1970s Broadway- Page 4
1970s Broadway
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/20/04
1970s Broadway#75
Posted: 9/9/12 at 1:47pm
Did someone mention the 1990's and the AOL chat wars?
Did anyone visit the AOl Playbill Online Chat Room? Regular visitors included:
"Meeskeit" - Jerry Zaks
"Omegason1" - Greg Jbara
"Anthodeane" - Anthony Rapp
"MShaiman" - Marc Shaiman (pre-Hairspray - his profile listed hjis occupation as "Multi-Oscar Losing Composer")
"ZapJo" - Joanna Pacitti (after being fired from the Annie revival)
"AKendrick" - Anna Kendrick, logging on late night after High Socitey performances.
Playwright Nicky Silver would visit using a non-descript username, and start fights with the teenaged Rentheads. And it seemed as if there were at least a dozen girls with user names that were some variation on "Eponine".
Updated On: 9/9/12 at 01:47 PM
1970s Broadway#76
Posted: 9/9/12 at 8:54pm
"So let us savor our memories. They're to be treasured. But 1970s Broadway is decidedly not."
Well, I was not a kiddie in the 1970s. But any decade that produces Company, Follies, Pippin, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, A Chorus Line, Chicago, Annie, Sweeney Todd, and others, is a good decade.
As to today? Broadway has turned into the movie business, with movie-like marketing (back in 2004 in a revue I wrote most of and directed in LA we had a bit predicting exactly how B'way shows would soon be marketed like movie ad campaigns - it used to stop the show nightly - we couldn't do it now because THEY do it now), audience surveys, branding, all of it. Today you don't hear a real voice on the stage - it's all processed cheese. You don't hear a real sound coming out of a pit (IF there's a pit) - it's all processed cheese. Shows are, for the most part, machines. They can't make sweeping changes in shows anymore because they are tied to the technology in a way they never were in the old days. We don't even need to go into these kinds of boards. Most musicals I see today have so little creativity - they are relentless, loud, over-produced machines. Plastic. If there was a movie in the last twenty years, let's make it a musical. It's one thing if they really think there's artistic merit in doing so, but that's usually not the case - in the old days they didn't call it Green Grow the Lilacs, The Musical, they didn't call it The Apartment, the Musical, they distanced themselves from the source because they were trying to NOT rely on the branding but to create something new. Do you think if Bring It On were called CHEERLEADERS! it would do any business? Same exact show, but not relying on the "brand." No. It's all about the branding - well, as I said, it's now the movie business, not B'way. The minute one show hit a million dollar gross, then it became all about that, trying to top that - never mind that if you really know what's going on that it's mostly not true - you think in the 1970s we gave a crap about grosses? No. No. And no.
1970s Broadway#77
Posted: 9/9/12 at 9:35pmBoy, do I agree. Sure, B'way was always after $$$, but there was an old-school, personal style even to the greed. And you isolated what kills me, and truly does define the difference (because there really is a difference, apart from fond memories): it is no longer on a human level. This is irrefutable because, as you say, it's all about movies, and i seriously do not understand that one bit. I am supremely uninterested in a 'Footloose' or a 'Big' or a 'Prada' with songs and dances. Or lasers. I'd rather see something maybe lame, but driven by voices, muscle, real style, and talent. I stress to those who ain't seen it - McKay's 'Golden Age' goes wrong a lot, but you still have actor after actor (in 2002, I think) saying exactly this, that Broadway is a mechanized industry.
1970s Broadway#78
Posted: 9/9/12 at 10:27pm
Worst of the 70s? My vote goes to 'Raisin!'. Sweet Jesus, that was painful.
Oh, if you think just seeing the show was painful, you should have been with me in Miami on Christmas Eve of 1976 when the RAISIN national tour producer couldn't make payroll and the company's hotel announced it would not let anyone stay over another night without being paid.
I've never seen so many grown people crying at one time and I did not blame them!
(Fortunately, my boss, the local promoter, let me loan the actors their salary and pay the hotel bill, and the show went on. Okay, that part was still painful, but at least the Bicentennial Christmas was saved!)
1970s Broadway#79
Posted: 9/9/12 at 10:44pmI vaguely remember the Playbill chat room. By the way, I wish someone...anyone...could provide any 1970's stage door pictures. That would be awesome. from RC in Austin, Texas
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/5/09
1970s Broadway#80
Posted: 9/10/12 at 10:56am
"it is no longer on a human level. This is irrefutable because, as you say, it's all about movies, and i seriously do not understand that one bit."
It really doesn't matter if you, I, or anyone else understands it, or likes it. Apparently, this is what today's culture wants, and so that's what it gets.
1970s Broadway#81
Posted: 9/10/12 at 11:29amI had sort of thought we shape the culture, at least somewhat. Certainly, when people weary of computerized spectacle on stages - and they will, because culture is cyclical - there will be the opportunity to reinforce what the theater is supposed to be about. That can be promoted beforehand, as well, even by this kind of bitching. Is it so ridiculous that, maybe, a bunch of Lupones would change the scene by refusing to sing miked? That an actor (with clout) could change a production by asserting that the high-tech costume renders his skill meaningless? Best of all: audiences suddenly realizing they're paying $300 to sit in front of nothing more than a less-than-flatscreen? No, I don't expect big change anytime soon. But a culture going for something lousy deserves raging against the dying of the art, for Christ's sake.
