It is unfortunate that “zirkusschadenfreude” is not an actual German word, because there seemed to be a lot of it flying around last week, that is to say, “joy at the unhappiness of a circus.” Many news outlets and commentators were pulling out the wordplay a bit gleefully last week on the news that Canada’s famed Cirque du Soleil was laying off 400 employees after almost three decades of spectacular growth and acclaim. “Is the sun going down?” asked England’s The Independent.

The layoff announcement was the latest in a string of bad news emanating from Cirque, which has of late dealt with several shows closing much earlier than expected; Iris at the one-time Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles is the most recent casualty. A couple of years ago, New York witnessed the protracted birth and rapid death cycle of Banana Shpeel (which inexplicably went on national tour); Zarkana limped through two seasons at Radio City Musical Hall before being packed off to Nevada, where an Elvis-themed show had recently underwhelmed. There have been failures internationally as well.

Needless to say, the Canadian press followed the story most closely, given that this is a major employer and national treasure downsizing. On one newscast I watched, the anchor blithely asked Globe and Mail reporter J. Kelly Nestruck whether “greed” was a factor, seemingly misunderstanding or disliking the idea of commercial success that Cirque has enjoyed in spades. To his credit, Nestruck parried by saying it was perhaps a certain lack of attention and over-accelerated growth.

Now I should say that as an audience member, I’m wildly ambivalent about Cirque. I’ve seen them six times as I recall: their first U.S. tour, of Nouvelle Experiénce, in Seattle in 1990; Mystère at Treasure Island in Las Vegas circa 1998; the Dralion tour in Santa Monica in 1999; O and Love in Vegas in 2010, and Zarkana at Radio City Musical Hall in 2011. You’ll notice a 10 year hiatus, and that’s because after my enthusiasm for Nouvelle, my second and third experiences seemed diminishing returns; only years of emphatic recommendations brought me back two years ago, to my utter delight.

Then Zarkana brought me crashing back to dismay, and their 3-D movie this winter, Worlds Away, was a particular letdown. The movie, which hasn’t burned up U.S. box offices, was nothing more than a flimsy premise connecting pieces of their Vegas shows. I had been hoping that Cirque might reinvent film narrative the way they reinvented circuses, only to find myself watching a minimally conceived and eccentrically shot and edited greatest hits package.

I take no pleasure in the retrenchment of Cirque. But frankly, while I feel for those losing jobs, a company that has proven that live artistic undertakings can reach mass audiences can only be strengthened by reminders that they are not infallible, even when they’re working at such astronomically budgeted scales. I would dearly love to wield phrases like, “What clown was keeping their books,” but that fails to draw out what can be learned from the current troubles.

One has to applaud the entrepreneurship of co-founder and owner Guy Laliberté, who took the company from street performers to veritable rock stars, making it almost impossible for most circuses to survive unless they dropped “circus” for “cirque”; I am less sanguine about Soleil’s efforts to monopolize the word. As the world has grown more sensitive to the treatment of animals at circuses, their completely human entertainment carries no whiff of exploitation or cruelty, even as we may wonder how people learn the superhuman skills on display.

My own back and forth opinions on the shows themselves may be reflective of erratic quality control and perhaps overproduction (they recently began producing several new shows annually instead of one), but O and Love were so remarkable that I’m eager to see them again, even at $150 a ticket, and I’m regretting having skipped Ka, which I hear is also incredible. I’m not the first to suggest that Cirque is most successful when they’re in venues specifically built, or radically refurbished, for their sit-down shows; perhaps they have grown too big for the big top.

Producing to “fill slots” is often the bane of performing arts organizations; they have to put on something to give to their audiences, and perhaps they don’t always have sufficient brilliant ideas to fill the available holes. By creating more slots, surely Cirque has created the same problem for itself. The news reports also suggest that expenses weren’t carefully controlled, and that will fell any business; outside of real world arts, we can watch the same problem played out on Downton Abbey.

It’s very hard, when you’ve come so far, so fast, to stop and take a breath and reassess. But Cirque is no different than any performing arts organization, even if it no longer relies on public subsidy. It may need to get back to its core values. It can look to the simpler, grittier and altogether wonderful Les 7 doigts de la main (known in NYC for Traces), a mini-circus at the most human level. They succeed in no small part because the performers seem like people you might meet on the street, who go out of the way to personalize the performance and ingratiate themselves with the audience, making their feats that much more awesome. There is no wailing of indeterminately ethnicized pop music, no waddling oddballs spouting gibberish, just skill.

Stopping to remember that circus is in fact a form of theatre, and never more so than when it eschews animals, I’m eager to see Cirque’s Amaluna, directed by American Repertory Theatre’s artistic director Diane Paulus, to see how her theatrical sensibility infuses the Cirque formula. It’s interesting to note that Paulus is also coming to Broadway with a Cambridge-bred Pippin revival created in collaboration with 7 doits, further exploring theatre as circus and circus as theatre. The two may well be worthwhile case studies for Cirque (though Paulus is not the only theatre director to collaborate with them).

Despite avoiding them for 10 years, I remain hopeful for Cirque du Soleil, as performing arts wunderkind, as entrepreneurial model and, believe it or not, as “my” circus. I was never taken to a circus in my youth; my only “regular” circuses are the Big Apple Circus in 1984 when I was 22, Circus Vargas in about 1989 and Circus Flora (at the Spoleto Festival) in 2003. The only other experiences I’ve ever had at a circus have been with the Canadians — that’s right: no Ringling Brothers. That means that 66% of my lifetime circus-going has been with Cirque du Soleil (Traces was performed in a 499 seat theatre). Cirque has thrilled me and disappointed me, but for better or worse, it’s what I’ve known.  Unless they are overwhelmed by hubris, mismanagement or both, Cirque should to be around for a long time, and reports of their doom are not merely exaggerated but unfounded.

Yes, Cirque is a corporation now, with 14 million tickets sold a year and $1 billion in revenue; sympathy may be in short supply. It needs to ground itself before it flies again, econonomically and creatively. Cirque might look to the late 70s and early 80s, when people said Disney was on the ropes as well, and the company came back only stronger, proving that family entertainment can endure. Cirque du Soleil is not too big to fail, but the company is too inventive and successful to quickly start counting out, like so many clowns in a car.

Over there, on my bookshelf, sits the biography of my friend Alan. In its index, you can find an entry, “infidelities and romantic liaisons,” which directs you to pages 97-98, as well as page 209. This is, for me, rather disconcerting.

