Bruce Springsteen - special Tony Award disgust- Page 4

[ScottyDoesn'tKnow2]

Posted: 6/18/18 at 5:43pm

A lot of concert performances have been called theatrical in nature. The way storytelling is woven into his songbook is a form of theatre. Just because he's done it in other venues and only has now done it in a Broadway house doesn't make it less true. Whatever he did, the Tony Committee felt it was worthy. I don't know what Bernadette Peters has to do with anything. Give her a mic and a one-woman show at a Broadway House. It may not last as long as Springsteen's show but I bet you she will be given some Tony consideration.

People have very narrow views of what theatre is. It's like people need to take a course in Theatre 101 again.

Updated On: 6/18/18 at 05:43 PM

[Huss417]

Posted: 6/18/18 at 5:50pm

Horse Dead, Dead Horse.

How does Springsteen getting a special Tony Award effect your life? I do think let the horse die.

[haterobics]

Posted: 6/18/18 at 5:55pm

qolbinau said: "I don't understand how some guy setting up shop for the first time to sing some of his old songs and tell his old stories is as 'special' as the example above. One is a true celebration of an amazing career that changed the face of Broadway. One is a concert."

Special is subjective. One could just as equally question why anyone would merit a Tony award for replacing Bette Midler's Tony-Award-winning take in a Tony-Award-winning musical and bringing down the box office down by $1M a week.

[ArtMan]

Posted: 6/18/18 at 5:55pm

I doubt he like most artists hasany idea what the promoter is charging for tickets
Sorry, Impossible2, that's just incorrect.  I've had this "discussion" on here before.  To say, that artists have zero knowledge on how much their ticket prices are going to be is just wrong.  Garth Brooks, who is outspoken on rising ticket costs and the huge resell market, on his last multi-year World Tour,  famously set all ticket prices one price.  (Which if I remember was around $60) and stipulated a tougher entry requirement.  So the front row and the last row were all the same price.  If the promoter was the only one setting the ticket prices, they could have easily gotten 10 times as much for tickets. (This was Brook's first tour in several years and seeing him perform live, was high in demand at the time.)  Tickets prices were set so high for Bruce, because first, it was way less venue seats for where he usually performs, but most importantly, everybody, INCLUDING BRUCE, knew they could sell the tickets that high and the consumer would purchase them.  It had nothing to do with how many shows front of house employees were working or any other reason.  It's all about demand.  Bruce, may be a entertainer first, but he is a businessman, closely second.  He has made a s***load of money off of this run.  I, have seen him three times in concert and the most I have paid for a ticket is $75.  If people want to pay these prices, more power to them.  However, receiving a Tony Award for this only made the tickets harder in demand.  And that's show business.

Updated On: 6/18/18 at 05:55 PM

[After Eight]

Posted: 6/18/18 at 6:01pm

Qolbinau  wrote: "Maybe it’s cynical but does anyone think it’s a coincidence that by winning a special Tony Award Bruce happened to get more TV time and a performance that some executives would be hoping could convince people that wouldn’t normally tune in to the Tonys to tune in? The special tony award could have purely been a marketing exercise for the Tonys."

 

Of course. It's getting two plums for the price of one. Not only do you get to suck up to the big rock star who oh-so-charitably graced a Broadway theatre with his divine presence at astronomical prices, you have a chance to boost the televised awards' ratings as well.  Truly a win-win situation for the big wheels in our theatre. And the Boss gets to receive a nice award as well. For the theatre, though --- and for all those who made lifelong contributions to actual THEATRE without any awards whatsoever --- it's lose, lose, lose.

[haterobics]

Posted: 6/18/18 at 6:01pm

ArtMan said: "However, receiving a Tony Award for this only made the tickets harder in demand."

How does it benefit Bruce if demand increases for a sold-out run? Just benefits the scalpers, no?

I'm also unclear on what Bruce fans were on the fence about going to this until he won the Tony? Not to mention, who saw that performance and just HAD to get tickets?

This has been pitched to and received by a willing, captive audience from the get-go. The Tony performance/win helped the CBS ratings more than the show itself.

[smidge]

Posted: 6/18/18 at 6:26pm

So they threw him a little award. The Tony Awards are just a commercial for theatre. I don't think anybody believes they're a superior accomplishment. Certainly nothing to be disgusted over.

[darquegk]

Posted: 6/18/18 at 7:35pm

I'm gonna use some grad school words now: it could be that what you find lacking in Springsteen's concert, theatrical though it may be, is a sense of "queer performativity." Not necessarily explicitly queer in terms of camp or deliberately homosexual content (though Springsteen's "Backstreets" is implied to be about male hustlers in love); queer as in the way Judy Garland shows were queer. That mingling of nostalgia, defiance and a look into the pain at the heart of the marginalized, be they women, gays or ethnic minorities. If standard performativity says "this is me," queer performativity says "Don't you love this mask? Now see if you can tell the mask from my true self- and maybe if you're lucky, I'll become emotionally invested enough to take off the mask for a moment or two."

I mentioned Tom Waits earlier, and Tom isn't gay, or even camp, but there's much more of a sense of that queer performativity in his act. It's the same thing Springsteen does- stories, songs and vamping monologues, but there's a sense of play and a sense of fabulous tragedy in Waits, at least in part due to his blending of sounds from the lost words of Weimar cabaret and early, explicitly black blues into his rock music.

And, that's enough grad school for me.

