What if Broadway never were Disneyfied?- Page 2

[rockfenris2005]

Posted: 1/2/06 at 8:30am

The reason I love Broadway is honoured to six men:

Jim Steinman
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Frank Wildhorn
Stephen Sondheim
Richard Rodgers
Oscar Hammerstein II

Disney comes nowhere near. Most everyone I speak to, who's a Broadway fan, is from that generation where Lloyd Webber revived the corpse of the dying Broadway...

Disney came much much later...

[riv]

Posted: 1/2/06 at 12:27pm

What about Andrew Lloyd Webber? Are you forgetting:

Superstar
I Don't Know how to Love Him
Don't Cry for me Argentina
Memory
Starlight Express
Pie Jesu
The Phantom of the Opera
The Music of the Night
All I Ask of You
Love Changes Everything
As if we Never Said Goodbye
No Matter What - the greatest selling single from a musical in history, thanks to the Boyzone rendition
Whistle Down the Wind
Our Kind of Love

Why does everyone always forget Lloyd Webber?
__________

Dear rockfenris2005,

What about Andrew Lloyd Webber? Why would you be under the impression that I would forget him? He was one of the first people I thought about.

I'm not in the habit of knocking Andrew, but don't tell me he sets the pace for what appears on the pop charts in this day and age. Sure there were some songs he wrote, especially early in his career, which had a bit of currency outside the realm of musical theater and have become what are referred to as "standards." I'm not saying there aren't rare songs which occasionally may break out of a show and have some limited play because a pop performer or group covers it, but it is so rare nowadays as to be nearly non-existant.

Most of the songs you mention are numbers WE are familiar with and may admire as musical theater fans, but they were not chart busters being played on top-40 radio. Talk to almost any kid or young adult today (and I don't mean musical theater geeks--I mean people out in the street) and run down your list of songs and they'll look at you like you're crazy. They won't know what the hell you're talking about and they won't give a damn about Andrew Lloyd Webber (if they even recognize the name).

Sad, but true.

Updated On: 1/2/06 at 12:27 PM

[rockfenris2005]

Posted: 1/4/06 at 8:22am

Dear rockfenris2005,

What about Andrew Lloyd Webber? Why would you be under the impression that I would forget him? He was one of the first people I thought about.


Then why didn't you mention him? Am I supposed to read minds?


I'm not in the habit of knocking Andrew, but don't tell me he sets the pace for what appears on the pop charts in this day and age. Sure there were some songs he wrote, especially early in his career, which had a bit of currency outside the realm of musical theater and have become what are referred to as "standards." I'm not saying there aren't rare songs which occasionally may break out of a show and have some limited play because a pop performer or group covers it, but it is so rare nowadays as to be nearly non-existant.


Non-existent my bum. Everyone I've ever met, even non-theatre people know about these songs: This is the Moment, The Phantom of the Opera, Memory, Don't Cry for me Argentina, Any Dream Will do. They know about these songs just as much as they'd known about My Fair Lady and Camelot etc. etc.

And I'm saying this from experience


Most of the songs you mention are numbers WE are familiar with and may admire as musical theater fans, but they were not chart busters being played on top-40 radio. Talk to almost any kid or young adult today (and I don't mean musical theater geeks--I mean people out in the street) and run down your list of songs and they'll look at you like you're crazy. They won't know what the hell you're talking about and they won't give a damn about Andrew Lloyd Webber (if they even recognize the name).


I've talked to kids, plenty of them, they know these songs. They very much know these songs. What kids have you been speaking to? But the ones I speak to, who dislike or know nothing about musical theatre, know these songs. They know these songs so much they hate them and make fun of them

But at least they know them

[mikem]

Posted: 1/4/06 at 8:58am

Hey Rockfenris, are you based in Britain? A lot of the songs you mention (Pie Jesu, Love Changes Everything, No Matter What, Any Dream Will Do and many others) were Top 5 hits in Britain but had no impact in the US. I am not sure even most of the people on this board would be able to sing them. (I only know them myself because I am a Lloyd Webber fan -- I have never heard them on the radio or otherwise performed in public.) But I do agree that most Americans know Memory and Don't Cry for Me Argentina, and I Don't Know How to Love Him was a big hit over here in the 70's.

[wickedfreak]

Posted: 1/4/06 at 11:09am

This is the moment was written by Wildhorn not Webber

[Feathah]

Posted: 1/4/06 at 12:16pm

I'm a little late to this thread but Plum stated exactly what I was thinking. Personally I wish Broadway would branch out a bit more and produce more original works, not based on their films. And not in way Aida was conceived. A brand new story.

[BtMartin25]

Posted: 1/4/06 at 1:10pm

Ragtime DEFINATELY should've won..

Marin Mazzie, Brian Stokes, Audra... amazing.

[bwayrunner22]

Posted: 1/4/06 at 1:25pm

I completely agree with Plum as well. I am kind of tainted when it comes to this subject because my family is completely 'Disneyfied.' We go to Disney World at least 2 times a year and my sophomore year in college, I'll be interning down there. Still, I don't understand how people can be upset, for lack of a better word, with Disney for coming. I don't want Disney to get credit for rejuvinating Broadway; because at best they made 42nd street better, and I hate Michael Eisner (sp?) with a passion, but Disney is here, making plays just like everyone else.

[Fosse76]

Posted: 1/4/06 at 1:31pm

I'm not sure you can solely credit Disney. Obviously, it was Guiliani who started it. He convinced Disney to renovate the New Amsterdam. While Disney's presence on 42nd Street helped attract other, more "family-friendly" businesses to Times Square, it has nothing to do with Broadway Theater itself, which has most assuredly been on the decline of quality story-telling since Disney entered the market.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 1/4/06 at 1:44pm

Pie Jesu was originally a hymn, a hundred years before ALW came along. I never even knew he had written a song with that title until it was mentioned in this thread, so you can hardly give ALW the same respect in that regard as Gabriel Faure.

[crzyrocket]

Posted: 1/4/06 at 2:14pm

I think the annoyance comes from the belief that Disney will eventually take a good majority of the theatres leaving little room for other shows. With Tarzan and Mary Poppins coming in, that's 4 Broadway houses taken for at least a couple years. Little Mermaid is in the works and if it makes it, that'll be 5. I don't mind one or two, but five is just a little much for me personally.

On the other hand, the same can be said about too much of anything. The big pop operas of the '80s have fizzled away. Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals suffer the same "blame" because they just keep coming. I'm a huge Sondheim fan, but if every show on Broadway was a Sondheim show, people would get annoyed. I'd be elated at first, but then want to see something different.

Disney shows will fizzle as well. In twenty years, perhaps there will only be one still running. I'm guessing The Lion King may last that long and that's not so bad. It'll still bring in younger audiences, introducing them to theatre that's isn't all just Disney.

[aspiringactress]

Posted: 1/4/06 at 6:49pm

I agree with Rocket that the current problem is too much Disney on broadway. While it can hardly be credited for the downfall of Broadway, it can and must certainly be credited for the nmber of theaters it is currently and will soon occupy. My main problem with Disney currently is the fact that we are seeing less and less oiginal theater.

[Radioactiveduck]

Posted: 1/4/06 at 9:13pm

It's actually kind of a serious question for me, cuz my love for theatre really started when I saw Lion King in 8th grade.

I might not be on this site if not for Disney's b-way ventures.

[kissmycookie]

Posted: 1/4/06 at 11:37pm

Define original theatre...

Everything comes from one source or another.

For example:
Ragtime ---> E.L. Doctrow's novel, "Ragtime."
The Light in the Piazza ---> a 1962 movie


Disney just happens to have the resources of developing musicals from "successful" test runs...

Not to mention, originality within these musicals also comes from the directors and designers who design for the Disney shows... Julie Taymore, Bill Jones, Bob Crowley, Matthew Bourne...


Oh and less I forget, brava, Plum!

[Jay2]

Posted: 1/5/06 at 12:15pm

Then I never would have seen BATB 30 times to keep hope alive while my Mom and brother were battling cancer and I probably would have stopped believing in love. Both made it through and so did I.Thanks Disney!!!

[StageWhore]

Posted: 1/5/06 at 1:25pm

I would just like to state that Broadway shows are in no different state than the rest of the industries at this time. Braodway shows are being taken from books and movies. Movies are being taken from tv shows, older movies, and books. The fashion industry is basically recycling and combining fashions from earlier decades. Popular music hasn't had anything new happen in almost 20 years- it's just been innovations of older styles. All art forms and industries are somewhat stagnant right now. We can speculate on the various reasons, but "Disney's taking over" is not likely to be one of them.