It is perhaps inevitable that if you work in the entertainment field long enough, you will encounter people about whom books have been written, even books that people have written about themselves. Because we tend to know such people at a remove, we are onlookers, and we end up with the clamor of Entertainment Tonight and talk shows, or the ironic whimsy of Celebrity Autobiography, a stage show in which actors and celebrities read with profoundly satiric intent from the fulsome memoirs of other actors and celebrities, although the texts are typically drawn from such eminences as Joan Collins and David Hasselhoff.

But when a book, be it biography, autobiography or memoir, is about someone with whom you have some genuine connection, I can assure you that your reaction and perception of these works, whether ghost-written, scholarly or deeply personal, changes radically.

In the case of Alan’s biography, which was “authorized,” I found it very strange to be reading details about my friend’s (who is 23 years my senior) early marriage, his somewhat unorthodox childhood, and so on.  One the one hand, I suppose I could have just asked him these things, but our time together is usually spent genially discussing theatre and our present lives over meals; while I have interviewed him in formal settings, those occasions have been focused on his creative work, rather than the particulars of his personal life. Reading that biography, I felt as if I was crossing a line, since, even in our Google-saturated age, it’s sort of creepy to research one’s friends.

This is hardly the only time that biographies have held secrets about people I know and work with, and each and every time I dip into such books, I feel I’m going behind their backs. In several cases, the books haven’t been about my friends, but their parents. I learned of one’s early and brief marriage (disapproved of by her hugely famous mother); in another I learned of a sister, institutionalized since birth and never spoken of to me. I’ve never brought these topics up, and I feel that it’s somehow wrong for me to know them. We typically learn about friends’ lives from sharing moments with them, or from conversation where we each choose what to reveal.

Biography poses one type of social unease, but the memoir – not a formal autobiography, but recollections of one’s own past – is even thornier. A decade ago, Cynthia Kaplan, my college roommate’s sister, long a surrogate sibling of mine, published a book of personal essays, Why I’m Like This. While to most readers, the people in the book were characters, to me they were all-but-in-blood family; I knew most everyone whose photos adorned the inside covers. I laughed in recognition over the chapter about her father’s eternal quest for the perfect Thermos (I have owned several that he has designated superior); I puzzled over the near invisibility of her brother in her tales (prompting me to say to him, “Gee, I never realized your sister was an only child”). Of course I read the book the moment it appeared; I wanted to support Cindy. But I’m still not sure I should know quite so much about her romantic life as she revealed, just as I still feel it was wrong for me to have seen her naked in a bathtub in an independent film screened at MOMA, even if her grandmother was by my side. But she gave me, and thousand who don’t know her at all, leave to do so.

A just-published memoir, Chanel Bonfire, casts yet another light on my biographical quandary. In this case, it is a book by an actress named Wendy Lawless, who I knew causally for nine weeks in 1988 when she played Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Hartford Stage, where I was the press rep. In her book, she details the somewhat harrowing story of her childhood with her glamorous, erratic, manipulative, alcoholic mother; the book concludes a couple of years before the time I met her. Because her father, who I also met years back, was an actor at The Guthrie Theatre, there are many peripheral characters in the book to whom I am also tangentially connected. There are very few degrees of separation here. On the one hand, as I read the book, my reaction was, “If I’d only known,” but on the other hand, what would I have done? She’d had a difficult life, and at times an exotic one, but would I have interacted with her differently? Would I have cultivated a friendship with Wendy, out of sympathy, instead of mere acquaintance? Did I ever say or do something that could have been construed as insensitive? This book forced a new perspective on a tiny bit of my life.

Perhaps due to the run-up to the book’s publication, Wendy and I became mutual Twitter followers. Unsurprisingly, when I reached out privately, she had not made any connection to our briefly shared past, and perhaps I am still, at best, a vague recollection (I remember every actor who worked at Hartford Stage during my tenure, a by-product of collecting and editing bios and headshots for the show programs).  I imagine we may meet once again, but we are essentially strangers, save for the fact that she has told me, and anyone else who chooses to read her revealing book, intimate details of her first 20 years. All she would know of me, should she care to look, are my biographical details, my opinions on theatre (via blog), and my social media meanderings. The relationship, should one be renewed, is unbalanced, and surely she’ll never solicit stories of my own childhood, which pale next to hers.

Social media has added yet another layer of complication to the issue of privacy and revelation, since we often know a great deal about some people without ever having met them. While I make an effort to meet in real life those with whom I correspond with some frequency, it’s highly unlikely that I’ll ever get to know all of these new friends.

Just last week, I was chatting back and forth with an actress whose name I know from assorted TV credits, and I’m aware we have some friends in common. She seems just like the sort of person I’d like to know; at least on Twitter, she comes across as smart and warm-hearted, as well as committed to theatre. But it was nagging at me whether I’d seen her on stage, so I did stoop to internet snooping. It turns out that my online friend, Christina Haag, published her own memoir, Come to the Edge, almost two years ago. Its focus: her five year relationship with John Kennedy Jr.

If Christina and I meet, that fact is just going to be sitting there in my frontal lobe and, while I have never been transfixed by the saga of the Kennedys, this connection would surely bring me closer to that family’s sad tragedies that we all know about. While I am to young to recall where I was when President Kennedy was shot, I recall precisely where I was when I heard that John Jr.’s plane was lost mid-flight. It’s one thing when memoir follows acquaintance or friendship, but it’s yet another twist when life details precede meeting.

Spending decades among artists, as well as journalists, it’s safe to assume that there will be more biographies and memoirs from which I am only one degree removed (in her second book, Leave The Building Quickly, Cindy Kaplan twice refers to her brother’s best friend, but I remain frustratingly unnamed). Indeed, as our information era makes personal data ever more accessible, perhaps my comparatively singular experiences will become commonplace for everyone, no matter who they are or what they do. If that comes to pass, then the dissonance I feel at having lives of those I know – or may soon meet – so readily available will dissipate. That’s when, to imbue a cliché with new meaning, everyone’s life becomes an open book.

Every January, the media run features on how to lose those holiday pounds. As schools let out for the summer, the media share warnings about damage from the sun and showcase the newest sunscreens. In Thanksgiving, turkey tips abound.

