How Broadway Lost Its Voice to 'American Idol'

[pab]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 11:56am

NYT Article

[jjdude2000]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 12:00pm

Yup, I posted about it in another thread. Features Eden, Shoshana, Sutton and all 3 shows.

[LittleFish8386]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 12:03pm

Oh snap! Those are some fighting words.

[WISHIHADATONY]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 12:06pm

pab, thanks for posting! the lasting thought it left me with is how magnificent a gift it would be for us all if Barbara Cook would appear in at least one more Broadway musical.

I have seen her in nightclubs and in concert 14 times and she is probably the greatest singer in the world since Judy Garland. Barbara Cook simply weaves spells of enchanment and her return to a Broadway musical would be something for a new generation to treasure.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 12:16pm

BRAVO BEN BRANTLEY! These are almost the exact words that people around here have been using to discuss the tragedy of, and their depresssion regarding, Christina Applegate not getting to do Sweet Charity:

"That self-congratulatory element is also part of the 'American Idol' package - the subtext that goes, 'I deserve to be a star because it's my right as an American, and because I try so hard.'

[BrdwyThtr]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 12:29pm

Personally, I don't mind the Idol influence on Broadway. I LOVE musical theatre, but I have a very modern voice and it doesn't fare so well in many of the classics. If I plan on making a career, I can't have theatre changing TOO drastically.

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 12:30pm

Great article. He may be tough, but Ben Brantley is excellent. I've been reading his reviews and articles going on ten years now and find him very perceptive.

[LightMyCandle125]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 1:08pm

grrrrrrr, i can't see the article b/c i'm not a subscriber. but it sounded interesting. but on this note, i was at an interview to be a counselor at a day camp, and on the application i wrote that i like to act and sing. and the woman was reading it over and she said, okay, sing something. so i got up and sang the first few lines of "waiting for life" from once on this island. and she said to her assistant: daaaaamn this girl can sing. get her on american idol. and i politely corrected her: actually, i want to be performing in new york on broadway.

does everybody have to associate a good voice with this show?

[pab]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 1:09pm

It does not cost you anything to subscribe.

[Al Dente]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 1:16pm

While I agree that it is one of his more well thought out articles and is, for a change, not dripping in passive agressive nonsense, he IS completely misplacing the *blame*. That hyperbolic, inappropriate singing he's lamenting about started with the cast of RENT, which happened almost a decade before American idol was even a thought in Simon Fuller's mind. It has less than nothing to do with Idol. And with people like Espinosa and Bean, this is their moment to try and get noticed by the record executives and land themselves record deals. Not saying it's likely to happen but that's the reasoning. Headley is not the only person who "used" Broadway as a stepping stone for pop fame, she was just the only person to let that truth slip out of her mouth. There are only a handful of recent Broadway performers that came to Broadway after having had genuine pop success. And they are definitely the ones that don't look like they're "trying hard".

[Unknown User]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 1:22pm

Wow... I never realized how much of an impact Idol had on Bway...

[Tiny-Toon]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 1:29pm

I just LOVE the picture of Eden!

[Unknown User]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 1:37pm

Yeah she looks amazing... so does Sho... ahhh Sho :looks off dreamly:

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 1:37pm

Al, I think Brantley more accurately nails the beginning of the phenomenon with Jennifer Holliday telling us she's not going. A truly transplendant moment featuring somebody with enough of a distinctive personality to make the showboating be about the character and not about the hard working actress. I also tend to agree with Brantley that there was a difference between the quirks of the original actors in RENT mitigating which could have been more like so much of what has come since.

Having said that, I STILL can't believe people watch that pablum, get invested in that pablum, give a **** about that pablum that gets poured out in the American Idol trough every week.

[PattyO'Furniture]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 1:52pm

Well said, Al.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 2:04pm

We b**** that musical theatre isn't in touch with pop music anymore and then we b**** when it does evolve in that direction.

I don't think that type of singing is the problem in musical theatre today. The problem is the state of musical theatre writing, which is more times a mess than not.

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 2:38pm

Well, that was certainly a refreshing article from Ben Brantley. In the last few paragraphs, he actually expresses a love of musical theatre. Did anyone else catch his indirect praises for DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS?

[Plum]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 3:09pm

As for all those melisma-loving women being interchangable- well, that's the idea. To be extremely cynical, the producers don't want to build true theater stars, because true stars are by definition unique talents, hard or impossible to replace. If you want your show to keep running and running and running, better to have leading ladies who are more like cogs in a machine- when one wears out, just pop in another and everything keeps going smoothly.