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/5/09
1970s Broadway#82
Posted: 9/10/12 at 11:55am
You seem smart and sharp. Surely you know that your notions are pipe dreams.
But by all means, rage. Rage to your heart's content. Rage 'til you're blue in the face. That's what a forum like this exists for: the impotent bemoaning and raging at time's ravages and the vagaries of fate.
Who cares if no one listening cares, or if no one is even listening? If it makes you feel good, then go for it.
1970s Broadway#83
Posted: 9/10/12 at 12:05pm(I'm also hot.) I don't think such rage is completely impotent, though. I think it's sort of a generational responsibility, and in my own little life I have seen it make modest ends, even in letting a young person know that the play he thought was original was a rip from an old O'Neill. We are obligated to bemoan. What's funny here is that I'm usually more cynical than you. God knows, I shudder and turn away, most of the time. But I think it's good for us to cry out because MAYBE somebody is listening. That's the best humanity has ever accomplished anyway, ain't it? So, when i see 'Mormon' and realize I'm watching a really long 'South Park' skit and not exciting theater, I make noises about it because somebody ****ing should.
1970s Broadway#84
Posted: 9/10/12 at 12:07pmWhoa. Stritch can say 'f--k' in every sentence, and I get asterisked? WTF?
1970s Broadway#85
Posted: 9/10/12 at 12:12pmI've been seeing Broadway shows since the mid-sixties and agree that, in general, theatre was more human, less mechanized and merchandized--more different from movies. However, I still see some shows that move and excite me (GREY GARDENS, SCOTTSBORO BOYS). It's just disappointing that they don't last as long as the technical extravaganzas, which I often tend to find tiresome. A large proportion of my favorites are from the seventies (SWEENEY TODD, NIGHT MUSIC, FOLLIES, the original CHICAGO, ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY) but I also saw plenty of duds. It's just that, over time, the best ones remain quite vivid while the duds fade.
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/5/09
1970s Broadway#86
Posted: 9/10/12 at 12:36pm
"So, when i see 'Mormon' and realize I'm watching a really long 'South Park' skit and not exciting theater, I make noises about it because somebody ****ing should."
I agree with you. If you feel you should, then you should. And you have.
I disagree wih you that it will effect any change in the slightest.
Case in point. You may scorn Book of Mormon, but everyone in this neck of the woods, myself excluded, thinks it's the bee's knees, or as one of its admirers here is more likely to exclaim, freaking ---------! (Fill in the blank with some idiot expression of which I am blissfully unaware.)
I don't think they'll be listening to you.
1970s Broadway#87
Posted: 9/10/12 at 12:42pm
My favorite thing about After Eight -- he's the only unabashed elitist I know of with genuinely terrible taste.
1970s Broadway#88
Posted: 9/10/12 at 1:25pm
Egad! How lame (or lamer) would I be in my vehemence if I acted with an expectation of being attended to??? How specious a motive! How demeaning to myself.
Re 'Mormon': a million people can say a wrong thing and it is still a wrong thing. Oh, A8, it's not so rough to shout into the howling wind. It's good exercise. And, if you have discernment and knowledge, God damn it, you're supposed to. This is what a civilized theater lover does, just as he fully assumes no one's likely to hear. Lack of audience does not excuse abnegation of responsibility, when appreciation of the good is the question. And, again, sometimes you get a wee bit done. In the 90s, a friend played me 'Rent', certain it was the most exquisite score ever written. He now bows down to 'Sweeney' instead, simply because NO ONE BEFORE ME ever took the time to address that the poor bastard hadn't been exposed to good.
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/5/09
1970s Broadway#89
Posted: 9/10/12 at 1:40pm
"He now bows down to 'Sweeney' instead, simply because NO ONE BEFORE ME ever took the time to address that the poor bastard hadn't been exposed to good."
You would have served him better by exposing him to The Red Mill or Very Good, Eddie.
1970s Broadway#90
Posted: 9/10/12 at 1:44pmI love 'Eddie'. Point made. But at least I spared him the full score of 'Sail Away' (which, may God have mercy on my soul, I still know by heart). Anyone wanna join me in a rousing chorus of 'The Alphabet Song'?
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/5/09
1970s Broadway#91
Posted: 9/10/12 at 1:53pm
Your memory of the score isn't that great. It's called "The Little Ones' ABC."
"A stands for absolutely anything......"
Actually, I loved Sail Away. It's one of my most cherished memories. Love the score, too. Just played "Where Shall I Find Him?" last night. It never fails to beguile.
Play it for your friend. He'll soon be bowing before Noel Coward. And with reason.
1970s Broadway#92
Posted: 9/10/12 at 2:01pm
Aw, I knew I got the name wrong. Yet I recall: "C stands for cottage cheese, D stands for dungarees, E stands for endocrine glands..." Also, the lovely 'Something Very Strange.'
Did you ever read about the opening night scenario (I think it was in a Coward bio)? James Thurber making a scene at Sardi's, and Dietrich demanding she be allowed in the kitchen to make Noel some soup?
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/5/09
1970s Broadway#93
Posted: 9/10/12 at 2:07pm
I do remember reading that.
I think it was in the William Marchant book on Coward.
1970s Broadway#94
Posted: 9/10/12 at 5:13pmAnd let's not lose sight of the fact that, in the 50s - 70s, Stritchie could keep her dressing room well-stocked. Another glorious aspect of the era: personal responsibility was in play and alcoholism could still be glamorous.
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