Are jukebox musicals like ‘The Cher Show’ dumbing down Broadway...- Page 3

[ScottyDoesn'tKnow2]

#50

Posted: 2/28/19 at 10:11am

Exactly. Aren't most of these jukebox musicals appealing to baby boomers? I mean, Donna Summer, Cher, The Four Seasons, Gloria Estefan, so on and so forth. They're taking advantage of the nostalgia trip these shows provide.

[Kad]

#51

Posted: 2/28/19 at 10:19am

They absolutely are, and why shouldn't they? The target audience overlaps with the general Broadway audience. Tickets are expensive and people want to be entertained first and foremost when seeing a show. Broadway is a business and it's a big enough tent to allow for Cher and Sondheim to coexist. 

Though, few of Sondheim's shows did particularly well, even forty years ago, now did they? 

"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."

[darquegk]

#52

Posted: 2/28/19 at 10:42am

Also... they're fun sometimes. Even as a writer: wouldn't it be fun to play around in a certain artist's toybox of assembled themes, characters and ideas? The less generic the artist, the more fun of course: someone like Elton John, Alice Cooper, Kate Bush or Billy Joel, whose songs are packed with stories and characters and locations and monologues, gives you more to work with than, well... the Go-Gos.

[DramaTeach]

#53

Posted: 2/28/19 at 10:33pm

I wasn’t trying to blame jukebox musicals on young people. I was trying to point out that there’s been a societal shift that just wants to be entertained, not educated or enlightened.

[Mister Matt]

#54

Posted: 2/28/19 at 11:02pm

Except the biggest hits the last few years are Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen and Come From Away, so I'm not sure where this societal shift is occurring.

"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian