Here is one on amplification on Broadway from August 18, 2007. This is one of those topics that never seems to go away.
One of the theatrical controversies that always pops up in theatre books, documentaries, and message boards is the microphone debate. I’ve honestly never heard a great voice un-miced, which I think would be an awesome experience, but there are other considerations to take in mind when it comes to this issue. It’s about so much more than just actors on Broadway being able to sing with that kind of projection and clarity.
First of all, we have to acknowledge what Marin Mazzie said in one of the American Theatre Wing seminars, which is that microphones in the theatre allow for a more nuanced style of acting. Everything still needs to be sold to the back balcony, but it can be taken down a notch because the voice isn’t required to do so much work. We still have some remnants of that style of acting left on Broadway, but it’s still often prevalent in high school and community theatres when big facial expressions and gestures replace genuine emotion. Thank God that’s slowly going the way of the dinosaurs! By today’s standards, set by film and television, the sort of acting un-miced on a stage in a theatre the size of the Palace, the Broadway, or most touring houses would require would be a major turn-off.
The presence of microphones has also allowed for more naturalistic staging. Not everything has to be sold out front all the time anymore. Book scenes can happen with one character facing the back of the stage, turning around, or whatever. I’ve often wondered how spectacular the revered acting performances of the past would seem today now that we have the ability for more nuance in acting style and staging.
We also need to acknowledge that audiences have changed. Cameron Macintosh said this in the Broadway: The Golden Age documentary, that modern audiences require amplification. When I attend reputable regional theatres that don’t have amplification, it’s a major frustration for the first twenty minutes or so because you do miss words or partial phrases. It’s not even the actors. It’s that guy with the cough, the woman with the squeaking seat, or the guy who needs to take his pill twenty minutes in. These are common occurrences in the theatre, and the presence of amplification takes these distractions away.
Heck, even in a movie theatre I get annoyed if the promised THX or DTS sound doesn’t kick in. I panic about not being able to hear properly or easily get distracted by popcorn crunching or soda slurping. Of course you settle in and survive, blocking out the distractions, but as an average person from the generation of stereos, headphones, car stereos, and concerts, my ability to block out distractions and hear clearly is limited. Add to that any other theatrical distractions (like air conditioning in theatres as one sound person pointed out), and you have someone paying $120 for a show they can’t hear clearly.
Then there are the shows that require amplification. Amplification, for example, pumped Tarzan with some much-needed energy. Other shows with rock scores require, by the nature of the genre of music, to be amped. You can’t have Amneris rocking out “My Strongest Suit” and not have those guitars and drums pulsing through the theatre.
I particularly hate when people use this issue as an excuse to attack actors. There are plenty of people out there who could do classic shows eight performances a week without microphones. As someone on the Broadway World message board recently pointed out, many modern scores are too taxing to perform eight times a week without amplification. Could you imagine trying to be Jekyll/Hyde without it? Or Aida? Or Eva Peron? But there are plenty of actors who could do traditional scores without mics.
But more importantly, there are many, many more who could easily learn to do it. There are the Betty Buckleys of this world who are born with pipes o’ steal, but that’s not a requirement. It’s usually about technique. Actors don’t develop that part of their voice because it’d be a waste of time. There’s no need to spend time learning to sing in a huge Broadway theatre without amplification because that’s not the scenario anymore. We have nuance now. In the old days, if Gertrude Lawrence, Sam Levine, Gwen Verdon, and Barbara Harris could do it—all extremely talented people who starred in un-miced musicals but were not known for strong singing voices—then there’s no reason why most contemporary performers couldn’t learn to do it too. Right now, I can’t drive a semi-truck, but with the proper training, there’s no reason I couldn’t do it. It’s the same thing for actors and singing un-amped.
This is not to say that amplification is the ideal. When I went to Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, I sat in the orchestra section under the balcony in the Imperial Theatre, and the speakers sounded like $99.99 Wal-Mart specials. When that happens, it just takes time for your ears to adjust and get used to it. So if there is amplification, the speakers have to be of a quality to help make the sound appear to be natural, not like it’s emitting from a tin can.
I also remember sitting in the front of the balcony for the tour of Titanic and literally being unable to make out 85% of what the men were saying because the sound system was such crap. This was really sad because it was the first Broadway show for two of my friends, and they really didn’t get much out of it for obvious reasons. The actors were doing their thing. The producers and the theatre were the problem.
I will agree that no mics would be best. I’ve often sat close to the stage, wondering what it would sound like if there were not speakers audibly sending out sound from my right or left. But I also know that I appreciate the benefits that amplification brings—namely nuanced acting and staging techniques, not to mention the comfort of hearing comfortably. Personally, I’d love to go to un-amplified concerts, but as for my Broadway shows, I want to enjoy the story without any distraction.
the Broadway Mouth
August 18, 2007
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Broadway Revivals: The Right Canvas
I originally posted this one on July 6, 2007.
Important English teacher philosophy: You breathe in by reading, and you breathe out by writing.
Writers read, and what you read influences how you write. I love reading the likes of Willa Cather and Jane Austen and Richard Wright because I learn so much and it inspires me to write things that aspire to their heights.
There’s been a lot of discussion about revivals on Broadway and how they take up space for new works. As someone who wants to write those new works, I really hope there’s plenty of space for new works. When my times comes, I don’t want to have to wait two years for a theatre to open.
At the same time, we need something to breathe in. As I said in a blog last month, I loved seeing The Color Purple and The Wedding Singer, but I still don’t think many of the big shows of today yet compare with the big shows of the past. You’ve got to have amazing, flawless works staring down at you as you write so you can ask yourself, is this even close to being as good as Kiss Me, Kate (or The Music Man or Guys and Dolls or The King and I)?
On Broadway you get the best performers, the best directors, the best choreographers. Where else but Broadway could you get Brian Stokes Mitchell as Fred Graham, Faith Prince as Ella Peterson, Kelli O’Hara as Babe Williams, or Michael Cerveris as Sweeney Todd?
There are tons of productions of any number of great classic musicals all over the country. At any given time, I can see a high school doing Anything Goes, a college doing Guys and Dolls, a community theatre doing Annie, and maybe even an Equity production of The Music Man. In fact, I’ve seen them all, but none of them have come close to seeing them on Broadway. I live in a city with a very large theatre community, but we generally get 2-5 Equity productions of great Broadway musicals a year, and there’s typically nothing to compare with the Paper Mill Playhouse or the Pasadena Playhouse.
The first time I saw The Music Man, it was at a community theatre. It was an okay show, but I didn’t walk away in awe of an amazing score or libretto. When I walked out of the Susan Stroman revival, however, I felt like I had seen a spectacular show.
That’s because nobody does it like Broadway. Seeing a community theatre production of Oliver! is comparable to watching an epic film like Gone With the Wind on DVD. It’s better than not seeing it at all, but it’s the way the show was meant to be seen.
Not only does Broadway do them better, Broadway provides opportunities for shows to get produced that wouldn’t otherwise be seen. I think I could die without ever seeing a middling local production of Bells are Ringing; Kiss Me, Kate; The Pajama Game; Sweet Charity; 110 in the Shade; and a host of others, let alone a first-class Broadway production surrounded by first-class Equity talent.
In fact, I wish people like Tommy Tune who, in the Rick McKay documentary DVD, complain about revivals taking up New York theatres, would put their money where their mouths are and direct great touring productions of classic shows that haven’t been tampered with (like the Michael York Camelot was revised). He could give us Broadway names in Call Me Madam, Gypsy, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and a host of other shows that would help fill out the gaps between great new Broadway shows coming into town on tour.
The good news is that all Broadway musicals are a gamble. You have the revivals that make money, like Kiss Me, Kate and A Chorus Line, but then you have those that don’t run long and probably don’t make money—Wonderful Town, Sweet Charity, Bells are Ringing. So, people get a chance to see these amazing shows, they run their season, and they generally quickly open up space for new productions, just like new shows do the same thing.
Mame is a Broadway musical, and it was meant to be seen on Broadway. You can see the Mona Lisa in a book, but if you are really passionate about experiencing and studying art, you don’t settle for a book in the library. If new creators want more new musicals, then they need to create shows that deserve that space, both to inspire the next generation of writers and to delight audiences to keep them coming back to Broadway. Until then, revivals play an important part not only in providing opportunities to see these great shows in the way they were meant to be seen but also in allowing the next generation of creators to learn from them.
Broadway Mouth
July 6, 2007
Important English teacher philosophy: You breathe in by reading, and you breathe out by writing.
Writers read, and what you read influences how you write. I love reading the likes of Willa Cather and Jane Austen and Richard Wright because I learn so much and it inspires me to write things that aspire to their heights.
There’s been a lot of discussion about revivals on Broadway and how they take up space for new works. As someone who wants to write those new works, I really hope there’s plenty of space for new works. When my times comes, I don’t want to have to wait two years for a theatre to open.
At the same time, we need something to breathe in. As I said in a blog last month, I loved seeing The Color Purple and The Wedding Singer, but I still don’t think many of the big shows of today yet compare with the big shows of the past. You’ve got to have amazing, flawless works staring down at you as you write so you can ask yourself, is this even close to being as good as Kiss Me, Kate (or The Music Man or Guys and Dolls or The King and I)?
On Broadway you get the best performers, the best directors, the best choreographers. Where else but Broadway could you get Brian Stokes Mitchell as Fred Graham, Faith Prince as Ella Peterson, Kelli O’Hara as Babe Williams, or Michael Cerveris as Sweeney Todd?
There are tons of productions of any number of great classic musicals all over the country. At any given time, I can see a high school doing Anything Goes, a college doing Guys and Dolls, a community theatre doing Annie, and maybe even an Equity production of The Music Man. In fact, I’ve seen them all, but none of them have come close to seeing them on Broadway. I live in a city with a very large theatre community, but we generally get 2-5 Equity productions of great Broadway musicals a year, and there’s typically nothing to compare with the Paper Mill Playhouse or the Pasadena Playhouse.
