies still don’t make it, but it’s a less rarified club than it was in the days of The Sound of Music or Star Wars.
Once upon a time, when people still spoke of the price of a loaf of bread as an economic indicator, gas prices crossed a big threshold when a gallon broke over the $1.00 price point. People under 40 may not even remember this being breached. This was a big deal in those non-digital days, when prices couldn’t simply be altered with a tiny bit typing; I happened to be in England a few years back when the price of a liter of petrol broke the £1 mark, resulting in some creative solutions to signage that never anticipated announcing such a sum.
But it should be noted that the $100 price was the theatre equivalent of a hotel’s “rack rate,” the stated top price for rooms which were in reality variable and negotiable. In theatre, through group sales, discount offers, the beloved TKTS booth and day of show lotteries you could still see a Broadway show for much less than that. As a result, over the past decade, while regular prices have risen, especially at the most successful shows, the average price paid on Broadway stayed under $100 per seat. That is, until last year, the just-completed 2013-14 Broadway season, when the average ticket was $103.92, up $5.50 over the year before.
So while articles may be trumpeting record revenues and record attendance, they’re either downplaying, avoiding or ignoring the true breaking of the $100 threshold, preferring to lead with the allure of numbers in the millions (attendance) or billions (dollars). That’s a shame, because in terms of what matters to the average audience member, the average ticket price seems much more essential news. To me, that’s the headline.
I don’t have the resources to analyze all of the factors contributing to that jump, beyond the prevalence of premium or VIP seating, along with hit shows with higher prices that don’t need to discount (The Book of Mormon and Wicked) and superior supply and demand management (The Lion King). Maybe Nate Silver and his Five Thirty Eight team could work on this and tell us whether there’s a valid economic underpinning, or whether its just naked supply and demand having its day.
But surely if Broadway price hikes outstrip the economy and even other entertainment options, Broadway will eventually reach a tipping point that could have an impact on the already dicey economics of producing and running shows. Purchasing decisions based on price could put even more shows at risk for sustaining an economically viable run, whether in theory, as a Broadway engagement is contemplated, or even once it’s up and running.
So I want to call out this pricing milestone for all to see, and wonder where it will lead our commercial theatre yet a few more years down the line. If price resistance takes hold, if the Broadway price-value equation tips too far with the former outweighing the latter, will it be a place where shows can only be smash hits and utter flops, with no mid-level performers managing to run? If that happens, I hope it will prompt more people to sample institutional and independent theatre, here in New York and elsewhere. But on Broadway, and indeed at every level in the arts, ticket pricing is our global warming crisis, steadily rising year after year without raising true alarm and provoking meaningful action, until it threatens to swamp us all.
“Saturday at 10? It’s a date!” Neil Patrick Harris in Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Broadway’s 7 pm curtain on Tuesdays was introduced more than 11 years ago. I thought it a somewhat more recent innovation, especially since I still regularly attend shows where audience members enter at about 7:50, usually far into the first act, looking embarrassed, angry or both.
Of course, this curtain time is no longer limited to Tuesdays, as many shows also play on Thursdays at 7, and shorter shows that can still give their company an appropriate break between matinee and evening even manage it on Wednesdays.
I remember the doomsayers when the Tuesday plan began: people wouldn’t be able to eat dinner, restaurant business in the theatre district would suffer, suburban patrons would be deterred from coming in for a show given the compressed travel time. That doesn’t seem to be the case, because while overall seasonal attendance has fluctuated between 11.5 and 12.5 million in the past 10 years on Broadway, there’s no evidence that the change in curtain times hurt business and it’s entirely possible that the adjustment helped to stave off declines by introducing flexibility.