For theatre, September reveals two variants of its seasonal press staple, either “Stars Bring Their Glamour To The Stage,” or, alternately, “Shortage of Star Names Spells Soft Season Start.” Indeed, the same theme may reappear for the spring season and, depending upon summer theatre programming, it may manage a third appearance. But whether stars are present or not, they’re the lede, and the headline.

The arrival of these perennial stories is invariably accompanied by grousing in the theatre community about the impact of stars on theatre, Broadway in particular, except from those who’ve managed to secure their services. But this isn’t solely a Broadway issue, because as theatres — commercial and not-for-profit, touring and resident — struggle for attention alongside movies, TV, music, and videogames, stardom is currency. Sadly, a great play, a remarkable actor or a promising playwright is often insufficient to draw the media’s gaze; in the culture of celebrity, fame is all.

But as celebrity culture has metastasized, with the Snookis and Kardashians of the world getting as much ink as Denzel and Meryl, and vastly more than Donna Murphy or Raul Esparza, to name but two, the theatre’s struggle with the stardom issue is ever more pronounced. Despite that, I do not have a reflexive opposition to stars from other performing fields working in theatre.

Before I go on, I’d like to make a distinction: in the current world of entertainment, I see three classifiers. They are “actor,” “celebrity,” and “star.” They are not mutually exclusive, nor are they fixed for life. George Clooney toiled for years as a minor actor in TV, before his role on ER made him actor, celebrity and star all in one. Kristin Chenoweth has been a talented actor and a star in theatre for years, but it took her television work to make her a multi-media star and a celebrity. The old studio system of Hollywood declared George Hamilton a star years ago, but he now lingers as a celebrity, though still drawing interest as he tours. Chris Cooper has an Oscar, but he remains an actor, not a star, seemingly by design. And so on.

So when an actor best known for film or TV does stage work, it’s not fair to be discounting their presence simply because of stardom. True stardom from acting is rarely achieved with an absence of talent, even if stardom is achieved via TV and movies. Many stars of TV or film have theatre backgrounds, either in schooling or at the beginning of their career: Bruce Willis appeared (as a replacement) in the original Off-Broadway run of Fool For Love before he did Moonlighting or Die Hard; I saw Bronson Pinchot play George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? while he was a Yale undergraduate (the Nick was David Hyde Pierce); Marcia Cross may have been a crazed denizen of Melrose Place and a Desperate Housewife, but she’s a Juilliard grad who did Shakespeare before achieving fame. But when Henry Winkler is announced in a new play, three decades after his signature television show ended, despite his Yale School of Drama education and prior stage work, all we hear is that “The Fonz” will be on Broadway.

The trope of “stars bringing their luster to the theatre” is insulting all around: it implies that the person under discussion is more celebrity than actor and it also suggests that there is insufficient radiance in theatre when no one in the cast has ever been featured in People or Us. By the same token, there’s media that won’t cover theatre at all unless there’s a name performer involved, so ingrained is celebrity culture, so theatre sometimes has to look to stars if it wishes to achieve any broad-based awareness. But the presence of stars on stage is nothing new, be it Broadway or summer stock; we may regret that theatre alone can rarely create a star, as it could 50 years ago, but we must get over that, because the ship has sailed.

There’s certainly a healthy skepticism when a star comes to the theatre with no stage background, and it’s not unwarranted. But I think that there are very few directors, artistic directors or producers who intentionally cast someone obviously unable to play a role solely to capitalize upon their familiarity or fame. In a commercial setting, casting Julia Roberts proved to be box office gold, even if she was somewhat overmatched by the material, but she was not a ludicrous choice; at the not-for-profit Roundabout, also on Broadway, Anne Heche proved herself a superb stage comedienne with Twentieth Century, following her very credible turn in Proof, before which her prior stage experience was in high school. Perhaps they might have tested the waters in smaller venues, but once they’re stars, its almost impossible to escape media glare no matter where they go.

The spikier members of the media also like to suggest, or declare, that when a famous actor works on stage after a long hiatus, or for the first time, it’s an attempt at career rehabilitation. This is yet another insult. Ask any actor, famous or not, and they can attest to theatre being hard work; ask a stage novice, well-known or otherwise, and they are almost reverent when they talk about the skill and stamina required to tell a story from beginning to end night after night after night. Theatre is work, and what success onstage can do is reestablish the public’s – and the press’s –recognition of fundamental talent. Judith Light may have become a household name from the sitcom Who’s The Boss, but it’s Wit, Lombardi and Other Desert Cities that have shown people how fearless and versatile she is. That’s not rehabilitation, it’s affirmation.

I should note that there’s a chicken-and-egg issue here: are producers putting stars in shows in order to get press attention, or is the media writing about stars because that’s who producers are putting in shows? There’s no doubt that famous names help a show’s sales, particularly the pre-sale, so in the commercial world, they’re a form of (not entirely reliable) insurance. And Broadway is, with a few exceptions, meant to achieve a profit. But it’s also worth noting that star casting, which most associate with Broadway, has a trickle down effect: in New York, we certainly see stars, often younger, hipper ones, in Off-Broadway gigs, and it’s not so unusual for big names to appear regionally as well, cast for their skills, but helping the theatres who cast them to draw more attention. Star casting is now embedded in theatre – which is all the more reason why it shouldn’t be treated as something remarkable, even as we may regret its encroachment upon the not-for-profit portion of the field. But they have tickets to sell too.

Look, it’s not as if any star needs me to defend them. The proof is ultimately found onstage; it is the run-up to those appearances that I find so condescending and snide. It shouldn’t be news that famous people might wish to work on stage, nor should any such appearance be viewed as crass commercialism unless it enters the realm of the absurd, say Lady Gaga as St. Joan. If stars get on stage, they should be judged for their work, and reviewed however positively or negatively as their performance may warrant.

I’m not naive enough to think attention won’t be paid to famous people who tread the boards, and I wish it needn’t come at the expense of work for the extraordinary talents who haven’t, for one reason or another, achieved comparable fame. I don’t need a star to lure me to a show, but I’m not your average audience member. Perhaps if the media didn’t kowtow to the cult of celebrity, if they realized how theatre is a launch pad for many, a homecoming for others, and a career for vastly more, theatre might be valued more as both a springboard for fame and a home for those with the special gift of performing live. So when the famous appear in the theatre, let’s try to forget their celebrity or stardom, stop trying to parse their motives, and try, if only for a few hours, to appreciate them solely, for good or ill, as actors.