The first time I saw The Music Man, it was at a community theatre. It was an okay show, but I didn’t walk away in awe of an amazing score or libretto. When I walked out of the Susan Stroman revival, however, I felt like I had seen a spectacular show.
That’s because nobody does it like Broadway. Seeing a community theatre production of Oliver! is comparable to watching an epic film like Gone With the Wind on DVD. It’s better than not seeing it at all, but it’s the way the show was meant to be seen.
Not only does Broadway do them better, Broadway provides opportunities for shows to get produced that wouldn’t otherwise be seen. I think I could die without ever seeing a middling local production of Bells are Ringing; Kiss Me, Kate; The Pajama Game; Sweet Charity; 110 in the Shade; and a host of others, let alone a first-class Broadway production surrounded by first-class Equity talent.
In fact, I wish people like Tommy Tune who, in the Rick McKay documentary DVD, complain about revivals taking up New York theatres, would put their money where their mouths are and direct great touring productions of classic shows that haven’t been tampered with (like the Michael York Camelot was revised). He could give us Broadway names in Call Me Madam, Gypsy, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and a host of other shows that would help fill out the gaps between great new Broadway shows coming into town on tour.
The good news is that all Broadway musicals are a gamble. You have the revivals that make money, like Kiss Me, Kate and A Chorus Line, but then you have those that don’t run long and probably don’t make money—Wonderful Town, Sweet Charity, Bells are Ringing. So, people get a chance to see these amazing shows, they run their season, and they generally quickly open up space for new productions, just like new shows do the same thing.
Mame is a Broadway musical, and it was meant to be seen on Broadway. You can see the Mona Lisa in a book, but if you are really passionate about experiencing and studying art, you don’t settle for a book in the library. If new creators want more new musicals, then they need to create shows that deserve that space, both to inspire the next generation of writers and to delight audiences to keep them coming back to Broadway. Until then, revivals play an important part not only in providing opportunities to see these great shows in the way they were meant to be seen but also in allowing the next generation of creators to learn from them.
Broadway Mouth
July 6, 2007
Friday, March 13, 2009
From the Mouth of Alan Jay Lerner
This has been one of my favorite blogs to quote because what Lerner writes here is so relevent, even all these years later. I originally posted this on July 1, 2007.
When I wrote the blog entry “A Hundred Million Miracles,” I did so because I wanted to share something exciting I had found with the people who read my blog. I am very thankful to those who upload footage onto You Tube and Blue Gobo because it’s all about education. The more I can see of, say, Gwen Verdon from the original Sweet Charity, the more I can learn. Theatre is a living art form. You can gain much from reading about the great performances and from hearing first hand accounts, but until you see Heather Headley and Adam Pascal singing “Elaborate Lives” or see Gower Champion’s original “Before the Parade Passes By” choreography, you can never fully understand.
So below, I’ve scanned in the foreword to the published Paint Your Wagon libretto from which I quoted in my “Hello and Faux” blog entry. It is entitled “Advice to Young Musical Writers” and is written by Alan Jay Lerner himself. Reading this article really gave me perspective on a number of the current trends on Broadway.
The longer I study Broadway, how true it seems to me that the more things change, the more they stay the same. In the Rick McKay documentary Broadway: The Golden Age and on the DVD bonus features, a number of significant theatre folk acknowledge that people have been bemoaning the state of Broadway since the 1970s. In looking at this article, it’s clear that people have been bemoaning the state of Broadway much longer . . . even in the midst of the great Golden Age.
So I propose that we limit complaining, continue learning, continue creating, and continue to fight the good fight of getting a great show on Broadway.
Advice to Young Musical Writers
by Alan Jay Lerner
In recent years there has been an ever-increasing number of adaptations in the theater and, by consequence, a steady decline of original works. This has been especially-true of the musical play (musical play as opposed to musical comedy). There have actually been only three successful original musical plays in the last decade. This dearth has frequently been mentioned in the press, and when it has been, it has always been accompanied by a mournful cry for more fresh creation. As one who has written four originals, the one between these covers included, let me hereby warn all aspiring authors and composers to stuff their ears with cotton and pay no heed to this soulful wail. No one, neither critic nor public, is clamoring for originality. The only desire is for something good. And to be good is quite original enough. If you create a total work that finds general acceptance, no mention will be made of what you have done. If it's unsuccessful, no one will commend you for your effort and encourage you to continue. All this I can state as a positive fact. And though it may seem edged with bitterness, I can assure you it is not. I have always been fully aware of the folly of that end of my endeavor and have often cursed the ambition that drives me. But with it all, my rewards in the musical field have been far in excess of what I truthfully feel I have contributed. No, my reasons for the above advice are sound and practical and come from one who loves his trade and has deep respect for it as a medium of expression.
The lyric theater is the one, and only one, true invention that has been made in theatrical form for many years. It is also a purely American creation; so American, in fact, is this subtle interweaving of word, song, and dance, that no other country has even been able to approach it. Because it is new, it also has great possibilities for development. And with a public that is searching for escape almost more avidly than it did during the war, there is a large, waiting audience. But there is also a problem. And this problem is a serious one. The spank in the machine is that there are very few people writing musicals. I don't believe there are more than a dozen composers, librettists, and lyricists in all who are regular practitioners and who have committed their careers to the musical stage. Not only that, but of that number no more than three, possibly four, have been developed in the past ten years. The rest have been the backbone of our musical theater since the twenties and early thirties.
There are a myriad of reasons why this should be so. The most important one, however, is economic. Although there are many struggling neophytes composing musical plays, the cost of production these days is so astronomical that investors are reluctant to trust their funds to any but the tried and true. The hazard is further increased by the fact that the cost of attending a musical has risen so that although there is a public longing for entertainment, people are unwilling to risk the price of a ticket unless they have been assured by the press that the evening will be a rewarding one. This means there is no room for the moderate success. A musical show is either a smash hit or it will invariably be a financial failure. And to increase the hazard even more, favorable notices by a majority of the eight New York critics are not sufficient. There are two of the eight writing for the daily press who must be pleased above all. Survival without their blessing is relatively impossible; even though survival with their blessing is not absolutely guaranteed. All of this naturally has immediate effects on the economic and emotional plight of the author and composer. How long can they continue writing without seeing production of, and receiving remuneration for, their efforts? Where do they make mistakes and thus learn? And how long can anyone endure without some sign of encouragement?
And so I return to my early thesis. With the risks being what they are—and I have only mentioned a few of the multitude—your chances not only of reaching production but achieving success will be inestimably enhanced if you begin with a book, a short story, a motion picture, or a play that has already been approved by public and critic alike. The value of the basic story cannot be exaggerated. There is often a general tendency to regard the book of a musical as of little consequence. This is especially true when the musical is a success. But let the opening night be a two and a half hour wake and you will read the next morning how neither the cast, the music, the scenery, nor the dancing was able to overcome the inept plot. I can tell you the book is all-essential. It is the fountain from which all waters spring. So start off on the right foot and select a story that is all prepared for you. The translation of that story to musical form is quite complex enough. Within that frame you will find more than adequate challenge to your originality and enough on which to experiment.
January 25, 1952
Originally published as a foreword to the published libretto of Paint Your Wagon
MLA Citation Information:
Lerner, Alan Jay. Foreword. Paint Your Wagon. Coward-McCann, 1952. vii-ix.
(Blogger doesn't allow for underlining, but please be aware that MLA requires titles of plays to be underlined instead of italicized.)
Please Note: I would just like to acknowledge that I am a big fan of copyrights, having ownership of a few of them myself. My intent in posting this piece of copyrighted work is solely education. I make no money from this blog. Since it has been long out of print, I trust that by posting it, I am not taking away from any earning potential from those who own the copyright.
I would be a happy camper if I got an email saying that this essay was going to be collected into a new collection of articles about Broadway over the past century, and therefore, I needed to remove it; however, since that seems sadly unlikely, I make it available. If you are the owner of this copyright and would like me to remove it, please contact me.
Broadway Mouth
July 1, 2007
When I wrote the blog entry “A Hundred Million Miracles,” I did so because I wanted to share something exciting I had found with the people who read my blog. I am very thankful to those who upload footage onto You Tube and Blue Gobo because it’s all about education. The more I can see of, say, Gwen Verdon from the original Sweet Charity, the more I can learn. Theatre is a living art form. You can gain much from reading about the great performances and from hearing first hand accounts, but until you see Heather Headley and Adam Pascal singing “Elaborate Lives” or see Gower Champion’s original “Before the Parade Passes By” choreography, you can never fully understand.
So below, I’ve scanned in the foreword to the published Paint Your Wagon libretto from which I quoted in my “Hello and Faux” blog entry. It is entitled “Advice to Young Musical Writers” and is written by Alan Jay Lerner himself. Reading this article really gave me perspective on a number of the current trends on Broadway.
The longer I study Broadway, how true it seems to me that the more things change, the more they stay the same. In the Rick McKay documentary Broadway: The Golden Age and on the DVD bonus features, a number of significant theatre folk acknowledge that people have been bemoaning the state of Broadway since the 1970s. In looking at this article, it’s clear that people have been bemoaning the state of Broadway much longer . . . even in the midst of the great Golden Age.
So I propose that we limit complaining, continue learning, continue creating, and continue to fight the good fight of getting a great show on Broadway.
Advice to Young Musical Writers
by Alan Jay Lerner
In recent years there has been an ever-increasing number of adaptations in the theater and, by consequence, a steady decline of original works. This has been especially-true of the musical play (musical play as opposed to musical comedy). There have actually been only three successful original musical plays in the last decade. This dearth has frequently been mentioned in the press, and when it has been, it has always been accompanied by a mournful cry for more fresh creation. As one who has written four originals, the one between these covers included, let me hereby warn all aspiring authors and composers to stuff their ears with cotton and pay no heed to this soulful wail. No one, neither critic nor public, is clamoring for originality. The only desire is for something good. And to be good is quite original enough. If you create a total work that finds general acceptance, no mention will be made of what you have done. If it's unsuccessful, no one will commend you for your effort and encourage you to continue. All this I can state as a positive fact. And though it may seem edged with bitterness, I can assure you it is not. I have always been fully aware of the folly of that end of my endeavor and have often cursed the ambition that drives me. But with it all, my rewards in the musical field have been far in excess of what I truthfully feel I have contributed. No, my reasons for the above advice are sound and practical and come from one who loves his trade and has deep respect for it as a medium of expression.
