""Broadway is fast becoming just a place for tourist families to relive their favorite cartoons that they know backwards and fowards already rather than a place for good, innovative theatre."
You know, it's comments like this that make me cringe. This is going to turn into one of those "OMG, Broadway is such a theme park!" threads. Why do people think that everything on Broadway must be deep and completely original? Don't get me wrong, it is great when someone brings a fresh, new idea to Broadway, but why pick on the commercial productions? I don't see Broadway as a theme park - there is PLENTY of theater out in NYC and beyond that is completely original - why not support the off-Broadway and off-off Broadway shows, if it really irks you that much?
Additionally, these commercial productions are bringing in new audiences who may grow to appreciate many different types of theatre."
Well -- I think the theme park comments have a point. Before television and even cinema REALLY took off, audiences flocked to Broadway houses and their local regional theatres to catch the latest ORIGINAL shows: A Streetcar Named Desire, Gypsy, Peter Pan, Annie Get Your Gun, Hello Dolly, Mame, Kiss Me Kate, The Man Who Came To Dinner, Private Lives, Barefoot In The Park, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, etc.
As TV/Film became more popular, more and more seats became empty at live theatre houses.
Today, in order to attract an audience to see a Broadway show, it has to be commercial. Movie-to-stage, collection of jukebox songs, based on a historical event/person, use Hollywood names, etc. The people who go to non-commercial shows are the people who do theatre and the people who enjoy theatre (which is not enough to fill a theatre for any long run, let alone a "decent" enough run to recoup).
"The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but, of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry. For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is felt even apart from representation and actors. Besides, the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet."
--Aristotle
