I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about theatre that started off simple enough with us talking about our absolute confusion of Cats and all of the success it's had. Both of us have seen this show and neither of us can come up with a sound theory as to why it's a phenomenon. I don't know about her, but I have never had a conversation with someone about this show and the other person think it’s a good show. She then made a comment about how she doesn’t understand Andrew Lloyd Webber beyond The Phantom of the Opera and that she couldn’t understand how Love Never Dies even became anything.
This made me think about what I believe to be an actual issue on Broadway: a lack of an original thought. To my friend and myself, Love Never Dies was just really bad fan fiction. It was a sequel to The Phantom of the Opera and it was, I assume, Andrew Lloyd Webber deciding that he didn’t like the way Gaston Leroux ended the novel, seeing that there were so many #TeamPhantom fans, and realizing that he was going to have an audience regardless. This is the man who basically ran both the West End and Broadway in the 80’s and people tend to bow down to him, he was knighted for God’s sake. Because of this, Andrew Lloyd Webber is surrounded by “Yes Men” who I’m sure tell him everything he does is great... and not all of it is.
Now, this isn’t supposed to be an Andrew Lloyd Webber rant, though that could be a whole other post, but not this one. This post is about the current lack of creativity happening on Broadway.
Why is it that the last few years, Broadway has been absolutely FILLED with adaptations? Why is it that an original story is so hard to find? Everything is either a movie, book, or biography. And yes, of course these all are great shows, but as great as they are, I can’t help but feel these are all a tiny bit of a cheat. In 2012 and 2013, every single musical nominated for Best Musical at the Tony Awards was an adaptation. Granted, they were all, well mostly, amazing. I love Newsies, Kinky Boots, Once, etc. but they were all based on something, making them not an original concept.
What does this say about theatre, then? Are producers afraid of the audiences? Are the audiences afraid to take risks? Yes, of course producers want a success, and they see and understand that audiences want to make a safe choice with the one show they see while on vacation, so they produce shows that tourists will know they’ll like. This is one of the reasons why The Lion King is so popular. Everyone loves Disney, and The Lion King is such a success with both kids and parents. The thing is, it was already a musical so a stage adaptation wasn't such a far fetched idea.
It’s not hard to understand that producers want to have a successful show. Its also not hard to understand that Broadway is expensive and a lot of families cannot afford to attend more than one Broadway show. Because of this, the families want to make sure that the show they are seeing is going to be something they’ll enjoy. Seeing a show where they know the basic storyline and characters is one way to do that. But for a lot of these families, Broadway is an afterthought. It's an "Oh I'm in New York, I should see a Broadway show," kind of thing where they then buy tickets to shows that have been around for years and years rather than giving new works a chance. Not everyone who visits New York is there with the intention of seeing as many Broadway shows as possible. Not everyone is me.
In recent years, the Broadway audience has been comprised of a lot of tourist. Two-thirds to be more specific. That is a hell of a lot. Is Broadway becoming less about the actual art form of theatre and more about a tourist destination? Are Broadway producers producing shows they think tourists will like? If that is what's happening, then I’m not sure that is the best direction. This raises an interesting idea: If we make theatre for tourists who themselves are not regular theatre goers, then theatre will start to be shaped by people who do not know what they are doing.
I remember when The Bridges of Madison County closed (and while it is an adaptation I believe it fits the situation) I read a tweet or an article that said something along the lines of “we were making theatre for theatre goers, not for tourists,” and that is something that has always stuck with me. Tourists did not flock to the Schoenfeld in the spring of 2014 for one reason or another, but it closed, and yet won two Tony Awards.
Clearly, the theatre community wants to make new and interesting musicals, but are producers relying too much on tourist traffic to let that happen? The Bridges of Madison County was a show with such beautiful and intriguing music that you had to pay attention to, you could not passively listen and understand. With shortening attention spans, this might not seem attractive to tourists who are not likely to see a show in their own home town. Because of this, it seems like producers are afraid to take a risk on producing works that require an attention span. To me it seems like Broadway producers are simultaneously afraid of and underestimating their audiences.
So how do we change this? How do we satisfy both tourists and the hard-core theatergoers? Well, marketing, obviously. I think one of the best marketing campaigns I have seen for a Broadway show was the campaign for Something Rotten! This campaign was genius. The show that ultimately lost the Best Musical Tony to Fun Home (which is closing soon), used the defeat and their ‘rotten’ name to their advantage and celebrated their defeat. When they received a not-so-great New York Times review, they promoted the truth “A new show that opened on Wednesday night at the St. James Theatre” which showed their sense of humor. And it was an original idea for an original new musical.
Word of mouth is another important factor. People who enter and win lotteries are more likely to talk about their experience, and if they see the show at such a discounted price they are going to be so jazzed about it, it will already add to their experience. When comps are handed out, people will still talk about the show with their friends and family. Word of mouth is so important.
Starting the conversation online is another great factor. What I love is that Broadway.com has created the video blog series where they hand the camera to actors in different shows and have them make a connection with the audience and have them feel involved. Using social media to create connections between the shows, the actors, the creators, and the audience is such a great product of our time.
Some things I think are great is that Broadway is becoming more popular with the incorporation of modern music styles, live network broadcasts of classic musicals starring legitimate Broadway performers, and PBS proshots of both plays and musicals. If these continue and more people visit New York with the intention of seeing musicals instead of it being an afterthought, we can move the art form in the right direction.
So, to end this post, here are my closing thoughts:
Producers need to stop relying on adaptations
Audiences need to take chances
Producers cannot underestimate the audiences.
This felt long, but it was what I needed to say,
Until next time,
Katie
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