The lyric theater is the one, and only one, true invention that has been made in theatrical form for many years. It is also a purely American creation; so American, in fact, is this subtle interweaving of word, song, and dance, that no other country has even been able to approach it. Because it is new, it also has great possibilities for development. And with a public that is searching for escape almost more avidly than it did during the war, there is a large, waiting audience. But there is also a problem. And this problem is a serious one. The spank in the machine is that there are very few people writing musicals. I don't believe there are more than a dozen composers, librettists, and lyricists in all who are regular practitioners and who have committed their careers to the musical stage. Not only that, but of that number no more than three, possibly four, have been developed in the past ten years. The rest have been the backbone of our musical theater since the twenties and early thirties.
There are a myriad of reasons why this should be so. The most important one, however, is economic. Although there are many struggling neophytes composing musical plays, the cost of production these days is so astronomical that investors are reluctant to trust their funds to any but the tried and true. The hazard is further increased by the fact that the cost of attending a musical has risen so that although there is a public longing for entertainment, people are unwilling to risk the price of a ticket unless they have been assured by the press that the evening will be a rewarding one. This means there is no room for the moderate success. A musical show is either a smash hit or it will invariably be a financial failure. And to increase the hazard even more, favorable notices by a majority of the eight New York critics are not sufficient. There are two of the eight writing for the daily press who must be pleased above all. Survival without their blessing is relatively impossible; even though survival with their blessing is not absolutely guaranteed. All of this naturally has immediate effects on the economic and emotional plight of the author and composer. How long can they continue writing without seeing production of, and receiving remuneration for, their efforts? Where do they make mistakes and thus learn? And how long can anyone endure without some sign of encouragement?
And so I return to my early thesis. With the risks being what they are—and I have only mentioned a few of the multitude—your chances not only of reaching production but achieving success will be inestimably enhanced if you begin with a book, a short story, a motion picture, or a play that has already been approved by public and critic alike. The value of the basic story cannot be exaggerated. There is often a general tendency to regard the book of a musical as of little consequence. This is especially true when the musical is a success. But let the opening night be a two and a half hour wake and you will read the next morning how neither the cast, the music, the scenery, nor the dancing was able to overcome the inept plot. I can tell you the book is all-essential. It is the fountain from which all waters spring. So start off on the right foot and select a story that is all prepared for you. The translation of that story to musical form is quite complex enough. Within that frame you will find more than adequate challenge to your originality and enough on which to experiment.
January 25, 1952
Originally published as a foreword to the published libretto of Paint Your Wagon
MLA Citation Information:
Lerner, Alan Jay. Foreword. Paint Your Wagon. Coward-McCann, 1952. vii-ix.
(Blogger doesn't allow for underlining, but please be aware that MLA requires titles of plays to be underlined instead of italicized.)
Please Note: I would just like to acknowledge that I am a big fan of copyrights, having ownership of a few of them myself. My intent in posting this piece of copyrighted work is solely education. I make no money from this blog. Since it has been long out of print, I trust that by posting it, I am not taking away from any earning potential from those who own the copyright.
I would be a happy camper if I got an email saying that this essay was going to be collected into a new collection of articles about Broadway over the past century, and therefore, I needed to remove it; however, since that seems sadly unlikely, I make it available. If you are the owner of this copyright and would like me to remove it, please contact me.
Broadway Mouth
July 1, 2007
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The Road They Didn't Take: Fixing Follies
This has probably been my most popular column, originally posted June 27, 2007.
When I walked into the Belasco Theatre on Wednesday, June 13, 2001, I was entirely clueless about Follies. By this point, I had seen quite a few Broadway tours, had been following Broadway online often, had been to New York once before where I had seen quite a few shows, and had gotten into the habit of buying Cast Recordings quite often. Yet, I didn’t know exactly what Follies was or how significant Sondheim is (trust me, I’ve since made up for it and then some).
But in seeing Follies for the first time, all that worked to my benefit because I also didn’t know how “Loveland” was supposed to look or how Phyllis was supposed to sing or how “I’m Still Here” was supposed to be staged or anything.
So that night when the lights went down . . . Oh, what a show!
Immediately when the ghosts of the follies past entered, I was captivated. They were humans on stage, but it really was as if they were from another world. As the story unfolded, I was stunned by the storytelling, the past commenting on the present, the present living in the past. I can still remember how my insides churned with excitement during “Who’s That Woman” and after that, how Polly Bergen stopped the show with “I’m Still Here” in the way that stars used to stop shows. Then came “Loveland,” and I just couldn’t get enough of those songs and what they were expressing and how. The entire evening was astounding, exciting, imagination-inspiring.
At the end of the night, I left the Belasco almost speechless. The story seemed like that of a straight play, but the music pulled it deeper psychologically. I wanted to get my hands on the libretto because I felt like I had been so dazzled that I needed to read the ending again to understand it all.
When I returned home, no matter how I tried, I couldn’t fully communicate to people the excitement that was Follies. Unless you see it for yourself or read the libretto with a vivid imagination, I don’t think an average person could fully grasp that show.
But now matter how excited I was about the show itself, the story that really piqued everyone’s interest happened at the stage door.
At this time, I was still waiting at the stage door to meet the stars of the shows I had seen. In this cast, I knew who Marge Champion was and knew who Betty Garret was from Laverne and Shirley. Marni Nixon I knew, as well as Treat Williams and Erin Dilly. But by the end of the show, I was a big fan of everyone involved and so desperately wanted to meet them. Unlike most other shows I had been to that week, only a small gaggle of fans gathered outside this theatre, but we still scrambled as each diva exited.
As if each performer wasn’t generating enough excitement, Blythe Danner walked out with daughter Gwyneth Paltrow (star of the movie Emma, which I love) beside her. Thankfully, people were very respectful, though, as you can imagine, excited to see such a film star. I was more interested in meeting her mother after such a riveting performance in a riveting show. I politely asked Ms. Danner if I could have my picture taken with her, and she said yes, but because I was alone, I didn’t have anyone to take the picture. Used to this, I turned to the people around me and said, “Could anyone take our picture?” to which a certain Academy-Award winning actress said shyly, raising her hand timidly, “I could.”
“Oh my gosh, I just had my picture taken by Gwyneth Paltrow!” I said after thanking Phyllis Rogers Stone for a spectacular performance and Gwyneth Paltrow for taking the picture. At that very moment, Marge Champion came out, so I let other people grab at the movie star while I met Ms. Champion who, for the record, is much sweeter in person than she is on stage in Elaine Stritch’s show.
When I got pictures with a few other stars from the show, I turned to see mother and daughter movie star walking down the street, knowing that now away from the stage door, they deserved their personal time without my interruption. I never regretted not getting my picture with her because, well, she wasn’t in the show. I am, after all, a movie fan who is a die hard Broadway baby.
For the record, Gwyneth Paltrow takes a very fine snapshot, and I’d sell my camera on eBay for oodles of money if I could prove her fingerprints were on it.
So anyway, about a year or so after seeing the show, I discovered that the Follies libretto was available and bought it.
It’s amazing how truthfully Follies deals with the issues of the past and our response to it. Every time I read it, I connect with the events and the characters more deeply. And the more people I know getting married, getting divorced, and even re-connecting after divorce, the more I can see how the show mirrors life.
Recently, I finally read Ted Chapin’s soon-to-be legendary book Everything Was Possible, in which he describes with great detail the laborious rehearsal period for the original Hal Prince/Michael Bennett production. In addition to being a fascinating read because it details the creation of Follies, it gives you a stripped-away, glam-less documentation of the making of a Broadway musical (which, for the record, has a great many similarities with directing plays at the high school level, which I found fascinating).
Reading it shed a great deal of light on why Follies is the way that it is, which is brilliant but, to my opinion, not perfect.
The Cause
As a writer, you generally have an idea of where you want your story to go. The journey getting there might be unclear, but you have a clear idea of where you want to go and how. You then build your work to ready your audience for that end.
The problem in the creation of Follies was that there were several key pieces missing from the plot puzzle for a significant portion of the rehearsal period. With the exception of “Losing My Mind,” the songs for the final follies sequence—“You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow,” “Love Will See Us Through,” “The God-Why-Don’t-You-Love-Me Blues,” “The Story of Lucy and Jesse,” and “Live, Laugh, Love” were not written. And Phyllis was actually set to sing “Losing My Mind.”
The older actors were really struggling with some of the material. In fact, Chapin says that, for the entire run of the show, several of them regularly botched their songs. “Who’s That Woman” was particularly challenging for the older women, and Michael Bennett and his team worked tirelessly with them to get it down. Because of that, can you imagine what it must have been like to have only begun to conquer all that dancing and music . . . then to be handed “The Story of Lucy and Jesse” or “The God-Why-Don’t-You-Love-Me Blues”? When reading Chapin’s book, by the time these songs are ready and the show is complete, you can almost feel the sigh of relief from everyone involved in the production just at the thought of having a complete show . . . and that’s without having the show entirely on its feet. There would have been no way to make major changes to the conclusion or to the opening without threatening the ability of the cast to pull it off. Also, I doubt there was time for anyone to really sit back and objectively observe and reflect on how the story came together and how it should be altered. The result was that the show never fully comes together thematically.
Unjustly, James Goldman tends to get much of the brunt of this criticism, but if you look at the timing when those songs were completed, the amount of work that was still before the cast, and the break-neck pace at which everyone was working . . . The guy deserves a break for even having had a chance to write anything for the actors to do after Ben’s breakdown. Even if he had had the time to understand what changes needed to be made, there would have been no way he could actually implement them without risking the whole show.