Can you imagine just replacing Bernadette Peters with someone else? Of course not. There's no one else like her. She can be replaced, but it won't be the same. On the other hand, anyone from the blob of Shoshana/Eden/whoever the heck can switch places and only their devoted fans would really notice the difference.

And so the Wicked machine keeps smoothly running, and its leftover parts can be lent to its wannabe little sister Brooklyn every once in a while. Yay! And the only price we pay is the spark that's felt when a real star- a distinct and unique talent- is on stage. But we can settle for "very talented" instead. Right?

[BroadwayGirl107]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 4:02pm

Hmm, I agree with part of what is being said, and disagree with some other points.

First of all, I think his putting Sutton Foster into this category is a mistake. How long did Thoroughly Modern Millie run after she left again? And let's see how Little Women fares after she is gone. I think she posesses tht spirit of uniqueness he is talking about, but maybe that's just me.

The same with his stab at Menzel...he seems to write her off as easily replacable in Wicked, but irreplacable in Rent, so I wasn't sure of where he was going with that. But I think its funny that he tries to attach Chenoweth to that "unique" charm, when she was not only easily replaced in Wicked, but her replacement shines more brightly than she did.

Anyway, he has a point, but I hardly think the trouble is the type of singing. It's more the fact that actors are getting by JUST by being able to sing this way. The perfect example is Rent. When I saw it a couple of years ago, it was certainly an audience pleaser, but there was only one person in the cast who actually had a good grasp on her role and some decent acting chops, while the rest of the cast could sing the heck out of any song in that show, but without any real character development. Yet the audience walked away more than pleased, and pleny of people found simply "very talented" singers to be "great actors." So, I don't think people like Menzel (and heck...the majority of the rest of the original Rent cast)and Foster are like cogs in a machine. The "problem," if you will, is that these performers are being replaced by good singers who can't act, and the audiences are thrilled by the singing alone, and they can walk away satisfied that they've seen a performance just as good as the original just because so-and-so can belt a high F...and the show will just keep on running even though the quality of performance lowers.

[Plum]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 4:04pm

That's the whole point- the American Idol ethos that Brantley is decrying is all about vocal technique without heart or individuality. I don't see the disagreement. :)

[BroadwayGirl107]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 4:06pm

Ok, maybe I misread.

It's early in the morning.....for me.


I think my point was I think the problem isn't the STYLE of singing, but more the writing, as well as the lack of singers who CAN act. It didn't seem (to me) that that's what Brantley was saying.
Updated On: 3/26/05 at 04:06 PM

[BEKA531]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 4:10pm

sad, but true.

we're seeing the changing of broadway here... is it a change for the good? or bad? in the end, it's up to us, the theatregoers, to decide.

[B.B. Wolf]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 4:46pm

I agree with Plum and Broadwaygirl.
As a person who came to the Bway community from an acting background and not a pop or exclusively music background, I see these musicals and all I keep asking myself is "Where are the actors?" I see a lot of good voices, albeit pop voices which I can only dig for a little while, but rarely is there a person with real presence or a unique charisma that MAKES me want to watch them, much less, God forbid, someone who can actually ACT the part. It seems that for every Marc Kudisch or Michael Cerveris there's a bland pretty-boy with a passable voice that's less impressive than his abs. In my career, I've seen UNIVERSALLY better acting in regional theatre than on the Broadway stage. There are great musical actors in this country. Why the hell are they everywhere else and not on Broadway?
Also, it seems that composers are catering to this style of music. A style that is ultimately destructive to a singer's voice. A style that demands inhuman amplification rather than rich, biological resonance. In my experience, hearing someone with a "legit" voice sing ANYTHING from Les Mis is better than a pop-infused version of "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" or "Heart full of Love." When I hear Anthony Warlow sing "Music of the Night", I remember that though a song can be composed in a pop style, when sung correctly, it SOUNDS like great musical theatre music. So why cater to the whims of radio? Broadway will never return to the days when its composers wrote the popular tunes of the day, because Broadway is no longer the entertainment centerpiece of culture in our country. Its been replaced by tv and film. I'm okay with that. Trying to make it closer to "the music the kids listen to" isn't going to help anything, so why try to convert them? Why not give them something unique amid their homogenous radio dials? Why not give them something to discover: a wealth of music history and musical performances that DO NOT exist in contemporary pop styles? Broadway should never strive to be LIKE something. It was perfect as it was. Composers: stop worrying about writing "catchy" tunes, and worry about writing compelling theatre.
*steps down off tangential soapbox*

[MarkCohen]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 4:55pm

Can someone please copy and paste the article?

[Plum]

Posted: 3/26/05 at 5:00pm

Why break copyright? Registration is free.