Though I’ve occasionally written about topics outside of theatre and the performing arts, with this post I’ll be titling them as a distinct series, affording me the opportunity to stray wider in my writing while noting when I’m “off-topic.” So here’s the first “Etcetera.”

If I tell you that I fondly recall coming home from junior high in the mid-1970s and huddling up to my radio for the verbal entertainment found there, I hope you will be struck by the incongruity of the date and the medium of choice. There was a burst of nostalgia for radio comedy and drama in that era; one station that I could receive, if the weather conditions were right, scheduled classic shows like Fibber McGee and Molly and The Shadow weekly; radio veteran Himan Brown launched a new series of radio plays called the CBS Radio Mystery Theatre (archived here), and even the countercultural satirists at the National Lampoon syndicated their Radio Hour, a precursor to their own stage show Lemmings and shortly thereafter, the debut of Saturday Night Live.

I loved them all, but the most intriguing were the evening drive-time broadcasters on New York’s WOR, Bob and Ray. They would chat, do segues to traffic and news reports and intermittently launch into decidedly off-kilter comic sequences. Those I remember best were the serialized “Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife” and “Garish Summit.” None of my friends at the time listened to this stuff and it wasn’t until I got to college that I discovered the cult of Bob and Ray, who, as it turned out, were in their final regular radio run as I listened, having started their careers in the late 40s.

In the just-published Bob and Ray: Keener Than Most Person (Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, $27.99), David Pollack provides the first biography of the duo, from their fortuitous pairing  in 1946 through Ray’s death in 1990. Though their material has circulated for years, on tape and records (later CDs), in books and now on YouTube, the book offers the opportunity to learn the detail (even minutiae) of their joint career, including their early leap from radio to television in the latter’s earliest days, their role (along with another hero of mine, Stan Freberg) at injecting humor into advertising, and their reluctant foray onto the Broadway stage in 1970.

The book goes out of its way to point out what ordinary guys Bob (Elliott) and Ray (Goulding) were and how much they eschewed the trappings of even minor celebrity. It also repeatedly comments on the lack of conflict between the two, only mentioning Ray’s occasional flashes of anger that were quickly forgotten. There’s no tell-all here, pretty much just the facts, ma’am, and very little drama.

In addition to noting just how much the duo were outside the comedy mainstream (indeed, they didn’t consider themselves comedians at all), Pollack makes one important observation about the pair’s popularity. Because they performed almost exclusively for years in studios – not stages or nightclubs – there were no aural cues as to what was funny and what was not. Their humor thrived on being underplayed, and undersold. But what may have made them truly unique was that without a live audience, fans would feel they were an audience of one, communing directly with the hosts from their car or home, unmediated and deeply personal.

Save for the occasional line of dialogue, Bob and Ray, Keener Than Most Persons reproduces none of the duo’s material and its straightforward, authorized telling makes the assumption that you’re reading the book because you’re already a fan; there’s no effort to drum up new aficionados. While such an effort would have been challenging given that so much of Bob and Ray’s humor emanates from their rapport and timing, it’s hardly impossible to proselytize for comedians of the past; witness Dick Cavett’s superb evocation of the once sui generis improv of Jonathan Winters, which just ran in The New York Times.

So I must urge you to head to YouTube, to listen to my indescribable favorites, “The Komodo Dragon Expert” and “The Slow Talker,” both from their Broadway stand (therefore, with atypical audience laughter). Then just keep searching.

A personal addendum, less than 24 hours old. When the book arrived and landed on my coffee table, my wife’s response was, “Bob and Ray. Who are they?” At the time I didn’t launch into a rhapsody, but last night, having just read the book on an airplane, I began talking about Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding, mentioning that I thought Ray might have lived near her family on Long Island. “Goulding?” she said. “I went to school with a Mark Goulding. His dad did something in radio.” I showed her pictures from the book and, indeed, my wife recognized Ray Goulding from school events. He flew under the radar even in his own town.

I, of course, was floored to find that my wife had come so close to one of my heroes, completely unaware. So I played the two pieces mentioned above, and we both laughed until tears came to our eyes. I am happy to report that nearly 70 years after they began working together, I had just recruited a new fan to the cult of Bob and Ray. Join us, won’t you?

Not a musical.