The Problems
I humbly submit these as the key problems with Follies. Please note that these thoughts are largely derived from the edition of the play published by Theatre Communications Group after the 2001 revival, carrying a copyright date of 2001 by James Goldman. If you haven’t seen Follies, I highly recommend you pick up this relatively inexpensive book and read it as soon as you can. I know that there is an older edition published with the text of the original Broadway show. In my dream world, I would have copies of each libretto; however, right now I don’t, so my comments reflect the currently published edition.
First of all, as Steven Suskin points out in his Broadway Yearbook 2000-2001, the placement of Ben’s song as last and the show pivoting on his breakdown sort of makes him the main character. The problem is that the show isn’t about Ben Stone. Suskin does mention how the actress playing Phyllis Rogers Stone typically gets top billing, which would indicate Phyllis as the main character; however, billing isn’t always connected with the size of the role. For example, Dorothy Brock gets top billing in 42nd Street (and wins Leading Actress awards), but it is the character of Peggy Sawyer on which the major dramatic question of the show rests (and who gets the most stage time). This structural dilemma in Follies is understandable because of the stress in constructing the show. As Suskin points out, a show about follies girls should not be centered on a man. With this ending the show seems to be about Ben, but I don’t think the creative team could have done anything to set it up differently at that stage.
Secondly, the characters leave the reunion returning to their original spouses without there being any indication of their ability to do things differently. Each character goes through a moment of self reflection in the follies sequence’s songs, but they never come to a conclusion. For example, Phyllis identifies her problem, but there’s no resolve. The ending never indicates that Lucy and Jesse will finally combine. This makes for an unsatisfactory ending because the characters never really make a decision; their choices just seem to happen as if there’s nothing better to do. The audience cannot believe that these couples will be truly happy, and an unhappily ever after ending doesn’t comment on any other part of the show or fit into a grand thematic statement. There’s nothing elsewhere in the musical to suggest that there’s a good reason for them to have to be unhappy.
As I said earlier, when I left the theatre, I felt like I needed to read the ending to fully realize its deeper meaning. When I finally read the play, what I realized was that there were no deeper meanings to get. That’s because, again, the ending seems disconnected from the rest of the show.
Thirdly, the cause of all this mess is never entirely clear. It is known that Sally gave it out, so to speak, too quickly, and she even acknowledges this in her fight with Young Sally. However, why Ben picked Phyllis (who seems to have given it out as well) when he really loved Sally is never clear. And not only is it not clear, but it’s very important because Ben’s choice is the impetus for everyone’s regrets. This lack of meat in the flashback scenes robs the current plot of its substance. Number one, it makes the events seem more like those in a soap opera, and number two, the psychology of the characters that is so brilliantly depicted in the follies sequence lacks drive or substance.
One could carp about the lack of humor in the show, as Michael Bennett did, but to go through adding more zingers would tamper with Goldman’s style. Besides, as Foster Hirsch noted in his book Harold Prince and the American Musical Theatre (Expanded Edition), the original production wasn’t lit or set brightly enough for humor. It is my supposition that the show requires a darker set because of the nature of the characters’ struggles and the need to bathe the ghosts in a supernatural light, so adding humor to the libretto would also be somewhat futile.
Lastly, one could argue that the show never really says anything concretely, though the makings of some themes are present. It more so presents ideas—the futility of regret, the dangers of living in the past, the naiveté of youth, the nature of youthful marriage—without ever commenting on them (in the way that straights plays do, like The Crucible, A Raisin in the Sun, Death of Salesman, or Sweet Birth of Youth). Sondheim’s shows tend to contain a myriad of ideas, but Follies, by its serious nature, can’t remain observations, at least not in its current form. It needs to complete the statement its unique structure feels like its building to.
Some Fixes
Ideally, someone would be able to take Goldman’s book and, with a concrete driving theme in mind, restructure it to fit in all of Goldman’s original ideas and align them with Sondheim’s ideas without damaging Goldman’s tone and sensibilities. It would be a cut and paste job with many of the same scenes happening, perhaps just in a slightly different order.
As I outline some potential solutions, I do think it’s important to note that, without the ability to fully cut and paste, I don’t know if anyone could really build to a concrete driving theme. Still, I’d like to propose some fixes within Goldman’s current libretto.
The first big change needs to be a clarification of why Ben chose Phyllis when he clearly preferred Sally. It is made clear that Ben wants to be a big success, so perhaps there could be something that happens to indicate that while he loves Sally’s childlike nature, he wants to love Phyllis’s maturity and sophistication. In other words, he really prefers to shop at Wal-Mart, but he wants to want to shop at Macy’s because it’s classier. Ben’s desire to be rich and have the best is very clear, but the connection of his choice of Phyllis needs to be as clear as well.
There needs to be something in the follies sequence that allows the characters to make a choice that foreshadows/builds to the ending. It would be better to break concept and allow the audience to leave the theatre wholly satisfied than to hold rigidly to the concept and leave the audience cheated. In my mind, these choices look like this:
Buddy: In the final chorus of “The God-Why-Don’t-You-Love-Me Blues,” he sings it with caricatures of Margie and Sally. On the final line or note, perhaps he could dip Sally with a kiss, while Sally’s extended leg could kick Margie away. This would indicate his choice.
Sally: Sally is really in love with her personal rendering of Ben Stone. Her entire adult life has been whiled away reliving memories of a man who never was. When, at the end of “Losing My Mind,” she sings, “You said you loved me, / Or were you just being kind?” there should be a pause. A spotlight shines on Young Ben passionately making out with Young Phyllis in their follies costumes. Sally hears this behind her and reluctantly confronts the past she’s desperately tried to suppress. She looks back, finally sees the truth that she’s denied up until this point, then turns to the audience, belting, “Or am I losing my mind?”
Phyllis: In a change of the traditional staging, when the chorus boys come on to back Phyllis during “The Story of Lucy and Jesse,” a caricature of Lucy and Jesse also hit the stage. Choreography could echo the problem indicated in the story. In the final moment of the song, perhaps after its ended, Phyllis should take the hand of each caricature to indicate her desire to get them together quick. This could be done in the button of the song or as a bow after the music has ended.
Ben: I don’t think the idea of a breakdown fully suits the moment, particularly a breakdown of the evening’s events. If anything, the breakdown should consist of the Young counterparts re-singing their follies songs in a psychedelic manner, since it is the past that haunts him, not the other present-day characters.
I think it’s okay to end on Ben’s follies because it doesn’t have to be the climax of the show, and the truth is that the fate of the other three characters hinged on his choice of Phyllis back in the day. Because of this, their ability to overcome their present-day problems also hinges on his present-day choice.
In my mind, when the chorus keeps singing and he’s shouted out his whole “Look at me. I’m nothing” realization, the lights change instantly from follies to reunion, and Ben is left alone on stage, calling out Phyllis’s name with great panic.
The End: As Ben is silently, but with great panic, exiting the stage to find Phyllis before she leaves him, Sally enters. She calls out his name. He turns. She’s honest with him and makes the decision to not go with him, with which Ben eagerly agrees.
Buddy runs onstage and sees Sally with Ben. He pulls Sally aside and declares that he won’t let her leave with Ben. This is important because he needs to make the choice to pick Sally over Margie himself. Sally informs him that Ben was only a fantasy, maybe even saying that she just temporarily lost her mind (to tie the dream follies into real life). Now that Buddy is finally getting what’s he’s never been able to get, he realizes that he’s being confronted with his old problem (from his follies song). There’s a beat, a release. He hugs Sally to show that even though he’s got her, he still wants her. Perhaps Sally speaks a line about really loving Buddy, a gentle reflection on something endearing about him that she’s learned in the years since their youth, as if to say, “You were Plan B then, but now I see you were Plan A material all along.”
Some of the other characters come on for their final good-byes and reflections. Someone asks Ben where Phyllis went to, tells him to tell her it was great to see her again, and they leave. After these people exit, Ben is left alone. Young Ben comes behind him and calls out Phyllis’s name, surreptitiously as if in a scene from the past. Young Phyllis rushes on from the other side of the stage, whispering that it’s too late (as in, at night . . . but for the audience to understand differently in present context), for him to go home.
Then Phyllis re-enters through the theatre door. She calls out Ben’s name. The decision is now hers, and the climax rightfully rests on her shoulders. Perhaps a gentle “You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow” plays from the orchestra.
They key here is that Phyllis can no longer be the caustic, one-line hurling Phyllis of ten minutes ago. Lucy and Jessie have to take some steps toward combining. So she calls Ben’s name. Ben runs to her, saying his lines about “I need you, Phyl” and so on.
Young Ben would say something like, “Phyllis, please” to which Young Phyllis would respond, “Ben . . .”
One of Ben’s problems is that he feels unloved, and Phyllis has become “cold as a slab.” Phyllis isn’t going to feel comfortable enough to throw herself at Ben anymore, but it’s important to show that she’s willing to try, that they now have a chance to make it. Since Ben’s breakdown in “Live, Laugh, Love” has already happened, the audience can see his change of heart. Phyllis’s change needs to be made physical somehow.
So, awkwardly, Phyllis puts out her hand, clumsily caressing Ben’s shoulder. She looks at him a moment, then says, as the orchestra plays the orchestral “You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow,” “Come on, let’s get our coats.” At that, Young Phyllis runs into Ben’s arms, saying, “Oh, you know I can never resist you.” Phyllis and Ben exit, awkwardly holding hands, and the lights go out on the Young counterparts in embrace while the orchestra booms the final part of “You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow.”
So that’s how I would fix Follies. Though, maybe I’m losing my mind.
Broadway Mouth
June 27, 2007
When I walked into the Belasco Theatre on Wednesday, June 13, 2001, I was entirely clueless about Follies. By this point, I had seen quite a few Broadway tours, had been following Broadway online often, had been to New York once before where I had seen quite a few shows, and had gotten into the habit of buying Cast Recordings quite often. Yet, I didn’t know exactly what Follies was or how significant Sondheim is (trust me, I’ve since made up for it and then some).
