You begin to understand why this is such a sudden and surprising boom period for American musical theater when you compare the current Broadway season with that of 1996-97.
Less than a year ago, practically the entire season of musicals was compressed into one frantic crush of openings in the spring, just before the deadline for Tony Award entries. “The Life,” “Steel Pier,” “Titanic” and “Jekyll and Hyde” all came rushing in, only to be greeted with a critical reception that ranged from contempt to faint praise.
“It was almost like the last gasp of the American musical,” says Martin Gottfried, an astute theater historian whose two “Broadway Musicals” books are essential chronicles and critiques of musical theater history. “But this year, we had several big openings in the fall, and there were more to come in the winter and spring.”
Two heavyweights of this season are the massive box-office hit “The Lion King,” which opened late in 1997, and the much-anticipated “Ragtime,” which, following Toronto and Los Angeles premieres, has its New York opening next Sunday. Besides these two giants, there is the season’s big question mark, “The Capeman,” which, after many delays and tales of production troubles, is to mark the Broadway debut of pop composer Paul Simon on Jan. 29, and the critically well-received but recently closed “Side Show.” These productions are likely to make it a lively contest for musical awards when Tony time comes along.
Each of these high-profile musicals is marked by subject matter and production values that stretch the bounds of musical theater. “The Lion King,” far from being a copy of the Disney animated feature, is invigorated by the extraordinary use of masks and puppets in the staging by avant-garde director Julie Taymor. “Ragtime” is a big, jubilant and yet often dark portrait of a changing America at the turn of the century, masterfully scripted by Terrence McNally and directed by Frank Galati from the novel by E. L. Doctorow. “The Capeman,” which features Latino pop music stars, takes off from the real-life sensation of a racially divisive murder in New York in 1959. And “Side Show,” though infused with romance and comedy, partly takes place in a distinctly seamy side of show business, a freak show.
Though daring and adventurous themes are not new to Broadway musicals, the combined initiative and imagination shown in these four shows have given the current season a special shot of adrenalin.
In short, as producer Cameron Mackintosh puts it, “Broadway is on a roll.”
But Mackintosh, whose string of London-originated hits (“Cats,” “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Les Miserables,” and “Miss Saigon”) have made him the most successful producer of musicals in the last half of our century, knows well that this is not a sure thing or a simple miracle. “It has been building up for the last two or three years,” he says.
The phenomenon of last season’s smash revival of the 1975 musical “Chicago” may have had a part in re-energizing this season, for, as Gottfried believes, “It showed the immense vitality and profitability of the Broadway musical.”
“Titanic” also went on to success, despite being dismissed in its initial New York reviews, and demonstrated anew that a musical of some serious and substantial goals could succeed in the commercial arena of Broadway.
But, amid all the euphoria, there are some notes of caution and discouragement.
“What has happened,” Mackintosh says, “is that some inferior musicals that would not otherwise have had a chance are managing to take advantage of this boom time and eke out fairly long runs.” Certainly, musicals such as “Jekyll and Hyde” and “The Scarlet Pimpernel,” both of which were savaged by Broadway reviewers, have been able to survive, despite the critical mauling.
Emanuel Azenberg, the crafty veteran producer who saw his “Side Show” close Jan. 3 with a $7 million loss after a 3 1/2-month run, is even more bleak in his estimate of the season.
“The reason you had a plethora of musicals opening in the autumn was because there just happened to be a scramble for available theaters,” he says. “And now that you’ve got these juggernauts (like `The Lion King’ and `Ragtime’), with their huge budgets, it’s going to be hard to produce anything that doesn’t cost $15-$20 million. As these musicals get bigger and more costly, producers are going to feel that they had better start dumbing down to appeal to that mass audience out there.
“We’ve already lost the play part of Broadway. There may be exceptions, but for the most part, drama is over on Broadway. We have removed Broadway as a place for nurturing important new work by playwrights. We’ve got a lot of musicals right now, because that’s all there is left.”
Azenberg exaggerates, but he has a right to be bitter. “Side Show,” based on the lives of the Siamese twins, Daisy and Violet Hilton, received several glowing notices, but it could not get past public suspicion of or distaste for a musical about freaks. “It received ovations at every performance,” Azenberg says, “but if you told your friends that you had seen a great musical about Siamese twins, they would jump out the window; and if you told them that the freak show was only a metaphor, they’d jump out the window even faster.
“What all this means is that at the end of the day, after all the hubbub about this season is over, you’ll just be left with these frigging British musicals — and Disney.”
New players on Broadway
Disney indeed has become an important player on Broadway. With “The Lion King,” it now has the hottest show on Broadway, presented in its beautifully restored New Amsterdam Theatre on 42nd Street. Along with Toronto-based producer Garth Drabinsky, whose Livent is presenting “Ragtime” in his new Ford Center for the Performing Arts, it is helping to reshape the way Broadway does business.
Drabinsky and Disney, who have not joined the traditional Broadway trade group of the League of American Theaters and Producers, come from a background of movie exhibition, and their movie-type marketing techniques, plus the lure of their new theaters, are adding to the increased buzz about Broadway this season.
Drabinsky, for example, has carried over the “event” advertising of movie blockbusters to his stage productions. For example, ads for “Ragtime” in the restored Oriental Theatre in Chicago began appearing a year before its scheduled opening in October.
