Interesting blog post about the death of production contract tours...

[itsahopi]

Posted: 11/25/13 at 12:28pm

Saw a couple actors post this on Facebook.
DRUNK HISTORY: THE NATIONAL TOUR

[My Oh My]

Posted: 11/25/13 at 7:07pm

My oh my, that was a whole lotta scatterbrain to wade through. I wanna wade through more!

It helps to get the bazillion references, which is why I think I wanna wade through more of it, but also it confirms that I'm not an insane twit and that the light on the road has indeed been getting dimmer and dimmer, like the audiences who pay top price to see non-Equity standards in Equity tours of 25th anniversary Les Mises. OK, so maybe they're not so much dim and maybe they're just exceptionally tolerant of tacky kitsch, or whatever, but I can now safely rule out that I am an insane whackjob with bitter tendencies who litters the net with rants of present touring injustices and reflects fondly on a time when "Broadway In ________" touring seasons across the nation actually and absolutely meant what they claimed and weren't just pulling your leg. So the disinterested stage actor and the deteriorating state of the road might not mean touring is dead, but is like one of the walking dead from "Dawn of the..." well, you know...and goes through the motions and then goes through the motions again, much to audiences' delight.

You'd do the same if no matter what you did, and no matter how half assed, it brought audiences to their feet in delight.

So I will continue to find the approval ratings of today's tent and campfire tours mystifying but at least I'm not crazy.

Updated On: 11/25/13 at 07:07 PM

[RippedMan]

Posted: 11/25/13 at 7:28pm

It's a really interesting article. I recently met with an agency who wanted to keep me non-union because of how lucrative the non-union tour circuit is. The Beauty and the Beast tour make almost 900/wk and the new Man of La Mancha tour is making 600/wk for ensemble where as the union Hell, Dolly tour is only make around 540/wk.