As I'm sure you all know, I'm a big fan of Disney and also of Broadway.
However, I'm not sure how I feel about the amount of Disney-Broadway crossover shows currently running. While many of the Disney shows are amazing, catchy, and keep Broadway alive because of their massive public appeal, I miss the days when musicals were original and appreciated for their ingenuity.
The only new and original musicals that come to mind currently are "Book of Mormon" and "Catch Me If You Can". Only "Book of Mormon" has had enough success to merit a longer run.
Is this a reflection of our culture? A show must be offensive (but hilarious) or something very familiar to us in order to succeed?
Well Memphis is a good example of an extremely successful original musical having won 4 Tony Awards- including best musical- and celebrating their 3rd year running on Broadway. Memphis is neither terribly offensive, hilarious, nor very familiar.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I support the whole Disney-Broadway crossover. My reasoning behind my support is due to numerous aspects. First of all, Disney is creating jobs for us (yay). Secondly, because people already know the Disney brand, I would argue they are more attracted to attend the theatre with their family as opposed to an unknown family-oriented musical. This brings new viewers to theatre, and hopefully will get people hooked on theatre. One of my first theatrical memories has to do with the Toronto production of Disney's "The Lion King" when I was eight years old. Disney does make magic.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, Disney has been almost mass-producing stage shows after their success with The Lion King, Mary Poppins, and Beauty and the Beast. Other shows (Aida, Little Mermaid, Tarzan) were successful in their own personal ways, but also flopped for their own reasons. It is almost as though Disney was just beginning to mass-produce. And they may continue to do so, with rumours of Dumbo, Aladdin, Alice in Wonderland, and Freaky Friday coming to Broadway. However, the latest Disney hit ("Newsies") gives me hope for the future of Disney on Broadway and hopefully it will bring success and thus improve the outlook on theatre from society and thus our economical position of the theatre community.
As for new musicals, I think one of the main issues is that there is a lack of originality. Considering the ratio of blockbuster movies that are created in a year to the amount of Broadway shows that are produced - Broadway shows don't happen often. I think this shows that people would much rather go to the movies than a live production. (A movie night is cheaper than going to your local community/professional theatre...) Also, it takes a lot of time to create the material for a good Broadway show, and so it could be assumed that creatives behind productions would much rather take the time to create a production that might actually have an audience then to re-invent the wheel. Maybe we have just gotten lazy.
My other thought about movies being turned into musicals is that maybe the writers had an idea and then found out that a successful movie is similar to their original idea, and so they just go with the movie because it is a more fleshed out "source" than the imagination.
As for new musicals, I would just like to say that Memphis (as Justin said) is completely new as a concept and has proven to be successful, Book of Mormon is partially successful because it is offensive (but it is actually also a REALLY good show, it pays homage to the "old fashioned musical theatre style"), The Scottsboro Boys came out last season and unfortunately closed, Lysistrata Jones had a brief run this year but closed (personally, I always saw it never really catching-the story seemed a little thin). Also a lot of composers are TRYING to get their work going (for example, Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening) wrote another show called "Whisper House" that I was really excited about) but I think that the other problem is no one is really willing to try producing these not-so-sure-things.
Thoughts?
(As you can tell, I think about this a lot...)
ReplyDeleteI like The Prince Of Egypt.
ReplyDeleteAnd I know it's not Disney. I just like it.
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