But in seeing Follies for the first time, all that worked to my benefit because I also didn’t know how “Loveland” was supposed to look or how Phyllis was supposed to sing or how “I’m Still Here” was supposed to be staged or anything.
So that night when the lights went down . . . Oh, what a show!
Immediately when the ghosts of the follies past entered, I was captivated. They were humans on stage, but it really was as if they were from another world. As the story unfolded, I was stunned by the storytelling, the past commenting on the present, the present living in the past. I can still remember how my insides churned with excitement during “Who’s That Woman” and after that, how Polly Bergen stopped the show with “I’m Still Here” in the way that stars used to stop shows. Then came “Loveland,” and I just couldn’t get enough of those songs and what they were expressing and how. The entire evening was astounding, exciting, imagination-inspiring.
At the end of the night, I left the Belasco almost speechless. The story seemed like that of a straight play, but the music pulled it deeper psychologically. I wanted to get my hands on the libretto because I felt like I had been so dazzled that I needed to read the ending again to understand it all.
When I returned home, no matter how I tried, I couldn’t fully communicate to people the excitement that was Follies. Unless you see it for yourself or read the libretto with a vivid imagination, I don’t think an average person could fully grasp that show.
But now matter how excited I was about the show itself, the story that really piqued everyone’s interest happened at the stage door.
At this time, I was still waiting at the stage door to meet the stars of the shows I had seen. In this cast, I knew who Marge Champion was and knew who Betty Garret was from Laverne and Shirley. Marni Nixon I knew, as well as Treat Williams and Erin Dilly. But by the end of the show, I was a big fan of everyone involved and so desperately wanted to meet them. Unlike most other shows I had been to that week, only a small gaggle of fans gathered outside this theatre, but we still scrambled as each diva exited.
As if each performer wasn’t generating enough excitement, Blythe Danner walked out with daughter Gwyneth Paltrow (star of the movie Emma, which I love) beside her. Thankfully, people were very respectful, though, as you can imagine, excited to see such a film star. I was more interested in meeting her mother after such a riveting performance in a riveting show. I politely asked Ms. Danner if I could have my picture taken with her, and she said yes, but because I was alone, I didn’t have anyone to take the picture. Used to this, I turned to the people around me and said, “Could anyone take our picture?” to which a certain Academy-Award winning actress said shyly, raising her hand timidly, “I could.”
“Oh my gosh, I just had my picture taken by Gwyneth Paltrow!” I said after thanking Phyllis Rogers Stone for a spectacular performance and Gwyneth Paltrow for taking the picture. At that very moment, Marge Champion came out, so I let other people grab at the movie star while I met Ms. Champion who, for the record, is much sweeter in person than she is on stage in Elaine Stritch’s show.
When I got pictures with a few other stars from the show, I turned to see mother and daughter movie star walking down the street, knowing that now away from the stage door, they deserved their personal time without my interruption. I never regretted not getting my picture with her because, well, she wasn’t in the show. I am, after all, a movie fan who is a die hard Broadway baby.
For the record, Gwyneth Paltrow takes a very fine snapshot, and I’d sell my camera on eBay for oodles of money if I could prove her fingerprints were on it.
So anyway, about a year or so after seeing the show, I discovered that the Follies libretto was available and bought it.
It’s amazing how truthfully Follies deals with the issues of the past and our response to it. Every time I read it, I connect with the events and the characters more deeply. And the more people I know getting married, getting divorced, and even re-connecting after divorce, the more I can see how the show mirrors life.
Recently, I finally read Ted Chapin’s soon-to-be legendary book Everything Was Possible, in which he describes with great detail the laborious rehearsal period for the original Hal Prince/Michael Bennett production. In addition to being a fascinating read because it details the creation of Follies, it gives you a stripped-away, glam-less documentation of the making of a Broadway musical (which, for the record, has a great many similarities with directing plays at the high school level, which I found fascinating).
Reading it shed a great deal of light on why Follies is the way that it is, which is brilliant but, to my opinion, not perfect.
The Cause
As a writer, you generally have an idea of where you want your story to go. The journey getting there might be unclear, but you have a clear idea of where you want to go and how. You then build your work to ready your audience for that end.
The problem in the creation of Follies was that there were several key pieces missing from the plot puzzle for a significant portion of the rehearsal period. With the exception of “Losing My Mind,” the songs for the final follies sequence—“You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow,” “Love Will See Us Through,” “The God-Why-Don’t-You-Love-Me Blues,” “The Story of Lucy and Jesse,” and “Live, Laugh, Love” were not written. And Phyllis was actually set to sing “Losing My Mind.”
The older actors were really struggling with some of the material. In fact, Chapin says that, for the entire run of the show, several of them regularly botched their songs. “Who’s That Woman” was particularly challenging for the older women, and Michael Bennett and his team worked tirelessly with them to get it down. Because of that, can you imagine what it must have been like to have only begun to conquer all that dancing and music . . . then to be handed “The Story of Lucy and Jesse” or “The God-Why-Don’t-You-Love-Me Blues”? When reading Chapin’s book, by the time these songs are ready and the show is complete, you can almost feel the sigh of relief from everyone involved in the production just at the thought of having a complete show . . . and that’s without having the show entirely on its feet. There would have been no way to make major changes to the conclusion or to the opening without threatening the ability of the cast to pull it off. Also, I doubt there was time for anyone to really sit back and objectively observe and reflect on how the story came together and how it should be altered. The result was that the show never fully comes together thematically.
Unjustly, James Goldman tends to get much of the brunt of this criticism, but if you look at the timing when those songs were completed, the amount of work that was still before the cast, and the break-neck pace at which everyone was working . . . The guy deserves a break for even having had a chance to write anything for the actors to do after Ben’s breakdown. Even if he had had the time to understand what changes needed to be made, there would have been no way he could actually implement them without risking the whole show.
The Problems
I humbly submit these as the key problems with Follies. Please note that these thoughts are largely derived from the edition of the play published by Theatre Communications Group after the 2001 revival, carrying a copyright date of 2001 by James Goldman. If you haven’t seen Follies, I highly recommend you pick up this relatively inexpensive book and read it as soon as you can. I know that there is an older edition published with the text of the original Broadway show. In my dream world, I would have copies of each libretto; however, right now I don’t, so my comments reflect the currently published edition.
First of all, as Steven Suskin points out in his Broadway Yearbook 2000-2001, the placement of Ben’s song as last and the show pivoting on his breakdown sort of makes him the main character. The problem is that the show isn’t about Ben Stone. Suskin does mention how the actress playing Phyllis Rogers Stone typically gets top billing, which would indicate Phyllis as the main character; however, billing isn’t always connected with the size of the role. For example, Dorothy Brock gets top billing in 42nd Street (and wins Leading Actress awards), but it is the character of Peggy Sawyer on which the major dramatic question of the show rests (and who gets the most stage time). This structural dilemma in Follies is understandable because of the stress in constructing the show. As Suskin points out, a show about follies girls should not be centered on a man. With this ending the show seems to be about Ben, but I don’t think the creative team could have done anything to set it up differently at that stage.
Secondly, the characters leave the reunion returning to their original spouses without there being any indication of their ability to do things differently. Each character goes through a moment of self reflection in the follies sequence’s songs, but they never come to a conclusion. For example, Phyllis identifies her problem, but there’s no resolve. The ending never indicates that Lucy and Jesse will finally combine. This makes for an unsatisfactory ending because the characters never really make a decision; their choices just seem to happen as if there’s nothing better to do. The audience cannot believe that these couples will be truly happy, and an unhappily ever after ending doesn’t comment on any other part of the show or fit into a grand thematic statement. There’s nothing elsewhere in the musical to suggest that there’s a good reason for them to have to be unhappy.
As I said earlier, when I left the theatre, I felt like I needed to read the ending to fully realize its deeper meaning. When I finally read the play, what I realized was that there were no deeper meanings to get. That’s because, again, the ending seems disconnected from the rest of the show.
Thirdly, the cause of all this mess is never entirely clear. It is known that Sally gave it out, so to speak, too quickly, and she even acknowledges this in her fight with Young Sally. However, why Ben picked Phyllis (who seems to have given it out as well) when he really loved Sally is never clear. And not only is it not clear, but it’s very important because Ben’s choice is the impetus for everyone’s regrets. This lack of meat in the flashback scenes robs the current plot of its substance. Number one, it makes the events seem more like those in a soap opera, and number two, the psychology of the characters that is so brilliantly depicted in the follies sequence lacks drive or substance.
One could carp about the lack of humor in the show, as Michael Bennett did, but to go through adding more zingers would tamper with Goldman’s style. Besides, as Foster Hirsch noted in his book Harold Prince and the American Musical Theatre (Expanded Edition), the original production wasn’t lit or set brightly enough for humor. It is my supposition that the show requires a darker set because of the nature of the characters’ struggles and the need to bathe the ghosts in a supernatural light, so adding humor to the libretto would also be somewhat futile.
Lastly, one could argue that the show never really says anything concretely, though the makings of some themes are present. It more so presents ideas—the futility of regret, the dangers of living in the past, the naiveté of youth, the nature of youthful marriage—without ever commenting on them (in the way that straights plays do, like The Crucible, A Raisin in the Sun, Death of Salesman, or Sweet Birth of Youth). Sondheim’s shows tend to contain a myriad of ideas, but Follies, by its serious nature, can’t remain observations, at least not in its current form. It needs to complete the statement its unique structure feels like its building to.
Some Fixes
Ideally, someone would be able to take Goldman’s book and, with a concrete driving theme in mind, restructure it to fit in all of Goldman’s original ideas and align them with Sondheim’s ideas without damaging Goldman’s tone and sensibilities. It would be a cut and paste job with many of the same scenes happening, perhaps just in a slightly different order.
As I outline some potential solutions, I do think it’s important to note that, without the ability to fully cut and paste, I don’t know if anyone could really build to a concrete driving theme. Still, I’d like to propose some fixes within Goldman’s current libretto.