Anton Chekhov

George Carlin

You needn’t be an English major to recognize that one of the words in my title is out of place. The second word is a verb, therefore unless theatrical texts have become anthropomorphized and begun getting it on with each other, the word is inappropriately used. You likely recognize that the word “fornicating” is a substitution for a common vulgarity, for which it is technically a synonym. Said vulgarity is fairly all-purpose, and is often used as a negative adjective. You will therefore accuse me of bowdlerizing my speech, perhaps to avoid offending some perceived notion of community or even professional standards. You would not be wrong. However, for the remainder of this post, I will abandon all euphemisms and employ, as appropriate, language from which I have heretofore abstained from in my internet and social media discourse. You are thusly warned. Those of delicate sensibilities may excuse themselves.

So…

This morning, Playbill wrote about Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company’s 2012-13 season of five plays, one of which is a world premiere adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull, by Aaron Posner, evocatively titled Stupid Fucking Bird. I know nothing about this particular version, but the title gives me the sense that it will perhaps be updated, and use a more colloquial patois than that usually associated with the master dramatist. Certainly anyone making a decision about whether to see the show will be unable to claim, should the language of the script echo that of the title, that they were caught unawares.

Of course, that decision-making may be impaired by media coverage announcing, featuring or reviewing that play because, in all likelihood, a number of media outlets will refrain from ever using the actual title. Some may drop the second word entirely, others may opt to print only “F——,” as if they’re fooling anyone. The theatre will face challenges in advertising the play, resorting to their own euphemisms if they desire to promote the work in compliance with the standards and practices of print and electronic media. On the other hand, they’ll likely get other coverage precisely because of this conundrum, though it will likely speak more of Carlin (George) and less of Chekhov (Anton).

This is hardly the first title to break the profanity barrier. English playwright Mark Ravenhill confronted us with Shopping and Fucking a number of years ago; Stephen Adly Guirgis confounded copy editors everywhere with The Motherfucker with the Hat just a couple of seasons back on Broadway. Dashes and asterisks got a workout with each of them, as did an entire range of smirks and jokes from on-air personalities. In some cases, advertising campaigns were altered midstream in a capitulation to public mores.

So-called profanity isn’t the only category of language that creates challenges for theatres and for those that cover it. The website address “cockfightplay.com” takes you to the current Off-Broadway hit Cock, since the title alone would apparently evoke undesirable connotations for some, the presence of a rooster silhouette notwithstanding. A number of years ago, a play by the late African-American writer John Henry Redwood, No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs, caused an uproar for the Philadelphia Theatre Company, which premiered it. We may be a country founded on free speech, but our ongoing inability to define pornography and obscenity creates a grey area; inflammatory words employed knowingly for artistic and cultural reasons are verboten.

Now I’m not advocating that every play (or musical) should begin using (and advertising) titles that may run afoul of prevailing sensibilities. But I’m also not one to deny any artist the right to express themselves as they see fit, although they should be aware of the possible consequences that may befall them and their work, no matter how much a producer or theatre company may seek to support them.  We’ve seen the phenomenon of ever more outrageous titles and topics being deployed in fringe festivals, but in that case it’s to help stand out from a mass of work and attract attention for brief runs in small venues. I don’t think Ravenhill, Posner, Redwood, or Cock’s Mike Bartlett were naïve in their title choices, they may have wished to shock, but I sort of doubt that marketing was their primary motivation.

Last night, on basic cable, the reboot of Dallas deployed “asshole” as an epithet, and I feel certain that I’ve heard it on various cop shows over the years. While Cock cannot be a title, “vagina” has become a ready punchline on network comedies, as has “penis”; perhaps it is the slang which makes it dirty? South Park, famously, had its characters say “shit” some 175 times in a single episode. I’m not talking about premium channels here; I’m talking about basic cable and broadcast. Frankly, often tuning in for The Daily Show a few minutes early every night, I can’t even believe some of what’s said on Comedy Central’s scripted series.

If we are not quite at a double standard, we are on a collision course when broadly accessible entertainment can be, to use a quaint old term, potty-mouthed, while the relatively narrow field of the arts are precluded from using the names they deem appropriate. Apparently, many fear unsuspecting 6-year-olds will stumble upon a newly profane New York Times Arts section, provoking uncomfortable conversations.  Once upon a time, theatre was allowed greater latitude than movies and TV in what could be said or portrayed; the tables are now almost completely turned. Surely if children can be warned nightly about the dangers of a four-hour erection, “shocking” titles for plays aren’t going to do much harm.

Yes, you read that right. I am advocating getting rid of adorable little ducklings in order to advance the cause of the arts in the United States. Getting rid of them from national television news, that is.

This morning, during the first segment of The Today Show, the portion of the program supposedly dedicated to “hard news,” roughly 20 seconds of airtime was devoted to a story about baby ducks being rescued from a storm drain. I do not recall where this gripping tale of survival had occurred, only that the duckies were safe. Whew.

This follows on the heels of last night’s NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, which included reports on the new low-calorie Slurpee, The Avengers passing the $1 billion mark at the box office, Thin Mints being the most popular flavor of Girl Scout cookies (as if there had been doubt), current trends in baby names, and a segment on the dog that won Britain’s Got Talent.

This is not exactly a new phenomenon, this ongoing degradation of what is considered news, but the aggregation of so many meaningless stories on a single network in just over 12 hours got my dander up. Because I do not have multiple DVRs or an intern, I cannot do a comparison as to what stories were worthy of airtime on CBS or ABC at the same time; I take it on faith that the Slurpee story did not make it on to PBS’s The News Hour (though their sober coverage of such an important dietary advancement might have proven rather entertaining). I suspect I missed some really terrific fluff.

Whenever I see stories like these, I wonder why national television news rarely finds time for the arts. Yes, if Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark starts injuring actors again, you can bet the networks will be right there. When The Book of Mormon introduces the first $1,000 theatre ticket, we’ll hear about how expensive theatre is. But showcasing the excellence and breadth of the arts, even in 30 second snippets? That, apparently, is not news.

Further evidence of this phenomenon. Have you ever read about a production of Sam Shepard’s Curse of the Starving Class? I’m willing to bet that if you have, it focused on the live lamb the script requires, and the care requirements for said infant sheep. It’s a perennial and always engaging, as they grow quickly, don’t take direction and tend to defecate at inopportune times. Or take last summer, when there was an uproar and significant coverage when the Royal Shakespeare Company skinned a dead rabbit on stage and they were forced to substitute a prop bunny. That, apparently, was arts coverage gold, sustaining my theory. Cute animals = coverage. Endangering cute animals or trafficking in their corpses = even more coverage.

