The Broadway Musical Is Changing Its Key - nytimes.com

[macbeth]

Posted: 12/25/03 at 10:09pm

https://www.broadwayworld.com/l.cfm?id=16811

A good analysis of the current state of bland musicals, where the problems began, and the fact that hopes might stem from rap music.

[BroadwayDiva]

Posted: 12/25/03 at 10:20pm

Hmmm... very interesting. I would have never have guessed that all those shows weren't "original" as they put it. I still like all those shows, and personally, I don't mind if the score is from somewhere else. I mean, one day, things borrowed will run out, but it's kind of like those tv shows that can't think of anything clever, so they take an old episode and change the plot just a little bit. Yet I still watch those "new" episodes that were "borrowed" from old ones, so i will watch new Broadway shows that were borrowed from somewhere else!

Those are just my thoughts about it.

Updated On: 12/25/03 at 10:20 PM

[bestofbroadway]

Posted: 12/25/03 at 10:30pm

GREAT ARTICLE!
I Agree with every word...and yes it matters that it is ALL borrowed. What happens when there is nothing left to borrow?


Updated On: 12/25/03 at 10:30 PM

[tappedout]

Posted: 12/26/03 at 12:36am

I agree that it was a very insightful article and certainly thought provoking. However, i don't agree with the negative picture presented as the current broadway score . I happen to think that the Hairspray track was original and it did not become borrowed just because it wished to remain true to the time period in which it was set. I am listening to the Wicked cd right now and in my unprofessional opinion find it very original.... Now, that being said, I am not a fan of all the musicals based around the scores of famous singers/songwriters. Eventually, the brrowed material will be used up(hopefully) and the talented, aspiring writers will be heard.

[BwayTheatre11]

Posted: 12/26/03 at 12:44am

Well, congrats to Avenue Q! Excellent article.

[durleste]

Posted: 12/26/03 at 12:46am

All I can say about the article is:

Bingo!
Bullseye!
Ringer!

Oh, wait...none of those thoughts is original....

[EVGIRL]

Posted: 12/26/03 at 9:47am

The only problem with the article is that it's incorrect in relation to Taboo. It includes Taboo as a score that was written "long ago". But,Taboo only has a few Culture Club songs. Most of the songs were written for the London version with several songs newly written for the New York production. There are a lot of criticisms you can make about Taboo such as the weak book, but saying that the songs are a recycled jukebox of old songs is not one of them. I guess the New York Times still hasn't learned how to check its facts since the Jayson Blair fiasco. Updated On: 12/26/03 at 09:47 AM

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 12/26/03 at 10:28am

Well, the article undercuts its credibility by dismissing 'Wicked' simply because it doesn't seem the writer likes the score. It's a completely original score and, if the point is Broadway needs more original scores, it should be pointed to as an example of someone doing it right. Nothing's going to appeal to everyone but in a what wants to be an article about the big picture, dismissing what the writer doesn't like is trivial and unnecessary.

Really Marc Shaiman makes the best points. In the end, writers need to get their stories and emotions across first and worry a lot less about sucking up to Sondheim's legacy.

[bestofbroadway]

Posted: 12/26/03 at 11:33am

Actually Shaiman's comment was ridiculous. He talks about being entertaining not about telling a story. I would rather see an author who is attempting something new and different than a man who only aims to be entertaining. His comments show just how unoriginal he is.

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 12/26/03 at 11:42am

bestof..... what the hell is your issue?? all you do is bitch about how much you hate Hairspray and every person ever associated with it.. do you have ANY constructive commentary?? EVER????

[Phantom2]

Posted: 12/26/03 at 11:54am

Somebody didn't get what they wanted this Christmas...

[tpdc]

Posted: 12/26/03 at 1:57pm

I think a lot of mistakes in the article from factual errors about the scores of TABOO and MILLIE to the dismissal of the scores for WICKED, HAIRSPRAY and URINETOWN undercut the point he was trying to make. I think Shaiman makes a good point that too many gifted writers seem too interested in impressing an audience and need to remember to entertain them as well. You just have to catch WONDERFUL TOWN to see Bernstein, Comden and Green do both. It is possible to do something new and different and entertaining as well, isn't it?

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 12/26/03 at 1:59pm

It IS possible.. unless you are bestofbroadway.. in which case it is one or the other.. entertaining and crappy or new and innovative and dull....

[ChrisLovesShows]

Posted: 12/26/03 at 5:36pm

This is an interesting, thought-provoking article, but if Weber is going to hold himself up as an expert and pontificate, there is no excuse for factual error. The fact that Boy George wrote original music for Taboo, for example, is highly relevant to the subject addressed in the article. For goodness sake, does the New York Times not have a fact checker or any editorial requirements for accuracy? Oh, wait....I forgot.....

Updated On: 12/26/03 at 05:36 PM

Posted: 12/26/03 at 5:52pm

It is a fact that The NY Times significantly reduced the number of copy editors many years ago.

If one knows anything about any topic, reading an article in The Times on your topic of expertise one will discover numerous factual errors, or idiotic statments, on the topic. This is from the "paper of record."

Go figure.

As for the future of original musicals on Broadway...NYC does not lack for very talented composers and lyricists and bookwriters, all of whom are constantly trying to perfect their talent and craft...Broadway lacks producers with the courage of their own convictions to mount new original musicals. That's the reason there are very few to no original musicals on Broadway, in my humble opinion.

Broadway Bulldog. Updated On: 12/26/03 at 05:52 PM

[LC]

Posted: 12/26/03 at 5:54pm

BG himself has made it clear on several occasions, that if he had been approached 3 years ago, with the idea of using his back catalogue (Mamma Mia style) for Taboo, he would not have been interested in the project. There is NO excuse for the NYT to be so erroneous. Updated On: 12/26/03 at 05:54 PM

[PB ENT.]