Let’s be honest.  If you didn’t follow documentary filmmaking or live and die by theatre news, Hands on a Hardbody would sound like something that might play late at night on Cinemax. Those of a certain age might think it was a belated sequel to the 1984 teen sexploitation comedy Hardbodies (think Porky’s, with less class). But the fact is, that title was very likely a deterrent to audiences, even with “a new musical” appended to it, which is seemingly de rigeur these days, despite having been brilliantly parodied years ago by The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!).

It’s not my habit to write critiques of shows, and I’m not about to break that practice, but with Hands on a Hardbody now closed, I feel a bit freer to engage in analysis of the show’s marketing. In my outsider assessment, it didn’t manage to sufficiently surmount the challenges inherent in the show, attested to by the consistently low grosses throughout previews and the four weeks of the regular run. Hardbody built up no head of steam, no significant name recognition and apparently no advance sales, despite the usual potpourri of discounts. Frankly, if it came up in any of my discussions, I couldn’t make it sound inherently appealing either.

“Hands on a Hardbody,” a new musical

If, as some suggest, the theatergoing audience is finite, and fragmented by the welter of openings each spring, then Hardbody was starting at a disadvantage. Though it was based on a well-received documentary, it didn’t come with name recognition, since the film is 17 years old and grossed less than a half-million dollars; though its creative credentials were impressive, how many new musicals are sold solely on the strength of their writing team nowadays; it had a talented cast with several names well-known to theatre audiences (particularly Keith Carradine and Hunter Foster), but there was no Tom Hanks, Bette Midler or Alec Baldwin to tap into the celebrity buzz machine.

Mind you, I don’t mention the foregoing to say that they are absolute necessities for Broadway success. How many people really knew Once the movie before the show opened (with the benefit of starting at New York Theatre Workshop)? Were Jonathan Groff and Lea Michele big names before Spring Awakening? Who on earth was Lin-Manuel Miranda or Quiara Alegria Hudes in the public imagination before In The Heights?

This could be looked at as Monday morning quarterbacking, but the title must have suggested a challenge to the creative and producing teams up front. There was a change made from the documentary name, merging what had been “Hard Body” into “Hardbody.” Perhaps this means something to those who are truck aficionados, but in the steep canyons of New York (and let’s remember that new Broadway shows don’t often reach the tourist market right away), I fear this ultrafine distinction was lost.

Going back to my earlier comparison to late-night cable, I’m not sure whether “hard body” or “hardbody” is an important distinction; I also wonder about some of the glistening bodybuilders who beckon from magazine covers on the newsstand when those words are deployed. In any event, the title didn’t bring any marketing recognition to the table; perhaps it deserved something that would have moved us into the realm of the mythic, rather than grounding us, enigmatically, in the truck at the center of the show. Sometimes, being too loyal to source material can be counterproductive.

TV ads I saw seemed to be on the right track, emphasizing the spirit of competition. To be sure, playing up to TV’s countless reality contests wasn’t a bad strategy. I just wonder whether they went far enough, or – once again – were clear enough. You could (pardon the expression) drive a truck through the space between winning a motor vehicle and a better life. The campaign needed to express something between a pickup with a foreign brand name and a nebulous American dream. Unfortunately, few shows could have mounted the series of ads that might have prompted audiences to feel they had a stake too.

Poster or infographic?

Where I really worried for the show was in its big three-sheet in Shubert Alley, long considered prime display space for Broadway shows, much sought after and fought over. I’ve reproduced it here so you can see exactly how eye-catching it wasn’t. Frankly, it could be compared to everything from a flow chart to a child’s board game to assembly instructions, and it required a close read for it to register at all. In trying to do everything, it did almost nothing, and even marred by amateur photography here, it sure remains one of the most confusing images I’ve ever seen put to use in advertising a Broadway show, or any form of entertainment, for that matter. If this was also used in print ads I can’t say, having shifted to almost exclusively digital readership; it might have worked if you were holding it in your hands, but it still would have been quite the jumble compared to the simplicity of The Phantom’s mask or the Jersey Boys in lights.

You can debate the pros and cons of the show among yourselves, but the failure for Hardbody to gain even initial traction is evidence of a communications strategy that couldn’t pump up any meaningful interest, leaving the show in the hands of the critics and an uninformed base of ticket buyers at the most Darwinian time of the year. Ironically, in preparing this piece, I found the cover of a home video release of the documentary and it had a rather intriguing tagline that might have been provocative and helpful to the show: “You lose the contest when you lose your mind.” Turned around so that it didn’t harp on losing (negatives are, funny enough, not positive in advertising), there was still something there: a sense of mental toughness, of endurance, even of the potential for madness. And if reality TV has taught us nothing, those are qualities people like to watch.