Disney, meanwhile, is using its expertise in merchandising to spin off untold more millions in discs and souvenirs from “The Lion King”; and, according to Variety, in a tactic reminiscent of the old block booking practices of the movie industry, it is offering foreign rights only to producers who are willing to take five more Disney productions, sight unseen.
Audience expectations
Drabinsky, whose track record includes the recent major revival of the pioneering “Show Boat” and such off-beat contemporary works as “Kiss of the Spider Woman” (as well as the distinctly light-headed “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”) is sanguine about the future of what he calls “the more serious musicals.”
“We’re committed to musicals that take on underlying profound statements delineating observations on the social and political nature of our world and that reflect on our history,” Drabinsky says. “I’m thrilled that audiences today are maturing, that they want interesting subject matter in their musicals. But they also want to be elated, to feel that they’ve been through an emotional roller coaster.”
“Ragtime” fulfills that goal. It gives its audience a bounty of song and dance, along with a strong sense of historical significance and contemporary urgency.
This quality is not all that new in musicals, as Harold Prince, whose Broadway musicals include such ground-breaking productions of social commentary as “Cabaret” and “West Side Story,” is quick to point out. “What really needs to be addressed,” Prince says, “is the quality of this new material. How serious and artistic is it?”
And, as Prince emphasizes, the new musicals may simply be filling the gap that used to be taken up by serious drama. “There are so few serious new straight plays on Broadway,” he says. “Historically, the theater has tended to be cyclical, so I’m inclined to think the pendulum will swing in the direction of more dangerous musical projects.”
Prince himself is working for Drabinsky on “Parade,” a Broadway-bound musical based on the true story of Leo Frank, a middle-class Jew accused of murdering a teenage white Christian girl in Georgia, who was lynched in 1915. Livent has other provocative works in process too: a musical based on “Sweet Smell of Success,” the acrid 1957 film about a Broadway gossip columnist; and a revival of “Pal Joey,” the 1940 musical about a cheating, scheming Chicago nightclub entertainer.
Disney, whose gamble in hiring avant-garde director Julie Taymor to stage “The Lion King” has paid off in spectacular reviews and box-office grosses, is steaming ahead with more stage musicals: “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” based on the animated feature and directed by James Lapine (“Sunday in the Park with George”) and “Aida,” with a score by Elton John.
Mackintosh, always on the lookout for new talent, is shepherding “The Fix,” a dark and bizarre musical based loosely on the Kennedy family, which, following its brief London run last season, is opening in a revised version later this season in Philadelphia.
Joining Simon in the parade of pop composers trying their hand at the new and infinitely complex collaborations of stage musicals are Randy Newman (“Randy Newman’s Faust”), Barry Manilow (“Harmony”) and Dennis DeYoung (his own, different version of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”).
And, just to make sure that there is a sense of continuity in all this, Stephen Sondheim, at 67 now approaching grand-old-man status in American musicals, is once again at work on a new show.
Why all this activity in musicals? Prince has a quick, telling answer: “The reason for the musical theater activity on Broadway seems to me a very simple matter — MONEY! Clearly, there is so much more to be made from musicals (indeed, a few of them have grossed more than any movie in the history of movies, including `Jurassic Park’).”
This assessment is echoed by producer Kary Walker of Marriott’s Lincolnshire Theatre, whose future schedule for his Chicago area audiences depends in large part on the present Broadway musical product.
Says Walker, “Broadway is all about making money, and a hit musical can turn enormous profits. Give me one `Annie’ or one `A Chorus Line’ and I can retire for life. Just think of all the money the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals continue to make. There’s not a day goes by without a stage production of `The Sound of Music’ opening somewhere. And that adds up to huge profits over the years.
“Now, a lot of people have decided that, despite the chance of losing money on a musical, the risk is worth it. Look at what happened with Disney, They took a big, big risk with Julie Taymor, and it has paid off in a very big way.
“Forget about serious drama on Broadway. If you want a straight play, go to off Broadway or a regional theater. Broadway is a commercial operation, and it wants to make money. Big money.”
Walker is encouraged by the outburst of new American musicals. “It’s good news for those of us who depend on Broadway musicals for our productions,” he says. “But it’s not enough to have a good season or a couple good musicals. Our challenge is to grab and keep an under-40 audience.
“I’m not talking about the kids who go to see `Hair’ or `Rent’ or whatever and never return to the theater. I’m talking about producing shows that will want them to keep coming back again and again.
“If we want to insure the future of the musical, we must have shows that keep the under-40 audience coming back to the theater as a habit. It’s as simple as that.”
BROADWAY’S MILLIONS
Recent statistics compiled by the League of American Theaters and Producers indicate that Broadway is indeed on a roll for its 1997-98 season.
According to the trade group, Broadway in the first half of the season enjoyed a 6.4 percent increase in ticket revenue (at $250 million) over the same period last season, with a 2.7 percent increase in attendance (at 5.1 million).
Meanwhile, there are 13 touring Broadway shows set to play more than 110 North American cities before the end of the season.
Jed Bernstein, the League’s executive director, expects that by the end of the season shows in New York will have entertained “more than 11 million customers in one year.”
