Does Experimental Theatre Have a Place On Broadway?

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 4/12/07 at 5:39pm

Does it, I ask you?

[ljay889]

Posted: 4/12/07 at 5:40pm

Follies? 1971?

[blaxx]

Posted: 4/12/07 at 5:40pm

Ohhh, that's what experimental on Broadway means...

[fossemoves]

Posted: 4/12/07 at 5:43pm

If you mean 'avante garde' by experimental, then I'd have to say , NO.

Broadway is a commodity of entertainment. That's what people want. They want Tarzan for the Kids and Avenue Q for the adults. It's just the nature of the beast. Avante garde theatre rarely does that.

[blaxx]

Posted: 4/12/07 at 5:47pm

Doesn't experimental sound like the show is just in the process of becoming something else?

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 4/12/07 at 5:48pm

Of course not... and, really, I don't think it ever was. Broadway is the last stop of the tour. It's where you bring your finished product after the out of town tryout. Taking a chance on Broadway is too much of a financial risk. In the past there were "experimental" shows that debuted on Broadway, but we see less and less of them every few seasons as time goes on.
Updated On: 4/12/07 at 05:48 PM

[sidjones09]

Posted: 4/12/07 at 5:49pm

At the cost of mounting a new Broadway production nowadays, the answer is not just NO, but HEEELLLL NO!

[Kringas]

Posted: 4/12/07 at 5:51pm

I don't think Follies is really considered experimental theatre.

[WestVillage]

Posted: 4/12/07 at 5:51pm

Not at Broadway ticket prices ... I'm not paying $110 to see something "experimental".

[sidjones09]

Posted: 4/12/07 at 5:55pm

Experiments are something you do with chemicals and a labcoat, not on a Broadway stage.

Just ask Fosse76.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/12/07 at 6:02pm

Well, there's experimental and there's EXPERIMENTAL. Some quasi avant garde theatre has managed to appeal to a mainstream audience on Broadway in the past -- from the long-running MUMMENSCHANTZ to Mary Zimmerman's METAMORPHOSES to Julie Taymor's THE GREEN BIRD. There are probably limits on how challenging and "out there" a work can be and still work for a Broadway audience, but there have been a few instances of unusual pieces having decent runs.

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Posted: 4/12/07 at 6:09pm

ohmygosh. I totally forgot about Mummenschantz. I saw that when I was little and loved it. I called my mom Mummenschantz.

[AC126748]

Posted: 4/12/07 at 6:11pm

I would even venture to call Lisa Kron's Well experimental, which is probably one of the reasons it failed on Broadway.

[beyondblessed]

Posted: 4/12/07 at 6:32pm

What about Angels in America i feel like that was experimental and it did well on Broadway.

[blaxx]

Posted: 4/12/07 at 7:00pm

If Angels and Well are experimental, then I don't know where other works would be placed...the Twilight Zone?

Unconventional for Broadway, maybe, but not experimental.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 4/12/07 at 7:36pm

Angels in American - for the most part - is a realistic play.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 11:56am

I also forgot to mention in my earlier post that part of the reason we see less avant garde and experimental work on Broadway these days, is the gradual shrinking through the years of the audience for serious, challenging theatre. There used to a sizeable percentage of the theatre-going public that craved and would support new, innovative and "different" work. Many of the great 20th century absurdist and avant garde masterpieces had major productions on commercial mainstream Broadway -- Beckett's WAITING FOR GODOT and HAPPY DAYS, Ionesco's RHINOCEROS, EXIT THE KING and (rather recently) THE CHAIRS, Pirandello's SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR (that also had multiple Broadway revivals), RIGHT YOU ARE IF YOU THINK YOU ARE, AS YOU DESIRE ME, and HENRY IV, Peter Weiss' MARAT/SADE, Dario Fo's ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF THE ANARCHIST, The Wooster Group's THE HAIRY APE, as well as several of Brecht's major works.

As the audience for this kind of work has dwindled (and died off) over the years, it has been replaced by a mostly tourist, "family" audience who prefers their entertainment to be fun, light, unchallenging and utterly predictable which has resulted in producers almost exclusively catering to the lowest common denominator and relegating any work that is "different" or attempting to be groundbreaking in form or content to environs of off-off-Broadway and the fringes of the theatre scene. If a new WAITING FOR GODOT or RHINOCEROS came along tomorrow, it wouldn't have its US debut on Broadway as those masterpieces did, but instead be picked up only by theaters like New York Theatre Workshop in the East Village or St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn for a two week run.

And we wonder why there never seem to be any new and exciting plays anymore.

[husk_charmer]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 12:24pm

I am absolutely terrified by Mummenschantz, ever since I saw them as a kid on the "Muppet Show" they freak me out.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 12:27pm

In the early 90s, wasn't Bill Irwin's stuff experimental? "Largely New York" and "Fool Moon"?

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/13/07 at 12:37pm

I thought about Irwin's shows as well. I suppose you could classify a mime/clown show to be "experimental" -- it's certainly not traditional Broadway fare.

I was also wondering if one might consider opera and dance on Broadway "experimental?" Perhaps it doesn't quite fit the traditional definition of the term, but it's also hard to classify it as mainstream Broadway entertainment. Menotti's operas THE MEDIUM and THE TELEPHONE, THE CONSUL and THE SAINT OF BLEEKER STREET all had successful runs on Broadway back in the 50s. There also have been numberous ballet, modern and Spanish dance troupes who've had limited engagements on Broadway over the years.

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 4/15/07 at 10:44pm

I mean avant-garde-type things.

DOG STAR MAN: THE MUSICAL or something...