Must America’s orchestras, opera companies, dance companies, and theatres produce only baby-animal themed works? Or must they take baby animals hostage en masse in order to get attention? Has soliciting coverage of the arts been reduced to pandering or kidnapping? I have previously suggested that getting celebrities arrested during protests in support of arts funding might draw attention, but apparently Streeps and Kardashians alike have an aversion to orange jumpsuits, so that’s gotten nowhere.

News directors, please leave the animal stories and pictures to the Internet, which was apparently built specifically to disseminate such “aw”-inspiring material. And with the time you free up, maybe you can spare a minute for the arts now and then. If you do, I’ll spare my pet baby koala from anything untoward. Promise.

As some of you may be aware, I live-blogged the TEDx Broadway conference held in late January and my frequent updates stood as the most public record of the full event until the videos went live just recently.

Among the presentations, I have to say that the one which most affected me was the hip-hop editorial by Matt Sax (@MattSax), who has created and performed in the shows Clay and Venice. While I am slightly out of hip-hop’s target demo, Matt’s rhythmic commentary on his Broadway experiences past, present and future galvanized me and thrilled the audience as well (though the lack of audience miking doesn’t do our response justice). You can watch on YouTube to see his performance or view it below (he does two pieces; I’m focused on the second one), but the words alone have enormous power. Matt was generous enough to transcribe his handwritten work and give me permission to reproduce it.  I suspect you may find it eminently quotable.

Bravo, Matt!

*    *   *

tedxbroadway – 2012

by Matt Sax

Twenty years ago I saw my first Broadway show

The Secret Garden starring John Cameron Mitchell

who would have known, twelve years later Mr. Mitchell

would give me a carwash in the 2^nd row

after that first show I devoured scores day by day.

Memorized every lyric on the Great White Way

Was entranced by the majesty – whether comedy or tragedy

I’d imagine shows in my mind doing the play by play.

I knew my fate was sealed by the time I was ten

didn’t know how to begin, only knew I had to get in.

My dreams were affected like never before

wanted to put on a mask – I couldn’t sleep no more

So I trained to be an actor. A serious actor…who sings

but soon I knew I also wanted to create puppet strings

See I’m a product of a generation of entitled, impatient, apathetic,

lazy children who all feel alone… We created the internet

so we wouldn’t have to leave home. We are also brave

and process information differently

We combine multiple mediums

From rap shows to symphonies

We see music visually and hear images implicitly

We cross genre boundaries, prone to eccentricity

We’re a generation who tweets about the skeletons in our closet for recreation

We all have a voice and are prone to speak with exclamations

    I AM not a hipster

    or a skater

    or a thug

    or a hater

    I AM a great creator and I love the-ator

So where is Broadway going? What is the best it can be?

I think embracing this culture is a necessity.

I hate to say this – but Broadway is looking too much like Vegas

Retreads of old movies are never going to save us.

We need to look closer at the entertainment we’re affording them

We need to get back to creating stars instead of just importing them

And I believe in the importance of critics for chronicling our theatrical history –

But it can’t be that our collective fates are only written by Isherwood or Brantley

We ALL have a voice and we’re not afraid – look

what critic is gonna argue with a million “likes” on facebook?

We’re still in the world wild west where the internet’s free

And because of this the artists have a chance to shape the industry

Its important I swear

the opportunity’s there

to be at the forefront of pop culture

instead of in the rearview mirror

If I’m a little naïve – okay – I know the dollar is important

but for the future of our business we’re alienating people who can’t afford it.

As long as we create shows for only people who can see them

we run the risk of transforming the theatre into a museum.

Today we are willing to pay but expect content for free

so I say we take our Broadway shows and stream them live for a small fee

It’ll expand our reach. A million people watching in Dubai

maybe could save us from the fate of Bonnie and Clyde

I know the finances suck. How can we create a show that sells

when the NY non-for profit houses can’t produce a musical without commercial help?

It’s a different world now and I have to say

we can have people’s ears and hearts before they or we have to pay.

and before the purists scream at me and cry out

fuck out of town, give me an internet tryout

Everyone’s online, from 90 year old jewish women to toddlers

so lets get the public’s opinion before we drop a million dollars.

And so twenty years from now, what do I imagine Broadway to be?

Well I hope and pray that future will include me.

Galinda wants to be popular and so do we. I want to hear

our songs on the radio and keep seeing them on TV

I want Broadway’s reach to expand past the nation

it’s my goal to tell stories to inspire my generation.

And I am humbled to be in the presence of all these people out here

it is an honor and a privilege to have pirated your ears.

copyright Matt Sax, included here by permission

I may take exception from time to time with some of what Ken Davenport has to say on his “Producer’s Perspective” blog, but he and I have somewhat similarly evangelical approaches to the stage and are therefore in pursuit of common goals. He is more commercially minded than I am, but we have come up in the business in different ways, and ply our trade in different areas;  his enthusiastic drumbeating for tonight’s premiere of Smash as a vehicle for Broadway vitality should come as no surprise to anyone.  In a blog post of just 185 words, he exhorts his readers that they must watch tonight’s broadcast because of what it will mean for Broadway – and mentions Broadway nine times. Just in case we missed it.

I fully intend to watch Smash tonight at 10 pm and I hope to enjoy it; I casually know lots of people involved and I wish them only the very best. While I’ve read some pieces that suggest I may find some issues (notably those raised by Rob Weinert-Kendt at The Wicked Stage, Frank Rizzo of The Hartford Courant and Kevin Fallon in The Atlantic), I will make up my own mind. I should point out that I downloaded the first episode several weeks ago, but haven’t watched it like seemingly everyone else I communicate with online; I want to see it in its hi-def glory tonight at 10, like in my youth when TV couldn’t be time-shifted.

Tomorrow by late morning, the overnight ratings will tell us if Smash had a successful first night, but no matter what’s reported, it won’t be a definitive referendum on the show. In light of the unending promotional build up, they could show grainy YouTube videos of high school musicals on NBC tonight at 10 and probably get a decent audience share; only time will tell if the audience sustains as the promotional barrage recedes. Anything less than huge numbers will set off predictions of the show’s imminent demise, but with much of the 15-week season one already in the can, NBC is likely to give the show time to find its audience, so once again, time will tell.