Of course, that flexibility has gone far beyond the 7 or 8 pm curtain options. There are also shows with 7:30 weeknight performances, matinees variously at 1 pm, 2 pm, 2:30 pm, and 3 pm, and family oriented shows may well play two shows on Saturday and two on Sunday. (I remember the 1999 Broadway revival of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown experimenting with three show Saturdays, though that was short lived and, to my knowledge, never repeated.). At long last, the Thursday matinee (long seen in London) has been added. Right now, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, perhaps to retain a connection with its downtown roots, has 7 pm and 10 pm shows on Saturdays, a performance schedule that was once commonplace in the Off-Broadway of my younger days. I’m probably leaving a few options out.
I recount all these variants because I think it’s worth recognizing that Broadway producers and theatre owners, no doubt in collaboration with the theatrical unions, have proven that by being responsive to the changing needs of audiences, they can break out of habits for which the rationale may be long forgotten. For tourists, this means there are more possibilities of catching a show; for die-hard theatregoers, it means their binge weekends can be even more packed, in that eternal quest to see as many shows as possible in a limited number of days. For local audiences, it means they may have plenty of evening ahead of them post-show, or the opportunity to get to bed earlier on theatre nights.
I will say that this proliferation of performance times doesn’t surprise me in the least. Growing up in Connecticut, many theatres there had 4 pm Saturday matinees (followed by 8:30 or 9 pm evening shows) and the 4 pm shows were usually the fastest to sell out, no matter what was on stage. 4 pm shows also yielded the most geographically diverse audience, since the schedule allowed for day-trips with the greatest options of complementary activities – even plenty of time to sit by a pool or at the beach before heading to the theatre. And it was in 1985 that we surveyed our audience at Hartford Stage about their weeknight performance preferences, finding that by a 2 to 1 margin, they wanted 7:30 instead of 8 pm. It was implemented with nary a complaint.
All of this is merely a reminder that, as we search for ways to retain or develop audiences, the most simple tried and true elements of past patterns may not be something to cling to, just as abandoned practices may yet come into vogue once again. What may have been just fine five years ago may not hold today. We’ll only know for sure by experimenting – and by asking our audiences for their input whenever possible. We’re never going to be Netflix when it comes to entertainment on demand, but we might find there are some demands we can easily meet, if we’d just listen, and give things a try.
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.
Broadway dreams being immediately blown up into pending productions is something that really gets my goat. Why? Because it’s a case of hyperbole becoming ostensible fact in the press, and the only people it serves are those trying to make a nascent production into reality.
When I last wrote about this phenomenon about nine months ago (it really makes me cranky), I suggested that it makes an argument for why paid professional arts journalism is so essential – to separate real news from puffery. I regret to say that I’ve been proven wrong in that regard.
Here’s the problem. There is no Soul Train musical. No writers. No director. It’s unclear if any music rights have been acquired. All there is, right now, is a producer who has licensed the trademark and plans to develop a show.
Every article I saw actually makes note of this fact in some way, but it’s buried at least a few paragraphs in. One of the examples cited above makes it the very last sentence. But I’d be willing to bet that the vast majority of people who glanced at this story (with 120 Google News citations and climbing) thinks it’s a done deal.
Mind you, I take no pleasure in pointing this out, because I know three out of the four journalists involved in these stories pretty well, and I may get some grief from them. It’s certainly worth pointing out that journalists rarely write their own headlines, so the majority of the responsibility may not lie with the writers. In our clickbait world of online news, “happening” is much stronger than “may happen,” although such a distinction can be quickly elided by aggregators. But somewhere along the way, accuracy is sacrificed.
But I should in all fairness note that headlines more reflective of reality did appear: “Soul Train Aims To Pull Into Broadway Station” (Variety), “Soul Train May Boogie To Broadway” (The Grio, running an Associated Press story), and “Soul Train Making Tracks To Broadway?” (San Diego Union Tribune) are examples. Jim Hebert at the Union Tribune struck a strong note of skepticism in his copy, going so far as to say “don’t hold your breath on this one…” The cause is not lost.