The first big change needs to be a clarification of why Ben chose Phyllis when he clearly preferred Sally. It is made clear that Ben wants to be a big success, so perhaps there could be something that happens to indicate that while he loves Sally’s childlike nature, he wants to love Phyllis’s maturity and sophistication. In other words, he really prefers to shop at Wal-Mart, but he wants to want to shop at Macy’s because it’s classier. Ben’s desire to be rich and have the best is very clear, but the connection of his choice of Phyllis needs to be as clear as well.
There needs to be something in the follies sequence that allows the characters to make a choice that foreshadows/builds to the ending. It would be better to break concept and allow the audience to leave the theatre wholly satisfied than to hold rigidly to the concept and leave the audience cheated. In my mind, these choices look like this:
Buddy: In the final chorus of “The God-Why-Don’t-You-Love-Me Blues,” he sings it with caricatures of Margie and Sally. On the final line or note, perhaps he could dip Sally with a kiss, while Sally’s extended leg could kick Margie away. This would indicate his choice.
Sally: Sally is really in love with her personal rendering of Ben Stone. Her entire adult life has been whiled away reliving memories of a man who never was. When, at the end of “Losing My Mind,” she sings, “You said you loved me, / Or were you just being kind?” there should be a pause. A spotlight shines on Young Ben passionately making out with Young Phyllis in their follies costumes. Sally hears this behind her and reluctantly confronts the past she’s desperately tried to suppress. She looks back, finally sees the truth that she’s denied up until this point, then turns to the audience, belting, “Or am I losing my mind?”
Phyllis: In a change of the traditional staging, when the chorus boys come on to back Phyllis during “The Story of Lucy and Jesse,” a caricature of Lucy and Jesse also hit the stage. Choreography could echo the problem indicated in the story. In the final moment of the song, perhaps after its ended, Phyllis should take the hand of each caricature to indicate her desire to get them together quick. This could be done in the button of the song or as a bow after the music has ended.
Ben: I don’t think the idea of a breakdown fully suits the moment, particularly a breakdown of the evening’s events. If anything, the breakdown should consist of the Young counterparts re-singing their follies songs in a psychedelic manner, since it is the past that haunts him, not the other present-day characters.
I think it’s okay to end on Ben’s follies because it doesn’t have to be the climax of the show, and the truth is that the fate of the other three characters hinged on his choice of Phyllis back in the day. Because of this, their ability to overcome their present-day problems also hinges on his present-day choice.
In my mind, when the chorus keeps singing and he’s shouted out his whole “Look at me. I’m nothing” realization, the lights change instantly from follies to reunion, and Ben is left alone on stage, calling out Phyllis’s name with great panic.
The End: As Ben is silently, but with great panic, exiting the stage to find Phyllis before she leaves him, Sally enters. She calls out his name. He turns. She’s honest with him and makes the decision to not go with him, with which Ben eagerly agrees.
Buddy runs onstage and sees Sally with Ben. He pulls Sally aside and declares that he won’t let her leave with Ben. This is important because he needs to make the choice to pick Sally over Margie himself. Sally informs him that Ben was only a fantasy, maybe even saying that she just temporarily lost her mind (to tie the dream follies into real life). Now that Buddy is finally getting what’s he’s never been able to get, he realizes that he’s being confronted with his old problem (from his follies song). There’s a beat, a release. He hugs Sally to show that even though he’s got her, he still wants her. Perhaps Sally speaks a line about really loving Buddy, a gentle reflection on something endearing about him that she’s learned in the years since their youth, as if to say, “You were Plan B then, but now I see you were Plan A material all along.”
Some of the other characters come on for their final good-byes and reflections. Someone asks Ben where Phyllis went to, tells him to tell her it was great to see her again, and they leave. After these people exit, Ben is left alone. Young Ben comes behind him and calls out Phyllis’s name, surreptitiously as if in a scene from the past. Young Phyllis rushes on from the other side of the stage, whispering that it’s too late (as in, at night . . . but for the audience to understand differently in present context), for him to go home.
Then Phyllis re-enters through the theatre door. She calls out Ben’s name. The decision is now hers, and the climax rightfully rests on her shoulders. Perhaps a gentle “You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow” plays from the orchestra.
They key here is that Phyllis can no longer be the caustic, one-line hurling Phyllis of ten minutes ago. Lucy and Jessie have to take some steps toward combining. So she calls Ben’s name. Ben runs to her, saying his lines about “I need you, Phyl” and so on.
Young Ben would say something like, “Phyllis, please” to which Young Phyllis would respond, “Ben . . .”
One of Ben’s problems is that he feels unloved, and Phyllis has become “cold as a slab.” Phyllis isn’t going to feel comfortable enough to throw herself at Ben anymore, but it’s important to show that she’s willing to try, that they now have a chance to make it. Since Ben’s breakdown in “Live, Laugh, Love” has already happened, the audience can see his change of heart. Phyllis’s change needs to be made physical somehow.
So, awkwardly, Phyllis puts out her hand, clumsily caressing Ben’s shoulder. She looks at him a moment, then says, as the orchestra plays the orchestral “You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow,” “Come on, let’s get our coats.” At that, Young Phyllis runs into Ben’s arms, saying, “Oh, you know I can never resist you.” Phyllis and Ben exit, awkwardly holding hands, and the lights go out on the Young counterparts in embrace while the orchestra booms the final part of “You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow.”
So that’s how I would fix Follies. Though, maybe I’m losing my mind.
Broadway Mouth
June 27, 2007
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Give Them What They Want / Za Ba Zoovee
Originally posted June 12, 2007
My favorite entry in The TheaterMania Guide to Musical Theater Recordings has to be David Barbour’s summary of the plot of Aida.
My favorite entry in The TheaterMania Guide to Musical Theater Recordings has to be David Barbour’s summary of the plot of Aida.
After subduing the nation of Nubia, Radames brings back the Princess Aida (Heather Headley), with whom he promptly falls in love. The three of them proceed to scream their heads off for two acts—lamenting cruel fate, etc., etc.
Perhaps Al Hirschfeld, who was alive to see so much of American theatre in the past century, said it best in the great PBS documentary Broadway: The American Musical when he observed that the “form changes, and that’s difficult for a lot of people to accept. They’re stuck on one period, and they think that’s the period that’s important . . . It changes, and you have to roll with the punches, I think.”
What led to Broadway’s need for life support, as Elaine Stritch called it in the Rick McKay film Broadway: The Golden Age, was not because America fell out of step with the Broadway musical. Instead, as Frank Rich states in the PBS documentary, “Broadway was basically trying to ignore the 60s . . . [and the] Broadway musical [fell] out of sync with pop culture.”
Yes, we need to remind ourselves, Broadway used to be part of pop culture. Broadway albums would be purchased by people all over the country and hit high on the sales charts, much like if the Grey Gardens CD was right up there with Rihanna’s latest success in today’s terms.
Not only was it popular, but some songs were often written to be pop hits. For example, “Hey, There” was intended to be heard outside of The Pajama Game. Its lyrics were made specific to the character but general enough to reach a wide audience to promote the show, and it was skillfully reprised in the second act to reinforce its sell-ability. “If I Ever I Would Leave You” was played on the radio.
Broadway was also talked about and written about. Shows and their stars made the covers of major magazines. It was not uncommon to see performances on variety shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show. And even a mildly successful show, like The Unsinkable Molly Brown or Silk Stockings, made it to Hollywood.
So what’s wrong with Broadway catching up with the times?
Let me state that I agree that there is room for all sorts of different musicals—musical comedies, musical plays, pop operas, rock musicals, deconstructed musicals, linear musicals, and whatever else may arrive on the scene. Of my first three shows I’d like to see on a Broadway stage, none of them are pop or rock or anything threatening like that. But I don’t know why Broadway critics act as if shows like The Pirate Queen can’t coincide with shows like The Drowsy Chaperone. That really annoys me.
Part of the problem is that the average theatre-goer and critic is out of touch with the times. If you grew up with A Chorus Line being the ideal musical and that musical style defining what Broadway music should be, then how can you possibly connect with other styles of music that are currently on the scene or will come on the scene in years to come?
For example, if I listen to rap music, I can probably identify 1/19 of the words; however, if I bought several rap CDs, before long I’d be in the 18/19 range. My lack of understanding or appreciation of rap music doesn’t negate its nuances any more than a rap artist’s lack of understanding or appreciation of a Broadway ballad from the 1950s doesn’t negate its nuances. It’s more to do with the listener than the artist.
In his thought-provoking book The Happiest Corpse I’ve Ever Seen, Ethan Mordden laments the popification of Broadway with shows like Jekyll and Hyde, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and Hairspray (see: Note), arguing that pop music cannot be character specific. Perhaps it’s just that some critics don’t have an ear for the sound.
Several years ago, I heard a rock band at a free concert, and I immediately fell in love with their music. I have since expanded my listening to a variety of other bands, and what was once noise to me is now music. There are rock songs of all sorts and of all emotions. Rock didn’t all of a sudden become high quality—I just caught up with that boat. Now I could appreciate a rock show much more than I could have ten years ago.
Broadway is essentially a pop art, so why it doesn’t welcome pop music forms strikes me as a discordant note. If a show like Spring Awakening could get a song on the radio—either performed by one of its stars or covered by a hot act—it wouldn’t have needed eight Tonys to stay afloat. Even a show like The Wedding Singer, if the song were made into a contemporary pop song with some more generalized lyric alterations, could get “Right in Front of Your Eyes” or “If I Told You” on the radio. Not only would the show probably still be running, but it would attract a wider audience to Broadway shows in general and to tours. Get them once, and you’ll hook them for life.
That is not to say pop forms of music shouldn’t be held to the same standards. Yes, it should be character specific. Yes, the lyrics should have exact rhymes and be poetic. Yes, it should service story, character, and plot.