There’s no question that Smash can have a salubrious effect on Broadway if it succeeds, although I wonder whether there’s been a true cause-and-effect between Glee and participation in show choirs and drama clubs. I pray that, along the way, Smash doesn’t bash Off-Broadway and regional theatre in an effort to idolize the Great White Way, because countless theatre professionals do superb and varied work without setting foot on Broadway or even in New York, work that is enjoyed by and meaningful to audiences nationally. I hope that Smash’s truthful insights from its creative staff of theatre pros outweigh its dramatic license; after all, the only U.S. TV series to grapple with theatre recently were the hokey “reality” competitions to cast a replacement for Legally Blonde and the leads in the most recent revival of Grease (at least the latter launched the luminous Laura Osnes). I’m sure Smash can do better. I dream that Smash aspires to the giddy, funny and moving heights of Slings and Arrows, to this date the best television series ever about theatre, IMHO.

But must you watch Smash tonight? No. It’s not your job to be a cog in the marketing machinery of NBC, Broadway or anyone else for that matter. Frankly, if you’re reading Ken Davenport’s blog or mine, you’re already part of the core group that is taken as a given in the show’s viewership (which caused Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker, demonstrating that magazine’s usual respect for the stage, to observe that “the Broadway-show audience, if every ticket-holder tuned in, would probably fit into the bodice of The Voice‘s Christina Aguilera”), so you’re not going to make the difference. What will truly matter is whether the storytelling, the time slot, the marketing and all the other variables that matter on television align with the mass audience required to make a successful TV show.

Watch Smash. Don’t watch Smash. Watch Castle. Read a book. Go out with friends. Get to bed early post-Super Bowl. See a live performance. Do whatever you like at 10 tonight. Perhaps Smash will become “appointment viewing.” But god forbid it’s seen as “assignment viewing.” That’s the fastest way to take the fun out of anything. And I’m really hoping that Smash is a lot of fun, instead of just good for business.

I contemplated titling this piece “On The Objectification of Theatre Artists,” but decided against it for two primary reasons. First, because it is not my graduate thesis, and second, because people might choose to approach it more seriously than it perhaps deserves.  I will say that I do not fundamentally support the idolization of men or women for their physical appearance, however as one who works in entertainment (with a particular background in marketing and public relations), I know that for all of the enlightenment our society has achieved over the years, we are still drawn in by attractiveness — it is both celebrated and idealized throughout the media. Lecture over.

Among the deluge of tweets, updates and posts I see every day, I have been amused, and at times startled, by the comments of two young women who communicate under the unified nom de plume of The Craptacular. They are avid theatergoers, but they express their enthusiasm most emphatically when they see what I can only refer to as “a hot guy”; they deploy much more colorful expressions, I assure you. I find their slang rhapsodizing over a variety of stage heartthrobs distinctive because, for the most part, what I see otherwise are die-hard fans debating the artistic skills of various performers, say comparing and contrasting various divas (including some long dead), rather than ever speaking of earthier appeals.  Save for the ad campaign for Chicago, which has long celebrated the forms and figures of the countless performers who have done that show, I rarely see Broadway, or any theatrical production, for that matter, relying on something that we have been told, ever since the Mad Men era, is a surefire marketing tool: sex.

This certainly contrasts with the movies, which in so many cases are all about appearance. For decades, people have become screen stars based first and foremost on their physical attributes. In film and television, the emphasis on attractiveness can be a curse (I should be so stricken): actors like George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Michelle Pfeiffer and Angelina Jolie and many others have had to work extra-hard to prove that they are more than just pretty faces and bodies. But in the theatre, talent almost without fail comes first; attractiveness is sometimes the bonus. I generalize, of course, but you get the idea.

That’s why I think the women at The Craptacular are on to something (I so want to call them gals, but I’m walking on eggshells here). Maybe theatre shouldn’t be afraid of flaunting it now and again, especially if we genuinely seek to be part of the mainstream of entertainment and not relegated to the backwater known as “the arts.” The fact is, whether you are male or female, gay or straight, theatre is not just a feast for your mind and your ears, but for your eyes as well. In theatre, talent can make the unconventional unexpectedly attractive, just as it endows more conventional beauty with more depth than your average movie ingénue.

There have been a few occasions when theatre folks, usually because of their work in other mediums, have drifted into the range of media that emphasize physical appeal. I recall Kristin Chenoweth’s FHM appearance and Laura Benanti’s Playboy showcase in particular, because a) I know both women and b) I never believed I’d ever know women who appeared on the covers of those sorts of magazines.  I suspect theatre-centric actors have similarly graced female-oriented publications, but my gaze tends not to linger on that part of the newsstand; I leave it to you to recall examples that support me. Kristin and Laura may not have been chosen for these platforms primarily because of their remarkable skills as performers, but once they are put upon a pedestal, they reflect the spotlight back on the stage.

Jerry Mitchell tapped into the sex and Broadway link years ago when he created “Broadway Bares” for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS; he took an underused asset – the sexiness of so many performers – and put it to great use, raising money for an essential cause. It has become a tradition within the community; it’s frankly a shame that the annual extravaganza can’t last for more than a handful of shows and reach more of the general public, harking back to The Ziegfeld Follies, yet conceived for the age of Maxim. Certainly if Ben Brantley is to be believed, the runaway success of Hugh Jackman’s recent Broadway stand had less to do with the guy’s overwhelming talent and charm and more with his status as a figure in countless sexual fantasies.

I’m not proposing that theatre aspire to burlesque (even as that particular form of entertainment makes a comeback). All I’m suggesting is that in our relentless effort to court those attuned to higher aspirations of art and talent, we may be burying a valuable asset that was once unashamedly part of theatre’s fabric. Theatre is where the devil’s assistant Lola gets what she wants through “feminine wiles”, where Adelaide endlessly fronts a girlie show until she can settle down into domestic bliss, where Gypsy emerges from the chrysalis of Louise Hovick – and where the women who play those roles become stars. As I ponder this, I regret that the male characters who are physical ideals are all comic figures, villains or both: Miles Gloriosus, Gaston, even Kodaly. What’s up with that? Maybe some form of envy by their creators?

Sex sells, sexiness sells, beauty sells and theatre’s got all of that. Just as Las Vegas learned a lesson when it tried to rebrand itself as a family friendly destination, maybe theatre, and Broadway in particular, needs a makeover, needs to rough up its image, needs more leather and lace — just like Sandy at the end of the movie Grease.