I suppose if I were the producer and publicist for the show – and keep in mind I was a publicist for more than a decade – I’d be thrilled by the amount of attention garnered by the existence of a legal agreement. But when I see so many worthy arts activities that actually exist, eager and even desperate for media attention, this inflation of intentions is really rather depressing. I assume anyone who has a show that has already been written feels much the same way. But clearly the retro lure of a famous brand, with photos ready to run, holds greater sway than what’s happening now (those last three words actually being connected to a property someone may option any day).
In the film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, there’s a famous quote: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Fifty years later, it’s been simplified in a way that would make Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne and perhaps even Lee Marvin blanch, since we no longer wait for something to become legend: “Print the hype, with a great headline.”
Yes, I brought my camera to a Broadway show with the intention of using it. And I did.
Having read that the audience was invited on stage before the start of The Testament of Mary to gaze upon an assortment of props, as well as the leading lady Fiona Shaw, I brought my camera to document the event. I figured it would make for perfect art to accompany a blog post about the wisdom of a show exploiting audience curiosity in order to seed a social media marketing campaign.
Instead, I was converted.
No, not like that.
In the 36 hours since I saw the next-to-last Broadway performance, I have come to realize that the audience ambling and photobombing of Shaw was in fact an integral part of the show, and it reveals new layers to me even as I write.
Colm Toíbín’s revisionist view of the mother of Jesus, adapted by Shaw and director Deborah Warner, gave us a most ordinary Mary, who spent much of the show in a drab tunic and pants. She was remarkably modern in her speech, talked with an Irish accent, and dangled a cigarette from her lips. The set was strewn with anachronistic props: plastic chairs, a metal pail, a bird cage – a yard sale filled mostly with items from the Bethlehem Hope Depot.
Mary’s tale might be that of any Jewish mother whose son has fallen in with the wrong crowd, less disciples or worshippers than hooligans; her skepticism about her son’s miracles is hardly veiled. She spoke of the raising of Lazarus as if he had been buried alive, of the transformation of water into wine as a show-off’s trick, and wrenchingly of the crucifixion. She described those who urged her to recount her son’s life and death in specific ways, contrary to some of her own recollections; she talked about potential threats to her own safety resulting from her familial connection. She stripped bare and submerged herself completely in a pool of water for a second or two longer than might seem safe; an auto-baptism perhaps?
But that’s the play. Or so we’re meant to think.
In hindsight, the play – or at least the production – began the moment Fiona Shaw took her place, Madonna-like, behind plexiglass walls, at roughly 7:40 pm before the announced 8 pm curtain. While it’s perhaps unfortunate that this device was used so soon after the Tilda Swinton-in-a-box stunt at the Museum of Modern Art, we were clearly watching a tableau vivant of the Virgin Mary as seen in countless religious icons, not an Oscar winner feigning sleep.
The moment the play proper, or perhaps I should say “the action,” began, the audience was shooed to their seats, cautioned against further photos, the glass case lifted, and Shaw quickly shed the fine vestments for the costume described earlier.
As I had stood among the crowd on stage, and it was indeed a crowd, I thought, ‘Why isn’t this better managed? Everyone is going in a different direction. People could trip, people could slip off the stage itself, they could taunt the live vulture, they could foul up the preset props.’ Even after I wormed my way up to the plexiglass and was ready to retake my seat, I couldn’t, such was the flow of people coming and going from two small stairways on a suddenly tiny stage.
I have come to realize that we were the modern day rabble, gawking at the remnants of Jesus’ death. There was no corpse, but the barbed wire we tiptoed around would later be a crown of thorns, Shaw as the Madonna was indeed a gazed-upon icon, making her transformation to flesh and blood all the more striking minutes later. We weren’t looking upon any of this with reverence, but with the avid curiosity of onlookers at a tragedy. Our actions were the curtain raiser, we were our own cast in a sequence of immersive theatre within the confines of a proscenium theatre. The vulture was gone after this prologue, since we had picked the bones of the production dry under our eager gaze; Mary was vividly alive, and therefore of no interest to a animal that feeds on carrion.