When Brooklyn came on tour, I took my godson to see it. Even though it was not a great show in terms of plot, he loved it. He’s a very intelligent young man; it’s just that the music spoke to him. It sounded something like the stuff on his iPod. To David Barbour, Diana DeGarmo might have been screaming, but to my godson and to me, it was awesome, power belting much like contemporary music stars do. It’s different than Rebecca Luker stepping out and hitting high notes at the end of “My White Knight,” but that doesn’t mean it’s not as good. It’s just different.
Jekyll and Hyde is one of the few shows in the past decade with original scores that have found life beyond its stage origins. Perhaps the lyrics aren’t Cole Porter, but it seems like most people criticize the show’s music for its pop aspirations. Well, shame on Frank Wildhorn for trying to reach a contemporary audience. How dare he! Memo to me: Put an end to that ASAP.
Let’s get on to more important shows like The Drowsy Chaperone, with its admittedly well-deserved Tony for Best Score. I can’t wait until I see kids singing “Fancy Dress” at their school’s variety show.
A lot of people like power belting. That’s what made Kelly Clarkson a favorite, put Whitney Houston on the map, and allowed Celine Dion to sell album after album after album until she was a gazillionaire. Perhaps Michael John LaChiusa (from his Opera News article) doesn’t care for power belting, but listen to an audience cheer after an actress “hollers an incomprehensible” rendition of “Defying Gravity” at the end of Act I in Wicked. That speaks for itself.
Broadway musicals are in such a vulnerable position. A film or television show can survive disastrous reviews. If movies survived like Broadway shows, National Treasure would have been a huge disaster. But sadly, the costs of attending shows on Broadway or on tour are such that audiences have to observe the reviews. The average theatre-goer isn’t attuned to any potential bias against non-Sondheim types of music, so when they read that a show like The Scarlet Pimpernel or Jane Eyre or Side Show is bad, they don’t risk their hard-earned money to see it.
Aida survived because it was Elton John and Disney. I love Aida. For the record, between Broadway and the tour, I saw it three times, and when I took a group of students and teachers to go, they all loved every minute of it. Watch an average person talk about their fondness for Les Miserables. Ask some theatre kids in Chugwater, Texas, and they’ll sing to you five or six songs from Wicked. Too bad none of them know how incomprehensible it is.
According to Steven Suskin in his awesome book Broadway Yearbook 1999-2000, six out of ten of the major critics panned Aida. Suskin himself states that “[n]othing in Aida was quite enough to impel you toward the Palace—Amneris’s or the Nederlanders’.” Perhaps if there had been something to impel you toward the Palace—obviously the Tony-award winning score, Henry David Hwang’s revised book, Heather Headley, Adam Pascal, Sherie Rene Scott, Matt Bogart, Simone, Will Chase, Merle Dandridge for one performance, Idina Menzel, Mandy Gonzalez, Maya Days, Wayne Cilento’s choreography, Bob Crowley’s sets and costumes, and Natasha Katz’s lighting simply weren’t enough—it might actually have run, right?
Broadway Mouth
June 12, 2007
Note: For the record, I vote that a show containing pop music over forty years old should officially be labeled pastiche because nothing like “You Can’t Stop the Beat” has been popular since Johnny Angel got Peggy Sue pregnant after prom. I know Mordden would probably call me stupid for saying this (or perhaps a purveyor of stupid shows), but I don’t see how much different this is from the music of Thoroughly Modern Millie, a show he generally enjoyed, which utilizes pop music from 77+ years ago.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
If They Could See You Now
Originally Posted June 22, 2007
Beth Leavel as the Drowsy Chaperone. Laura Benanti as Julia Sullivan. Sutton Foster as Eponine. Simone as Aida. Three significant characters in The Color Purple last August.
Yeah, I’ve got my fair share of those pesty little slips of paper saved in my Playbills to remember who I really saw in the role as opposed to who was originally listed. Sometimes it’s not a big deal. Like when you don’t know who Renee Elise Goldsberry is from Wilhema Van Butternose. Other times, it is a big deal—it’s someone you’ve seen before, read about, or has won a Tony—and you want to see that person in that role.
Truth be told, only a few times have I been sorely disappointed in seeing the understudies. At two different occasions, for example, I saw understudies for either of the Thenardiers, and they lacked either the vocal chops or the comedic skills to do justice to the roles; that was quite disappointing. But other times . . . You know, you can’t complain when you see Kenita R. Miller as Nettie or JoAnn M. Hunter as Lois Lane. And I still remember, quite vividly, how understudy Leslie Hendrix turned Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn into a comedic tour de force that made me howl in the Susan Stroman revival of The Music Man.
This understudy thing has become quite the issue of discussion. There are certain stars whom you hear repeatedly missing shows, either for known causes, such as illnesses, or for reasons up for gossip.
I love seeing Kaye Ballard discuss this shift in the times in Rick McKay’s Broadway: The Golden Age, saying that when she was in The Pirates of Penzance in 1982, “it was a joke! Every night it sounded like Nurse Ratched. ‘This one will be out, that one will be out, this one will be out. Someone’s breaking in a new pair of shoes; they’re not coming in tonight’ . . . I never saw anything like it.” In her sixteen months in Carnival!, she missed one performance when she had a temp of 104. Similarly, Carol Channing has been infamous for missing only one performance as Dolly Levi in her entire career, a result of food poisoning, but still going on to perform through cancer treatments, broken bones, and all sorts of illnesses. Ethel Merman was another star known for never missing performances.
While we should look back to see the examples set for us, it’s also important to note that there is a shift and that there are also several other factors going on.
First of all, times are different. The older generation in general valued work above all. I grew up in the generation of day care, latchkey kids, and two parents working. Quality family time was replaced with quality family purchases. It was the norm to put family first by putting work before family time.
I don’t think we can criticize people for choosing some things, like their children, over a performance. Twenty years from now, the applause will be history, but those children will live on, better people for having their parents there when they were needed. Those kids will fondly look back on vacation times taken with their parents and Thanksgiving dinners spent together, with an understudy going on for dad. I think, as a culture, we learned from the mistakes of our parents, and we’ve reacted to that. You hear about how people in general are working fewer hours and are sacrificing job for family in other professions—why not on Broadway? Who knows what mysterious reason people are out of shows—How do we know that there’s not a child going through rehab or a friend going through cancer who needs help?
And sometimes you hear of people taking time off to see a spouse’s concert or to take advantage of another opportunity. Ideally for their fans, their priorities would be the show, but . . . even Broadway stars are people. How can we criticize the value-based personal choices people make in such a situation? You shouldn’t have to sacrifice your marriage to be on Broadway. People did it in the good old days, but that doesn’t mean it was the right decision.
The requirements of roles have changed considerably as well. In the bonus features on the Rick McKay film, Ruthie Henshall jokes about the vocal ranges that stars are expected to have these days. Yes, stars back in the days didn’t have amplification, so they were still working hard, but I have a feeling that Sally Adams in Call Me Madam, for example, is half as vocally demanding as Brooklyn, Jekyll and Hyde, or Elphaba. You never heard Mary Martin mention almost passing out after singing “Do-Re-Mi” in The Sound of Music like Heather Headley talked about in Aida. The roles have changed, and the requirements to do those roles have changed as well.
This past winter, I, who never get sick, managed to catch every germ in circulation. I remember thinking, “What if I was on Broadway . . . Could I really get myself on stage to play even Corny Collins?” Once or twice, the answer would have been no.
But, a-ha, there’s also a flip side to all this. One of the big complaints of people interviewed in Broadway: The Golden Age and David Wienir and Jodie Langel’s book Making It on Broadway is the lack of Broadway star status on Broadway today. In the old days, people knew who Mary Martin, Janis Paige, John Raitt, and Alfred Drake were. Stunt casting consisted of Carol Channing as Ruth Sherwood in Wonderful Town, and a lesser name like Gretchen Wyler could be Lola once Gwen Verdon exited Damn Yankees.
The multiple-absence problem plays a hand in this. Actors become well-known when masses of people see them shining. It’s pretty hard for that to happen when you miss every other Saturday performance. Your producers can’t afford to have the audience too excited to see you in a show when, four months into the run, you’re gone for a week of vacation. When you acknowledge your own insignificance in the show by being gone often, then why should anyone else lift you up?
If you want to make a name for yourself, then you have to make choices. Even if you’re an un-famous Belle in Beauty and the Beast, that’s a chance to make a name for yourself. And though 98% of the audience will leave the theatre not knowing you, even if a few theatre people and those little girls waiting at the stage door walk out with your name permanently imprinted on their minds, you’re a step closer to being a star. I don’t know who was supposed to be Mayor Shinn’s wife in The Music Man that night, but I walked out knowing the great talent that is Leslie Hendrix. Honestly, if the sitcom I wrote had been produced, Leslie Hendrix would have been on my mind.
Being in show business is like being in any other business—you have to be scrappy and you can’t be successful unless you are going after every last dime. McDonald’s, for example, advertises its coffee. Coffee! The same thing you can buy anywhere for cheap, and McDonald’s spends millions to remind people that they have it. Eddie Bauer trains its employees to ask customers if they want socks or belts when they check out. Success comes in not missing a single opportunity, and on Broadway, one of the biggest opportunities is gaining fans.
I would have been sorely disappointed if I had gone to Tarzan and Merle Dandridge had been out. This is a business where you can’t afford to disappoint fans. It’s not movies where people can watch you do your thing a million times; you may have only a few chances to win that fan. If they come to see you in your show and you are gone, there’s a good chance they won’t have the money or chance to see you again. The bond will be broken.
Every missed performance is a missed opportunity, and a Broadway performer needs to weigh what’s important. If we don’t have more Broadway stars, that is partially because we don’t have enough people demanding that they be. I can’t imagine Gwen Verdon being in a show that lasts two months and having given her understudy a chance to steal that spotlight.
And really, maybe we should thank God we don’t have as many of those stars. I must admit that there are some shows where, if the audience were there for names, there’d be big refund lines every night.
Again, if people don’t see you, they’re not going to remember you. If you don’t value your own star presence, nobody else will acknowledge it either.