So I mourn the closing of the possibly misunderstood Hands On A Hardbody both because it was a show that dared to not fit some standard Broadway formula and because its closing probably scared producers and investors for future projects that don’t fit the mold. I hope that’s not the case.

But I’ve found a great new opening night gift for the brave souls who dare to take on Broadway with new material in particular: “You lose the contest when you lose your mind.”

A couple of weeks back, the social media director at Cirque du Soleil reached out to me. He offered the opportunity to watch One Night for One Drop, their online video of a one-performance event the company had mounted in Las Vegas for One Drop, the water and famine charity founded by Cirque’s mastermind Guy Laliberté. The video was being streamed for only seven days and one needed to make a minimum $5 contribution to the charity to view it; I had already been importuned to do so, separately, via e-mails from one of the event sponsors, Zuckerberg Media, but I hadn’t made the leap. With the free pass from Cirque, I surveyed through the show, which was quite impressive, all the more for not being a rehash of existing company material (I thought it superior to their 3D film Worlds Away). I did share the link on Twitter a couple of times (sans the free access), but I really should send the charity $5.

What struck me most about the initiative was that it did something I bet every performing arts organization aspires to: it extended the reach of what was a high ticket price one-night event in one city to a world-wide audience. Let’s face it, we all go through the not-infrequent agony of putting together a benefit every year, some more elaborate than others, and the entertainment – which can be blah or brilliant, depending upon the company – is seen by maybe 500 or 1,000 people (if you’re really successful). What if that could be multiplied, offering a low-price donation point without cannibalizing the live audience?

To be sure, Cirque has many assets that make this possible: significant financial resources, radically different work rules, multi-platform expertise and major sponsors for the regular shows. I don’t quite understand how they mounted such a large company for a single performance – did they hire performers specifically for that show, how long was the rehearsal period, and so on. But presumably, and hopefully, what they made for the charity was markedly greater than the production cost (even with largesse from Laliberté). Whether the cost of filming it (expertly) and streaming it was balanced with online donations hasn’t been released.

But stepping away from the Cirque template, I do wonder whether some of the most creative arts benefits might find more audience, and support, if played after the fact online. Frankly, I can’t afford to go to most of these events, but I’d be very interested in donating a bit in order to see the complete annual MCC Theater’s “Miscast,” the LAByrinth charades, the numerous events from Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (I’m not sure that Second Stage’s celebrity bowling would make the cut without some funny commentary added in post). I’m not necessarily interested enough in these events to buy a DVD, even if they exist, as I don’t need more disks cluttering up my home, but streamed for minimal cost to my computer? Absolutely. And if I feel that way as someone who works in the field and lives in New York, what about theatre fans from across the country, or even around the world?

There’s no question that not every benefit would be right for this; many are “variety shows” of performers who come and do a song already in their repertoire without benefit of much rehearsal or optimal sound; some might not consent to have their performance recorded and shared. There are union issues that would have to be worked out if the performance is to be available beyond the designated venue. Some of the events offer performances that are simply too brief to merit the cost of recording.

But as video, both official and bootleg, emerges from these benefits in the days and weeks that follow, organizations are failing to capture potential revenue and interest. Just as companies are and should be exploring opportunities for wider reach for their productions, a la NT Live, they should be looking at the inherent value in their own one-night productions, skipping movie theatres (The 24 Hour Plays has done a cinecast) or home video distribution and making the material directly available on their own websites – for a price.

What if a company could up their take by 20%, while only adding 10% to their expenses? What if that money was coming from out of state or even out of the country? What if more companies started thinking of their galas as true entertainments, not just formulaic cocktail/dinner/show/out-by-10 events? No question, there are no guarantees under this model, but if someone makes an early effort and succeeds, the possibilities are great, and indeed these events might become even more creative as they consider not just the wealthy patrons at the tables but the fans at home. The benefits, and I explicitly do mean the dual meanings of that word, could be huge.

Curtain call at Amity Regional High School’s “Sweeney Todd”

I have seen Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd many times over the years, probably more than any single show. It has thrilled me, scared me, impressed me, made me laugh. I mouth the words, I bob my head, I conduct in imperceptibly small movements of my hands. But until this past Friday night, Sweeney Todd had never made me cry.