Yes, I tweeted photos of the motionless Shaw; I imagine others did the same. I tried to get a good shot of the vulture, but it wasn’t much for posing and its black feathers in low light made it even more difficult a subject. I wasn’t about to use a flash, lest it trouble the seemingly imperturbable bird; others had no such compunction.
I have seen many coups de théâtre in my years of theatergoing, but this was the first time I had been a part of one. Even my tweeting served the piece; I was spreading the classic image of Mary to others, tipping them to the ability to photograph her themselves, in order to have their own actions questioned and subverted for the subsequent 90 minutes. As I did it, I felt there was something cheap in my actions; only in hindsight do I realize that Shaw and Warner had expertly suckered me into their game, as the modern day equivalent of a gawking bystander in ancient times.
Unfortunately, only another 1,000 people may have had the opportunity to respond to my small, complicit role as I exploited images of the show on social media, in the public relations of religious and theatrical iconography, since The Testament of Mary closed after its next performance. Perhaps it ran too short a time to become the stuff of legend, but it was, for me, a memorable experience, one martyred by what Broadway seems to demand. I hope it goes to countless better places.
A map that includes most of the Broadway theaters, but it isn’t quite large enough and not completely up to date.
Having previously taken a quantitative look at new Broadway musicals and musical revivals, it was inevitable that I would look at play production on Broadway as well. So as not to bury my lede, let me begin with the list of playwrights who have had five or more productions on Broadway in the last 20 years, new or revival.
William Shakespeare (13)
Arthur Miller (12)
Tennessee Williams (11)
Eugene O’Neill (9)
Noel Coward, David Mamet, Neil Simon, Tom Stoppard (8)
August Wilson (7)
Anton Chekhov, David Hare, Terrence McNally, George Bernard Shaw (6)
Brian Friel, Richard Greenberg, Donald Margulies, Martin McDonagh (5)
What is immediately noticeable among these 17 playwrights? They’re all male. There is but a single playwright of color. Eight are not American. Six were dead during the 20 years examined. If anyone is looking for hard and fast data about the lack of diversity among the playwrights getting work on Broadway, this would be Exhibit A.
Now let’s get detailed. As indicated, I studied the past 20 years on Broadway, from the 1992-93 season through the just completed 2011-12 season; my study of musicals had covered 37 seasons, going back to the year that Chicago and A Chorus Line debuted. The 20 year mark for plays begins with the season that saw Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: Millennium Approaches premiere, arguably a work as significant a landmark in playwriting as A Chorus Line was to musicals.
The 20 year mark also encompasses significant shifts in production by not-for-profits on Broadway: Roundabout started out at the Criterion Center and by last year had three Broadway venues (American Airlines, Stephen Sondheim, Studio 54); Manhattan Theatre Club rehabilitated the Biltmore and began using it as their mainstage (later renaming it the Samuel G. Friedman); and Tony Randall’s National Actors Theatre grew and withered, as the more firmly established Circle in the Square evolved from producing company to commercial venue. Throughout, Lincoln Center Theatre produced in the Vivian Beaumont, considered a Broadway theatre virtually since it opened in the 60s, and continued its practice of renting commercial houses when a big hit monopolized the Beaumont. Commercial productions continued throughout this time in more than 30 other theatres, as did some productions by other not-for-profit producers without a regular home or policy of producing on Broadway.
So what is the scorecard of play production, both commercial and not for profit on Broadway over these last 20 years? 397 productions by 228 playwrights, with more than a quarter of the plays produced written by the 17 men listed above.
What of women? There were 43 women whose work appeared on Broadway in these two decades, but none saw more than three plays produced. The two women with three plays were Yasmina Reza and Elaine May (the latter’s count includes a one-act); four women each had two plays on the boards (Edna Ferber, Pam Gems, Theresa Rebeck and Wendy Wasserstein). Collectively, they make up slightly under 1/5 of the playwrights produced.