I have just used Google News to see how many times the odd little word ‘snub’ has been used in the past 24 hours. I came up with 2,020 articles that fit the bill (I wish I’d checked a week earlier as well, for comparison; this number will surely grow for several more hours). The articles are, based on my cursory review, almost all about the Oscars. If I were to read each of these articles, I am fairly certain they would annoy me equally in their use of this word. I believe this vocabulary choice would hold true for radio and TV coverage as well.

I have a particular disdain of ‘snub.’ My antipathy to it was honed to a fine point during my eight-year tenure as executive director of the American Theatre Wing, where my responsibilities included shared oversight of The Tony Awards. Every May and June, I was deluged with press clippings about the awards and, just as with the Oscars (and the Grammys, and the Emmys, and the Globes, and, and, and), ‘snub’ would appear with startling regularity in press coverage of every possible stripe, from before nominations until after the awards were handed out. I took it pretty personally, because while I was not a Tony nominator and only one voter among hundreds, I was one of the public faces of the Tonys. I was uncomfortable with the fact that a process meant to honor people was being subverted into one in which people were supposedly being rebuffed or insulted, as ‘snub’ implies. In some cases, friends of mine were among the ostensibly snubbed.

‘Snub’ does not mean simply to leave out, as some might have it. Let me quote two dictionaries on the word, as both my beloved Reader’s Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary and Dictionary.com offer the same definition: “1. To treat with contempt or disdain, especially by ignoring; slight. 2. To rebuke or check with a cutting remark.” It is, first, a verb; it can also be a noun, but there is foremost an action indicated. When you snub, it is with hurtful intent.

Now we can all list the many flaws we might find in awards processes, and surely none is perfect; you may even wish to rail against their existence. But for the purpose of this post, please accept them as a given, since I am not examining awards themselves today, but how this particular word has become so insidiously ingrained in discourse about them.

To my knowledge, all cultural awards are affirmative, in the sense that at each level, there is a process of selecting the top or best examples of the category or genre being awarded. There is no organized effort to explicitly blackball anyone or anything; by dint of rules which limit nominees and winners to certain numbers, not all in contention can pass each threshold (this is not nursery school where everyone gets a ribbon for showing up). But at no time does any group, like grown-up versions of high school jocks or mean girls, develop a consensus about who to exclude or berate. The process is about favorites to be sure; even the Golden Raspberry Awards choose films that are the best exemplars of bad films; they don’t, I suspect, spend time saying, “The Descendants? Nah, it’s a bad example of a bad film, so it’s out.”

Consequently, why is ‘snub’ so prevalent? I believe it’s because in both popular and high culture, feuds and insults are infinitely more interesting to report on than praise and achievement. We have long heard that local news broadcasts tend towards the “if it bleeds, it leads” strategy; when it comes to reporting on awards and prizes, the operant methodology appears to be, “those who lose are news.” Awards prognostication is almost its own industry, and so those who cover this aspect of the entertainment world opt to hyperbolize their reportage in order to add to the drama, essentially creating conflict for a better story. Select current examples: in The New York Times’ main story on this year’s Oscar nominations, ‘snub’ appears four times, and a separate story on their Carpetbagger blog has it in a headline.  The Hollywood Reporter headlined, “Oscar Snubs for Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton Spark British Frenzy” (was there rioting?). Hollywood news maven Nikki Finke headlined an article, “OSCARS – Who Got Snubbed By The Academy.” Snub is the go-to weapon of choice and it was deployed in every direction, seemingly by reporters firing on automatic.

I can’t possibly think that my little blog post is going to change the ingrained habits of the cultural media. But if you’re reading this, I urge you when you consume information about awards, substitute the correct words in place of snub: “left out,” “didn’t make the cut,” “missed their chance.” They are perhaps only marginally less negative about those who aren’t nominees or winners, but they are facts, not commentary (or representative of invented affronts). Don’t buy in to the not-so-subtle sense of insult that is deployed so often around awards, not because the awards are so pristine or perfect, but because the people who give awards aren’t doing it to demean people in the fields they recognize, only to elevate and reward through whatever means they have.

Am I naive? No. I just wish the press would do better. I was a kid who grew up being picked last at recess, eventually finding comfort, affirmation and purpose through performance. I’d like to think that those who entertain us (and those who follow their careers) shouldn’t have salt rubbed in their psychic wounds, in public, when they – fairly or unfairly – aren’t picked for the all-star team.

After yesterday’s lengthy survey of fictional films about theatre, I would be remiss in not sharing with you a baker’s dozen documentaries about theatre, most of which are probably even more obscure than some of their fictional counterparts. Unlike the films cited yesterday, which stretch over an almost 80 year period of filmmaking, the oldest of those listed below dates back just 40 years, and the majority are much more recent than that. This likely stems from two key factors: a) the rise of documentary, cinema veritefilmmaking began to proliferate only in the 1960s, and even more recently, b) the advent of high quality digital video cameras, which significantly reduced the expense of shooting documentaries.

Outside of valuable archives like the New York Public Library’s Theatre on Film and Tape Collection at Lincoln Center, the net result of making theatre, namely the show itself, is all too fleeting, even for those that manage sustained runs. But at least there is a slowly growing sub-genre of documentary which tries to capture the reality of how theatre is made, shorn of its romantic, fictional interpretations.

AFTER THE STORM (2009) James Lecesne and friends from the New York theatre community travel to post-Katrina New Orleans to stage a youth theatre production of Ahrens and Flaherty’s Once on This Island. Though there are occasional gaps in the story-telling, there’s no denying the emotional pull of watching an eclectic group of kids, in dire circumstances, pulling together under the guidance of theatre pros to stage a show amid literal chaos and debris.

AUTISM: THE MUSICAL (2007) In yesterday’s roster, I mentioned “theatre as therapy” in connection with the film Weeds, which focused on a prison rehabilitation program. This unfortunately named film, which sounds more like a Parker & Stone project than the earnest documentary that it is, profiles five children who suffer with the increasingly prevalent syndrome as they take part in a Los Angeles program that creates original musicals for those so-affected. Whether therapy or theatre takes precedence here may depend upon your perspective, but like some many documentaries, it’s impossible to address the filmmaking on its own when the merits of the subject are so clear.