Let me back up.

About a month ago, a threatened protest against a production of Sweeney at my old high school, Amity Regional in Woodbridge CT, sent me rushing headlong to a board of education meeting to speak on behalf of the show and the school’s drama program. While the opposition turned out to be muted, and my voice simply one of many, my vocal support of the drama program at my alma mater demanded that I back up my words with action, which in this case meant nothing more than returning to see the production.

Now in point of fact, I can’t be certain if I ever went back to Amity to see a show after I graduated. Perhaps I saw a show in the two years after I went off to college, when younger friends were still at the school; I have a vague memory of one or two shows that my sister, four years younger than me, may have been involved in. But they made no lasting impression. My recollection of drama at Amity High School always has me somewhere in it, and perhaps that’s true for most kids who did theatre in school.

So this is the point in the story where you think: oh, he cried at Sweeney for all the years gone by and the friends with whom he’s lost touch. It was more than half a lifetime ago and our lives take us on many paths, far from the friends we had as teens. That’s understandable. It happens to us all.

If that’s what you thought, you’re wrong.

You see, I am still in touch with, and close to, so many of my friends from the Amity Drama Club (and, by extension, the music department, which included the chorus and the band). While I may not see them as much as I would like, they are never far. We call each other on birthdays, gather for family celebrations (since so many of them are as close as family), mourn together (a task which I fear will only increase as days wear on). A few I speak with almost weekly. Facebook has helped with many reconnections of late, as did a spontaneously organized music department reunion last spring. I am the only one who made theatre my sole profession, though my days as a performer ended after one show in college.

My tears at Amity this past Friday night, which persisted for the first 15 minutes of the show, were for the sheer joy of those friends from that time. The moment the Sweeney ensemble united to cry out “Swing your razor wide,” I was reminded of how deep the friendships were that were forged on the stage on Amity High School, the intensity of the memories, the importance of our shared youth. Very few of us played sports, but this was our team; we had no championship trophies then or now, but we were and are our own prizes.

Watching the Amity kids on Friday, I wondered about their friendships, even their romances. Would they stand the test of time? I remembered my parents cautioning me as I went off to college that my high school friendships might fall away, as so many do; I was so happy that those friends are now, more than three decades later, still my friends, just as my parents’ own school friends remained their friends until they passed away.

In my day, the Amity Drama Club produced My Fair Lady, Oklahoma! and Bye Bye Birdie; the fairly recently reinvigorated Amity Creative Theatre, as it’s now known, has tackled Rent, Sweeney and Whose Life Is It Anyway?, shows that opened when I was in high school or even years later. I can’t compare the quality then or now, since I’ve not been back for so long and (mercifully) my high school years pre-dated the advent of home video.

But comparison is not the point. The achievement is in the work and the collaboration; though every high school drama club probably dreams of being discovered and whisked to Broadway, it’s just a lovely fantasy to be indulged, not a true goal. The lasting legacy is not the photos or videos, but the profound connections and the pleasure (and pain, since no show is ever easy) of the experience.

Also at play as I watched Sweeney was the fact that I have no children of my own, though I have six adored nieces. My niece Lillian played the title role Annie in middle school, but has since shifted over to costume design and construction; four have shown no great interest in the stage other than as members of the audience; my youngest niece, Rebekka, at age 10, has yet to evidence any desire to perform. I support them in their own choices and do not wish that they shared my interests at their ages. Even if I had children, there’s no certainty that they would have wanted to be on the stage or play an instrument.

So mixed with my tears of joy for my lifelong friends was an emotion I probably have no right to: I was so proud. I was so proud of the kids on that stage and backstage. That night, each and every one of them was my child and they were all sublime. We don’t know one another, yet we share something that is shared by anyone who did a show, or many shows, in high school.

I now know how my mother and father felt watching me; how my Uncle Bernie felt, snapping pictures madly at every show; how my Aunt Dorothy, my godmother, who used to come to our house and play the piano and urge us to sing, felt.

How beautiful, how sweet, how funny, how perfect and how loved you all are. Welcome to the theatre.

I am not a Pollyanna about the continuing challenges of racial inequality and prejudice in this country and around the world. I fear that mankind’s seemingly inexhaustible capacity and compulsion to define an “other” is so deeply seated that it will take many more generations to eradicate, largely through what futurists and fantasists predict to be an eventual blending of all races. I will not live to see that day.