Because I have often been party to debates about whether or not not-for-profit companies should be considered part of Broadway, I ran the numbers without the productions of the five companies singled out above (RTC, MTC, LCT, NAT and CITS). Had they not been producing, and had no one taken their place, Broadway would have seen only 253 plays produced in those 20 years, nearly 1/3 less than the actual number, a significant reduction in activity.
And what of the balance between new plays and revivals? The 20 year breakdown of all productions showed 179 new plays and 218 revivals, but with the five not-for-profits are removed, it’s 140 new plays and 113 revivals. That shift is quite notable: the not-for-profit theatres on Broadway have only been responsible for 39 new works on Broadway over 20 years, but they’re the source of 105 revivals. That’s not so shocking, when you consider that NAT and CITS were focused on classics and that Roundabout’s original mission was solely classical work as well. But it certainly shows that without the not-for-profits, fewer vintage shows, whether from the recent or distant past, would have worn the banner of Broadway.
Now let’s go back to the list of playwrights with five or more plays on Broadway in the past 20 years, taking out the not-for-profit work. The results are:
David Mamet, Arthur Miller, William Shakespeare (8)
Neil Simon (7)
August Wilson (6)
Noel Coward, Martin McDonagh, Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams (5)
We drop from 17 playwrights making the cut to only 9, but its interesting to note that playwrights like Miller, O’Neill, Shakespeare, Williams and Wilson remain well represented, even in my theoretical scenario. As for women, the number produced drops to 31, roughly a quarter of the full count.
So what does this tell us, besides being fodder for trivia quizzes and feeding the current affinity for facts via list? It shows us that commercial producers are not all trendy money grubbers without interest in our theatrical past, since a number of classic works were produced under their aegis. That said, without the not-for-profits, the number of revivals overall would have been cut in half, showing how essential they are in maintaining Broadway’s heritage. For new work, the not-for-profits of Broadway play a smaller role to be sure, but its worth noting that a number of major playwrights wouldn’t have had any plays on Broadway in the past two decades without the not for profits, including Philip Barry, Caryl Churchill, William Inge, Warren Leight, Craig Lucas, Moliere, Sarah Ruhl, George Bernard Shaw, Regina Taylor and Wendy Wasserstein. In a startling irony, Sophocles and Euripides both were produced only commercially.
By its methodology, this glimpse at the past two decades inevitably shortchanges the influence of the not-for-profit theatre. It does not consider how many of the plays were commissioned by, developed by and first produced in not-for-profit companies in New York, nationally, or abroad, but many of the new plays in this period have those roots (and unlike musicals, plays are more typically produced without commercial enhancement in not-for-profits, with producers coming in later once a show has begun to achieve recognition). Because I didn’t have reliable resources to parse the partnership and capitalization of each Broadway production, shows from theatres like The Atlantic, New York Theatre Workshop and The Public, or even MTC pre-Biltmore, haven’t been categorized under not-for-profit, though they rightly might be; I believe based on anecdotal observance that (with sufficient time resources and manpower) we would see not-for-profits directly responsible for originating even more new plays.
It would be easy to argue that this study is at best intriguing but limited. After all, on a financial level, plays account for a marginal percentage of Broadway revenues, with musicals yielding the lion’s share of the grosses. One can also argue that Broadway, particularly when it comes to plays, is hardly representative of the full quantity and variety of new work being done in America, an opinion I hold myself.
But so long as Broadway remains a beacon for tourists, for theatre buffs and for the mainstream media, so long as it holds a fabled spot in the national and international imagination, plays on Broadway remain important, even if they are marginalized or unrepresentative. With all of the challenges that face producers, commercial or not-for-profit, who wish to mount plays, the public perception of American drama is still weighted towards Broadway, even if its mix of new plays and classics is but the tip of the iceberg, financially and creatively. We can debate whether Broadway is deserving of its still-iconic status, but so long as it exists, understanding exactly where plays fit in the equation can only serve to help them hold their ground, in the best interest of shows which don’t sing or dance, and the writers who are so committed to them.