I still wish I had seen Beth Leavel. And I’m awful glad I got to see Marin Mazzie before she went on vacation. And how thankful I am that the night I saw Wicked Stephanie J. Block didn’t have the flu.
Still, I don’t know if we can ever judge people for the career choices they make. Why should making it to three performances in a Broadway show be any more important than being there for your children or supporting your spouse? How can I say whether someone’s flu or ankle pain or headache isn’t a good enough excuse? For me, what it comes down to is that Broadway stars are people, and their personal needs are no more or less important than mine.
Broadway Mouth
March 10, 2009
Beth Leavel as the Drowsy Chaperone. Laura Benanti as Julia Sullivan. Sutton Foster as Eponine. Simone as Aida. Three significant characters in The Color Purple last August.
Yeah, I’ve got my fair share of those pesty little slips of paper saved in my Playbills to remember who I really saw in the role as opposed to who was originally listed. Sometimes it’s not a big deal. Like when you don’t know who Renee Elise Goldsberry is from Wilhema Van Butternose. Other times, it is a big deal—it’s someone you’ve seen before, read about, or has won a Tony—and you want to see that person in that role.
Truth be told, only a few times have I been sorely disappointed in seeing the understudies. At two different occasions, for example, I saw understudies for either of the Thenardiers, and they lacked either the vocal chops or the comedic skills to do justice to the roles; that was quite disappointing. But other times . . . You know, you can’t complain when you see Kenita R. Miller as Nettie or JoAnn M. Hunter as Lois Lane. And I still remember, quite vividly, how understudy Leslie Hendrix turned Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn into a comedic tour de force that made me howl in the Susan Stroman revival of The Music Man.
This understudy thing has become quite the issue of discussion. There are certain stars whom you hear repeatedly missing shows, either for known causes, such as illnesses, or for reasons up for gossip.
I love seeing Kaye Ballard discuss this shift in the times in Rick McKay’s Broadway: The Golden Age, saying that when she was in The Pirates of Penzance in 1982, “it was a joke! Every night it sounded like Nurse Ratched. ‘This one will be out, that one will be out, this one will be out. Someone’s breaking in a new pair of shoes; they’re not coming in tonight’ . . . I never saw anything like it.” In her sixteen months in Carnival!, she missed one performance when she had a temp of 104. Similarly, Carol Channing has been infamous for missing only one performance as Dolly Levi in her entire career, a result of food poisoning, but still going on to perform through cancer treatments, broken bones, and all sorts of illnesses. Ethel Merman was another star known for never missing performances.
While we should look back to see the examples set for us, it’s also important to note that there is a shift and that there are also several other factors going on.
First of all, times are different. The older generation in general valued work above all. I grew up in the generation of day care, latchkey kids, and two parents working. Quality family time was replaced with quality family purchases. It was the norm to put family first by putting work before family time.
I don’t think we can criticize people for choosing some things, like their children, over a performance. Twenty years from now, the applause will be history, but those children will live on, better people for having their parents there when they were needed. Those kids will fondly look back on vacation times taken with their parents and Thanksgiving dinners spent together, with an understudy going on for dad. I think, as a culture, we learned from the mistakes of our parents, and we’ve reacted to that. You hear about how people in general are working fewer hours and are sacrificing job for family in other professions—why not on Broadway? Who knows what mysterious reason people are out of shows—How do we know that there’s not a child going through rehab or a friend going through cancer who needs help?
And sometimes you hear of people taking time off to see a spouse’s concert or to take advantage of another opportunity. Ideally for their fans, their priorities would be the show, but . . . even Broadway stars are people. How can we criticize the value-based personal choices people make in such a situation? You shouldn’t have to sacrifice your marriage to be on Broadway. People did it in the good old days, but that doesn’t mean it was the right decision.
The requirements of roles have changed considerably as well. In the bonus features on the Rick McKay film, Ruthie Henshall jokes about the vocal ranges that stars are expected to have these days. Yes, stars back in the days didn’t have amplification, so they were still working hard, but I have a feeling that Sally Adams in Call Me Madam, for example, is half as vocally demanding as Brooklyn, Jekyll and Hyde, or Elphaba. You never heard Mary Martin mention almost passing out after singing “Do-Re-Mi” in The Sound of Music like Heather Headley talked about in Aida. The roles have changed, and the requirements to do those roles have changed as well.
This past winter, I, who never get sick, managed to catch every germ in circulation. I remember thinking, “What if I was on Broadway . . . Could I really get myself on stage to play even Corny Collins?” Once or twice, the answer would have been no.
But, a-ha, there’s also a flip side to all this. One of the big complaints of people interviewed in Broadway: The Golden Age and David Wienir and Jodie Langel’s book Making It on Broadway is the lack of Broadway star status on Broadway today. In the old days, people knew who Mary Martin, Janis Paige, John Raitt, and Alfred Drake were. Stunt casting consisted of Carol Channing as Ruth Sherwood in Wonderful Town, and a lesser name like Gretchen Wyler could be Lola once Gwen Verdon exited Damn Yankees.
The multiple-absence problem plays a hand in this. Actors become well-known when masses of people see them shining. It’s pretty hard for that to happen when you miss every other Saturday performance. Your producers can’t afford to have the audience too excited to see you in a show when, four months into the run, you’re gone for a week of vacation. When you acknowledge your own insignificance in the show by being gone often, then why should anyone else lift you up?
If you want to make a name for yourself, then you have to make choices. Even if you’re an un-famous Belle in Beauty and the Beast, that’s a chance to make a name for yourself. And though 98% of the audience will leave the theatre not knowing you, even if a few theatre people and those little girls waiting at the stage door walk out with your name permanently imprinted on their minds, you’re a step closer to being a star. I don’t know who was supposed to be Mayor Shinn’s wife in The Music Man that night, but I walked out knowing the great talent that is Leslie Hendrix. Honestly, if the sitcom I wrote had been produced, Leslie Hendrix would have been on my mind.
Being in show business is like being in any other business—you have to be scrappy and you can’t be successful unless you are going after every last dime. McDonald’s, for example, advertises its coffee. Coffee! The same thing you can buy anywhere for cheap, and McDonald’s spends millions to remind people that they have it. Eddie Bauer trains its employees to ask customers if they want socks or belts when they check out. Success comes in not missing a single opportunity, and on Broadway, one of the biggest opportunities is gaining fans.
I would have been sorely disappointed if I had gone to Tarzan and Merle Dandridge had been out. This is a business where you can’t afford to disappoint fans. It’s not movies where people can watch you do your thing a million times; you may have only a few chances to win that fan. If they come to see you in your show and you are gone, there’s a good chance they won’t have the money or chance to see you again. The bond will be broken.
Every missed performance is a missed opportunity, and a Broadway performer needs to weigh what’s important. If we don’t have more Broadway stars, that is partially because we don’t have enough people demanding that they be. I can’t imagine Gwen Verdon being in a show that lasts two months and having given her understudy a chance to steal that spotlight.
And really, maybe we should thank God we don’t have as many of those stars. I must admit that there are some shows where, if the audience were there for names, there’d be big refund lines every night.
Again, if people don’t see you, they’re not going to remember you. If you don’t value your own star presence, nobody else will acknowledge it either.
I still wish I had seen Beth Leavel. And I’m awful glad I got to see Marin Mazzie before she went on vacation. And how thankful I am that the night I saw Wicked Stephanie J. Block didn’t have the flu.
Still, I don’t know if we can ever judge people for the career choices they make. Why should making it to three performances in a Broadway show be any more important than being there for your children or supporting your spouse? How can I say whether someone’s flu or ankle pain or headache isn’t a good enough excuse? For me, what it comes down to is that Broadway stars are people, and their personal needs are no more or less important than mine.
Broadway Mouth
March 10, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Revival Time
Dear Readers,
I'm trying to find more time in my week to work on my novel, which means that I'm going to take a short break from blogging for about a month or so in order to revise. Some weeks, I can spend as much as five or six hours writing these blogs, and I need to use that time to revise my novel.
Until I return (though you never know when a new blog entry might pop up), I will be reviving some of my favorite columns from the past twenty months. I pour so much into some of these, I've always thought it a shame that most of them will never be read much after they were originally posted. I guess this is a good remedy to that.
I hope you will all bear with me until my return. I love my blog audience, but I also need to be proactive in pursuing all avenues available to reach my ultimate end, publication and production. To quote myself, "Could you imagine if Nicholas Sparks, John Grisham, or Amy Tan wanted to write a Broadway musical? Yeah, skip the overture and go directly to the eleven o'clock number, that's what would happen."
In the meantime, if anyone out there has any knowledge of what to do to pursue publication, I would appreciate any insight! I followed every wrong path to production, so I'd appreciate any mentorship from someone who knows. You can leave feedback here anonymously, or you can email me at broadwayloudmouth@yahoo.com.
the Broadway Mouth
March 9, 2009
I'm trying to find more time in my week to work on my novel, which means that I'm going to take a short break from blogging for about a month or so in order to revise. Some weeks, I can spend as much as five or six hours writing these blogs, and I need to use that time to revise my novel.
Until I return (though you never know when a new blog entry might pop up), I will be reviving some of my favorite columns from the past twenty months. I pour so much into some of these, I've always thought it a shame that most of them will never be read much after they were originally posted. I guess this is a good remedy to that.
I hope you will all bear with me until my return. I love my blog audience, but I also need to be proactive in pursuing all avenues available to reach my ultimate end, publication and production. To quote myself, "Could you imagine if Nicholas Sparks, John Grisham, or Amy Tan wanted to write a Broadway musical? Yeah, skip the overture and go directly to the eleven o'clock number, that's what would happen."
In the meantime, if anyone out there has any knowledge of what to do to pursue publication, I would appreciate any insight! I followed every wrong path to production, so I'd appreciate any mentorship from someone who knows. You can leave feedback here anonymously, or you can email me at broadwayloudmouth@yahoo.com.
the Broadway Mouth
March 9, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