But I thought we were above this sort of thing in the arts, at least insofar as exploiting racial differences go. But with this morning’s announcement of a new Broadway production of Romeo and Juliet, featuring Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad as the famed lovers, I find that neither the press nor those associated with the show are able to simply announce their production and its fine cast. Instead, words like “interracial” and “mixed race” pepper nearly every article I’ve seen since I first learned of the production; whether that is by design of the producers or the reaction of the press is difficult to parse. The director has already been quoted speaking about wanting to emphasize the division of the Montagues and Capulets through his casting; he notes that he didn’t start with the intent of separating the warring families along racial lines, but that it evolved once his leads were selected.

Why is calling out the racial element necessary, I wonder, especially at the very moment the show is made public. They’ve announced with poster art in place, so it’s fairly self-evident that Bloom is white and Rashad is black. The casting of the veteran actor Joe Morton as Lord Capulet is also noted. Do we need to have this color divide spelled out for us? I tend to think we would do well to discover it when we see the show, or simply become more aware as more casting announcements ensue. Certainly it’s something for feature stories closer to the opening.

I am, emphatically, not arguing against the show artistically in any way. It’s a perfectly valid approach and I look forward to seeing what David Leveaux does with it. I’m especially eager to see Rashad because she’s such a compelling actor and I want to watch her career and talent grow.  It’s the racial emphasis of the initial news that concerns and surprises me, and it’s interesting to note that it has overwhelmed the observation that the actor playing Romeo is 35, which might otherwise draw attention.

Color-blind and color-specific casting has been used for years, especially with Shakespeare. At Hartford Stage in 1987, I did press for a production where a white Pericles married a black Thaisa, who was the child of a Latino father; Pericles and Thaisa’s child Marina was played by an Asian American actress. A year later, Jim Simpson, now of The Flea Theatre, directed a stage adaptation of Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons in which the gentry were white and the serfs black, to bring home the class divisions viscerally for modern audiences; it was not in the text. That was a quarter century ago. I recall a Pygmalion at Yale Rep with an African-American Eliza. Just last year in a glorious As You Like It, Lily Rabe, Andre Braugher and Omar Metwally were among the denizens of Arden for The Public Theatre, all of different racial heritage, yet it mattered not a whit; in 2007 The Public offered us a Latino Romeo portrayed by Oscar Isaac.  I’m sure there are countless other examples, which escape me only in the haste of my writing.

There are those who cling to ideas of what is historically correct with Shakespeare, but his work was both a product of its day and at times anachronistic unto itself (i.e. mentions of clocks in Julius Caesar). “Purity” would require the use of original pronunciation and all-male casts, both of which are rarely employed; I say anything goes if it is true to the text and illuminates the play. I reject narrow-mindedness.

But when it is instantly obvious to anyone with a knowledge of the actors already announced that the show is being cast along racial lines, and when there is imagery to point that out to the unaware, why must that be the beginning of every story? If Will & Grace, Modern Family and Ellen are now cited as leading Americans to greater acceptance of marriage equality, can’t the arts explore racial themes without using them as a marketing ploy? After 400 years, we all certainly know that the youthful protagonists die, in no small part because of the clannish enmity between their families; we’ll see that transposed in this production onto racial lines and yet, presumably, the message remains the same – the prejudices of parents must be eradicated, for the sake of children’s happiness and the betterment of society.

Talk to me about Orlando Bloom’s Broadway debut. Rhapsodize over Rashad’s talented family. Praise the acumen of the director. Embrace the timeless story of lovers separated by foolish divisions. But don’t parade out “interracial” and “mixed-race” as if such a casting idea is new to the stage, even when employed in a work where it is neither explicit or implicit in the text. In doing so, there is the risk of suggesting not how acceptable it is or should be, but rather that it is still something remarkable or strange. Frankly, I’d be thrilled if someone actually got to the show with no knowledge of the racial element, and discovered how it, perhaps, serves to bring the drama home, especially if it runs against their own expectations or prejudices.

“Mixed” romances and marriages, whether racial, religious, or based in some other bias, are certainly not fully accepted in every corner of this country or the world, but we are 40+ years past Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner.  Sell me this Romeo and Juliet on its many merits, not by suggesting that it will be heightened by a portrayal of racial enmity. Let’s show the way in our art, not exploit retrograde ideas in our rhetoric.