Posted: 12/26/03 at 9:27pm

BB~ I think the producers would have more of a backbone if they had more investors in their corners.

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 12/27/03 at 12:23am

Whatever Jason Robert Brown, Marx and Lopez, Guettel and LaChuisa are doing, they're doing it right and this the future of Broadway. The problem is as the critic said, money. I'm gonna be a realist as usual. It doesn't pay a producer to have meaningful theatre anymore. The days of small musicals, I believe are dead. You may argue that but the small musicals have fallen. Avenue Q is a small show with the heart of a large one. Producers can't take the risk right now on meaningful pieces of theatre with no splash unless there is a big star.

That's how it is.

[tpdc]

Posted: 12/27/03 at 12:50am

I loved FLLOYD COLLINS but how appealing was it for a general audience? I think Marx and Lopez and JR Brown want to entertain an audience as well as engage their minds. Until Guettel and LaChuisa mix in solid entertainment into their vocabulary, I don't see producers beating their doors down to get their new show for Broadway.

[John4763]

Posted: 12/27/03 at 8:56am

It's amazing that a professional journalist covering the Broadway season could be so sloppy as to report that Taboo consists of re-cycled material. He probably overheard that from somebody on the subway and then decided to print it as fact.

I'll bet that their fact-checking is no better when it comes to "real" news too.

Posted: 12/27/03 at 10:30am

Sum, I'm going to disagree with you re: the work of Brown, Guettel & LaChuisa. Their work, in my opinion, is self-indulgent, elitist, not entertaining and certainly not accessable to a general audience. I would not see any long-term commercial potential in their works to date. (BTW, my taste in music run from Ades & Britten to Vivaldi, Verdi & Wagner, and then some; mixed with composers of American popular music in generous amounts.)

AVENUE Q is delightful and accessible. Marx and Lopez are closer to the popular Broadway idiom in terms of accessiblity but they would have to prove they can write a score before I would invest in them the future of the American musical. Parodying Sesame Street couplet rhyme schemes requires a level of talent, make no mistake, but not enough that demonstrates the ability to write a full fledged score of sophisticated dimension.

What's the answer? In my opinion, a holy grail of sorts: constant production opportunities for writers of American musicals. That's only the tip of the iceberg. Creating those opportunities requies much much more and a whole other thread.

Bulldog

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 12/27/03 at 11:55am

I feel the article is highly irrelevant. Unoriginal material has existed in reviews and in the books of most shows. Rodgers and Hammerstein based their works on Green Grow the Lilacs, Liliom and Anna and the King. Kander and Ebb used I am a Camera and Zorba the Greek. Berstein based his works off Voltaire and Shakespeare. The list goes on. The phenomenon of using previously released pop music as the score is a new trend that will thrive and then probably fade, but it does not dominate Broadway in the least.

Kander and Ebb and Sondheim have excellent repuatations, but it doesn't necessarily mean teir new works are good. I saw the tryouts of The Visit and Bounce and did not see how they could survive Broadway. The Visit was a bit more appealing than Bounce, but is still very dark and surreal. Audiences are not big fans of dark and surreal unless you have some magnificant staging or choreography to dazzle them from the dreary subject. The Visit offers neither of these. Nor does it have a particularly memorable score. But both Bounce and The Visit will attract hardcore fans of musical theatre, but when this minority have viewed the show, there won't be much left.

I'm all for showcasing new composers, but producers aren't as interested in taking such high risks with other people's money. LaChiusa and Brown have not returned their investments on Broadway and only original satires like Avenue Q and Urinetown have proved new works profitable. Producers need to see an original dramatic work succeed before the will attempt to back the likes of Brown and LaChiusa again or mount a new composer like Guettel.

[bestofbroadway]

Posted: 12/27/03 at 12:10pm

But you see BroadwayGuy2- he isn't aiming to be both. He is ONLY attempting to be entertaining. His comment is idiotic and makes NO sense. So Jason Robert Brown, Guettel, Tesori, Finn, etc are all doing bad work? I think not.

[broadwayguy2]

Posted: 12/27/03 at 12:17pm

yes he is aiming to be both. Perhaps if some of us didn't have teh need to feel superior to everything under the sun, you could see some of the cleverness in Hairspray writing and production....
And all of that aside, isn't it one of the BASIC purposes of what we do?? ENTERTAIN. Get off of your high hore and just enjoy something. Don't feel that everything you see has to be Shakespeare. Remove the stck from your @$$, sit in the theatre seat and allow yourself to be entertained.. Hairsprayd oes that quite well..


And WHY in God's name must people BITCH about pop music on Broadway?? It used to be that Broadwat songs and what you heard on the radio were VERY similar, if not the same songs by the same composers.. now.. anytime any score sounds REMOTELY like something you'd hear on the radio, people bitch that it has no place on broadway.. they want Sonheimesque score and the like that do NOT appeal at all to many of the younger POTENTIAL theatre goers and then wonder why the younger audience demographis is not bigger..

[PB ENT.]

Posted: 12/27/03 at 3:51pm

"" I'm all for showcasing new composers, but producers aren't as interested in taking such high risks with other people's money."" - Mr. Matt. ...and not too many produces are willing to risk their own money,those that have it,or repuatation. Talk about the "Fear Factor".Investors are more frugal than ever as they watch shows come and go these days.

I experience this everyday in my business. Presenters( venues) are swamped with artists and shows all jocking for a prime
position. When it comes to shelling out money they (venues)
are pretty selective with thier budget. And I'm not talking about shows much in the six figures.

Investing in a show that starts in the millions, well this caliber of risk becomes a whole new ballgame. Money is almost always the bottom line.