BROADWAY: THE GOLDEN AGE (2003) Rick McKay’s look at Broadway history that focuses largely, but not exclusively, on the period from the mid-40s to the late 60s, has at times been criticized for its litany of talking heads, despite some enticing archival footage woven in. But let’s face it, when the people speaking include Bea Arthur, Carol Burnett, Barbara Cook, Hume Cronyn, Jerry Herman, Shirley MacLaine, Patricia Neal, and Stephen Sondheim – to name, I kid you not, only a few out of a cavalcade – it’s time to shut up and just let the heads talk.

COMPANY: ORIGINAL CAST ALBUM (1970) Though there’s debate over what comes before the colon and what comes after when listing this seminal theatrical documentary, there’s no denying that it’s pretty much mandatory viewing for anyone with an interest in musical theatre. What began as a simple look at how a Broadway cast recording is made, taking advantage of the fact that it’s all done in one day, this brief film became a legend due to Elaine Stritch’s epic struggle to record “The Ladies Who Lunch.” What might have been prosaic turns terrifying as the recording session wears on past midnight. It never sets foot inside a theatre, bus this is theatrical truth, and drama, of the first order, and you’ll never hear the cast album the same way again.

EVERY LITTLE STEP (2008) An authorized look at pre-production for the 2006 Broadway revival of the groundbreaking musical A Chorus Line, this film benefits from access to archival material from the original production by virtue of its executive producer, attorney John Breglio, who also oversees the Michael Bennett estate and produced the revival. Like the musical itself, we once again are drawn into the audition process that pulls together a theatrical company, even though in this case they will ultimately be reenacting other people’s stories. This movie is what reality television might be if anyone bothered to look up the definition of reality.

THE LITTLE RED TRUCK (2008) Unknown to me before a Twitter contribution, the film records five stops along the route of the eponymous vehicle owned by the Missoula Children’s Theatre. In each town, the troupe casts local children every Monday and by Saturday has some 60 of them onstage performing in a classic kids’ tale. This is a weekly challenge, and apparently an annual achievement (for 40 years), that would have to be seen to be believed. When I find this film, I’ll have that chance.

LOOKING FOR RICHARD (1996) The Twitterati were split on this one, some loving and some loathing it. Preserving Al Pacino’s ongoing exploration of Shakespeare’sRichard III, it combines scheduled interviews with studio rehearsal scenes featuring the likes of Kevin Spacey and Alec Baldwin. Depending upon your tastes, it’s either meandering and self-indulgent, or it’s a warts-and-all look at one actor’s efforts to get to the dark heart of a great character.

MOON OVER BROADWAY (1997) Nowadays Broadway productions have their own video units filming the production process, laying the groundwork for the hoped-for PBS hagiography if they triumph. But in the bygone days of the mid-90s, such backstage looks were rare, especially one piloted by two of the finest documentarians working, Chris Hegedus and legendary D.A. Pennebaker (who had apparently been scared away from theatre for a quarter century after making the film of the Company recording session). While Actors Equity rules of the day prevented much footage ofMoon Over Buffalo, the play being produced, from making it onscreen, rehearsal footage and backstage conversations paint a fly-on-the-wall portrait of Carol Burnett’s return to Broadway after 30 years away, including her impromptu session with the audience one night during previews when tech issues stopped the show.

SHOWBUSINESS: THE ROAD TO BROADWAY (2007) Dori Berinstein‘s insider view of the 2003-2004 season on Broadway, focusing largely on the musicals Taboo, Caroline, or Change, Wicked and Avenue Q on their path (or not) to the Tony Awards, grows more fascinating with each passing year, as we gain perspective on the productions and the circumstances surrounding them. With unprecedented access, Berinstein shot more than 120 hours of footage, then whittled it down to a cohesive narrative that revealed itself as the season went on. Like William Goldman’s book The Season, this is destined to be required material for theatre students and historians for years to come, and I say that even though my footage ended up on the cutting room floor (not kidding).

SING FASTER: THE STAGEHANDS’ RING CYCLE (1999) Although set in the opera world, not theatre, I’m letting it in because I’ve never heard of any other documentary, or fiction film for that matter, that looks at stage production from the point of view of the crew, in this case the union team at the San Francisco Opera as they wrangle a complete production of Wagner’s daunting cycle. Winner of a “Filmmaker’s Trophy” at Sundance, its 60 minute running time suggests it was always targeting a TV berth.

STAGEDOOR (2006) Perhaps it should have been called Camp: The True Story to goose its box office prospects, but coming three years after the cult favorite Camp, which fictionalized life at the summer mecca for youthful theatre buffs, this cinema verite visit to the real Stagedoor Manor failed to generate equivalent interest. Perhaps the famous line from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, slightly repurposed, is true: when the legend become fact, film the legend – like Campdid.

THESPIANS (2010) A charming, low-key account of very different high school theatre troupes as they prepare to compete in the Educational Theatre Association’s annual national festival in Lincoln, Nebraska. Never released theatrically, it has found a home and following on DVD and cable, and showcases a level of high school theatrical activity that may be all but unknown to those whose schools aren’t participants in International Thespian Society chapters.

THIS SO-CALLED DISASTER (2003) A chronicle of the world premiere of the Sam Shepard play The Late Henry Moss, which debuted on the West Coast with a staggering cast including Sean Penn and Woody Harrelson among many others, including the recently deceased Shepard stalwart James Gammon. This film parts the iron curtain that has largely surrounded the press-shy playwright-director Shepard, whose own film fame came almost entirely as a result of acting in projects by other writers and directors.

Special Bonus Mention: BROADWAY: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL Produced for PBS, Michael Kantor and Lawrence Maslon’s six-part history of the Broadway musical is an expert primer for those just learning about the history of what is said to be one of America’s only two indigenous art forms (the other being jazz). There’s a DVD set of the complete series as well as a lavish, coffee table companion book, and while one can quibble with the occasional omission (and every musical theatre lover is bound to do so; it’s their nature), there’s no denying that this is probably the single most comprehensive filmic look at Broadway from The Black Crook to the present day.

Once again, I don’t pretend that this is in any way a definitive list; I was assisted by an assortment of Twitter friends who were all cited at the end of yesterday’s blog, and they have proven their devotion to theatre by having knowledge that goes beyond the walls of live theatre by exploring movie theatres (undoubtedly art houses and revival houses, not just mainstream multiplexes), as well as what’s available on Netflix, DVD and, once upon a time, VHS and Beta. I thank them for helping me on what proved to be a project much more time-consuming than any blog should be.

This post originally appeared on the American Theatre Wing website.