* * *
Notes on methodology, beyond what’s explained in the text:
1. Although I have not provided the spreadsheets I constructed in order to work out my statistics, which list every play and playwright produced in the past 20 years, I feel it is incumbent upon me to name the female writers who have been produced on Broadway, with the hope that in the next 20 years, this list will make up a much greater percentage of writers produced: Jane Bowles, Carol Burnett, Caryl Churchill, Lydia R. Diamond, Joan Didion, Helen Edmundson, Margaret Edson, Eve Ensler, Nora Ephron, Edna Ferber, Pam Gems, Alexandra Gersten, Ruth Goetz, Frances Goodrich, Katori Hall, Carrie Hamilton, Lorraine Hansberry, Lillian Hellman, Marie Jones, Sarah Jones, Lisa Kron, Bryony Lavory, Michele Lowe, Clare Booth Luce, Emily Mann, Elaine May, Heather McDonald, Joanna Murray-Smith, Marsha Norman, Suzan-Lori Parks, Lucy Prebble, Theresa Rebeck, Yasmina Reza, Joan Rivers, Sarah Ruhl, Diane Shaffer, Claudia Shear, Anna Deavere Smith, Regina Taylor, Trish Vradenburg, Jane Wagner, Wendy Wasserstein, and Mary Zimmerman.
2. In the case of shows with multiple parts (Angels In America, The Norman Conquests, The Coast of Utopia), I have classified each as a single work.
3. Translations, adaptations, new versions – these are a particular challenge, since the contribution of the translator or adapter requires a value judgment on each and every effort. Consequently, I have chosen consistency, not artistry; for this study, only the original author received credit. Consequently, while David Ives is credited as the author of Venus in Fur, which is adapted from a book, only Mark Twain gets credit for Is He Dead?, even though I happen to know David’s contributions were significant on making the latter play stageworthy. Christopher Hampton is not recognized for his translations of Yasmina Reza’s plays, however elegant they may be, and I have ceded The Blue Room to Schnitzler, since it is firmly rooted in La Ronde. And so on.
4. Special events and one-person shows were judged according to whether, in my subjective opinion, they could reasonably and sensibly be performed by someone other than the author/performer. As a result, Billy Crystal’s 700 Sundays is not included in my figures, while Chazz Palmintieri’s A Bronx Tale makes the cut.
5. The number of plays produced annually on Broadway consistently outnumbers the musicals, despite, as already noted, musicals accounting for the lion’s share of Broadway revenues. I suspect, but haven’t the resources to confirm, that the number of overall performances of plays is also vastly less than the number of musical performances in a given year; numerous limited runs of 14 to 16 weeks for plays, even if there are more of them, are surely overwhelmed by the ongoing juggernauts of The Book of Mormon, Wicked, and others.
6. A handful of plays were written by writing teams: Kaufman and Ferber, Lawrence and Lee, etc. Each playwright was recognized in their own right. The same was true for the rare omnibus productions by separate authors, such as Relatively Speaking from Ethan Coen, Elaine May and Woody Allen.
7. I would have liked to break out the racial diversity of Broadway playwrights over the past two decades, but I had no reliable source for determining the heritage of every author, or how they may self-identify, therefore I felt it best not to guess.
8. It should go without saying that there are a number of playwrights who also work on musicals; if there is any barrier between the forms, it is highly permeable. My studies have by their nature been bifurcated between plays and musicals, but there is more fluidity than these articles might suggest.
9. When classifying plays as new or revival, in cases where they play had not been previously produced on Broadway but had prior life from years or decades earlier, I opted for the Tony Awards’ guidelines of new work being that which has not entered the standard repertory. So Donald Margulies’ Sight Unseen, produced with great success Off-Broadway and regionally over much of the period studied, was considered a revival.
10. I have drawn my data from the well-organized Playbill Vault, which expedited my research immeasurably. My thanks to those who assembled it.
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Howard Sherman.