[Andy51]

Posted: 6/18/18 at 8:12pm

darquegk said: "I'm gonna use some grad school words now: it could be that what you find lacking in Springsteen's concert, theatrical though it may be, is a sense of "queer performativity." 

I hadn't thought about it in these terms, but I think you offer some helpful insights.  So, thanks.

As an aside, since a number of people have stated that Springsteen's show is "theatrical" in seeking to establish that the show is theatre, I would just note:  That something is theatrical does not entail that it is theatre any more than something's being poetic or cinematic is a sufficient condition for its being poetry or cinema.  There may in the end be a good case for deeming the show theatre, but its putative theatricality does not establish this.

 

Updated On: 6/18/18 at 08:12 PM

[ScottyDoesn'tKnow2]

Posted: 6/18/18 at 8:23pm

I'd argue that's exactly what it means. It may not be good poetry or cinema or anything that conforms to standards that you've been taught or you yourself want to see upheld. I guess without examples of something being cinematic but not being cinema, it's hard for me to imagine. Maybe you're thinking about music videos or tv shows with cinematic qualities but it not being cinema. To me, the only difference is the form and how it labels itself. If you took a bunch of music videos together and strung them along in a coherent manner, then you get Moulin Rogue which people call cinematic. Springsteen's show really is not much different from various autobiographical one-person shows with a backing band.

Off-topic, but if people go on some movie forums or some YouTube comments sections of video clips/trailers of films by Hou Hsiao-Hsien and other foreign directors, you get a lot of "film school" experts who disparage the works because they don't conform to western ideas of filmmaking, but many of those films are celebrated by people who think outside such conformity. Hou Hsiao-Hsien is famous for rejecting Western style storytelling techniques and editing which tries people who were only brought up by American-style filmmaking's patience but he has a lot of admirers, including Barry Jenkins who was inspired by his films to make Moonlight and sought out directors like him because unlike a lot of his classmates at USC, he didn't grow up breathing and living American-style films (or any films) and his background was in a totally different area.

Updated On: 6/18/18 at 08:23 PM

[Andy51]

Posted: 6/18/18 at 8:37pm

ScottyDoesn'tKnow2 said: "I'd argue that's exactly what it means. It may not be good poetry or cinema or anything that conforms to standards that you've been taught or you yourself want to see upheld. I guess without examples of something being cinematic but not being cinema, it's hard for me to imagine. Maybe you're thinking about music videos or tv shows with cinematic qualities but it not being cinema. To me, the only difference is the form and how it labels itself. If you took a bunch of music videos together and strung them along in a coherent manner, then you get Moulin Rogue which people call cinematic. Springsteen's show really is not much different from various autobiographical one-person shows with a backing band.
 

Well, it's not uncommon, for example, for people to refer to a particular photograph or novel as cinematic.  And we refer to many things as poetic without considering them to be actual examples of the art of poetry -- even silent films, for example, can be poetic, even though poetry as an art form involves the use of language.

 

Updated On: 6/18/18 at 08:37 PM

[geoffreyC]

Posted: 6/19/18 at 9:08am

'Queer performativity" lol, but seriously, people are just over SWM right now. Perhaps they will come back into fashion some day.  

[Impossible2]

Posted: 6/19/18 at 10:43am

ArtMan said: "
I doubt he like most artists hasany idea what the promoter is charging for tickets
Sorry, Impossible2, that's just incorrect. I've had this "discussion" on here before. To say, that artists have zero knowledge on how much their ticket prices are going to be is just wrong. Garth Brooks, who is outspoken on rising ticket costs and the huge resell market, on his last multi-year World Tour, famously set all ticket prices one price. (Which if I remember was around $60) and stipulated a tougher entry requirement. So the front row and the last row were all the same price. If the promoter was the only one setting the ticket prices, they could have easily gotten 10 times as much for tickets.(This was Brook's first tour in several years and seeing him perform live, was high in demand at the time.) Tickets prices were set so high for Bruce, because first, it was way less venue seats for where he usually performs, but most importantly, everybody, INCLUDING BRUCE, knew they could sell the tickets that high and the consumer would purchase them. It had nothing to do with how many shows front of house employees were working or any other reason. It's all about demand. Bruce, may be a entertainer first, but he is a businessman, closely second. He has made a s***load of money off of this run. I, have seen him three times in concert and the most I have paid for a ticket is $75. If people want to pay these prices, more power to them. However, receiving a Tony Award for this only made the tickets harder in demand. And that's show business."

Yes but that is one artist who decided to sell his tour off the back of making a big deal out of selling cheap tickets just so he could sell any tickets. Brooks is know for his 'marketing' techniques more than anything else. Isn't his whole career basically an exercise in marketing and he comes from a marketing background.

A few artists over the years have done the same thing for cred points with the fans. Pearl Jam also did it in their prime and then proceeded to do single nights everywhere so the only people who really saved any money were the scalpers because fans couldn't get tickets.

 

[ArtMan]

Posted: 6/19/18 at 11:33pm

Yes, but that's not the point.  You stated "that most artists has any idea what the promoter is charging for tickets" and that just isn't true.  I used Garth Brooks as an example.  He could have sold those tickets for twice as much and he still would have sold out. Marketing schemes had nothing to do with it. If I recall correctly, Pearl Jam had an issue with Ticketmaster and their fees.  That is why their tickets were somewhat cheaper and at the time chose not to use them in selling their tour at the time.  But that supports my statement, because Pearl Jam had a say in the price of their ticket.

[ArtMan]

Posted: 6/19/18 at 11:33pm

double post

Updated On: 6/19/18 at 11:33 PM