Well, Broadway was back. Yet I went to see Enchanted because I was supposed to see it weeks ago and felt I needed to. Enchanted, which I loved (I'm a big sap, if you didn't know), supported my belief that theater snobbery is often bad. I'm a snob and yet I say that. Why? Well, Amy Adams was up for the leads in at least two Broadway musicals (which shall remain nameless here because I value my life) and she was turned down in favor of theater vets who, well, ended up not being right for their part. Now, I'm not saying Amy Adams necessarily would have been the best musical theater lead ever, but, she's so clearly amazingly charming. (I knew this before seeing Enchanted, but Enchanted reinforced it.) Now you can say, "Hey, that is screen charm, which is different." But, well, I called a person involved with one of the decisions (I can sometimes do that sort of thing, even though I shouldn't) who said to me: "She was great, so lovely, but I wasn't confident she could sing 8 performances a week." That is a real fear, but, well, it also smacks of theater snobbery. And I hate that sort of theater snobbery.
But, that being said, I was so excited to see people heading to the theater. I didn't head myself, but I was excited to see the lines. Of course I also got calls that not many people were heading to the theater. This is to be expected, even though it is December. I mean--despite all the news attention to the end of the strike, word takes a while to trickle down. So of course the crowds weren't big at Les Miz on Thursday. Duh. And a lot of group cancellations simply won't be made up. Alas. That's the way it goes.
Yesterday The Daily News came out with a story that seemed to be written to blame the strike for coming increases in ticket costs. Then it said the pending rise wasn't because of the strike. Then it said it was. Ummm... Hmmm... OK. Well, I guess it's good to present arguments on both sides. I want to say, that, as far as I'm concerned, the price hikes will not really be a direct result of the settlement. They will partially be because, simply, the price of doing business always goes up in general (this being just a very little bit of that overall picture), but, also, because you charge what you can get away with charging. That's our market economy. That's the American way.
I'd talk about the Busker Alley announcement, but, well, that would be giving it too much credence. Speaking of giving things too much credence--during the strike an article I loved came out and I didn't talk about it because the damn strike was more important. But, now... Playbill's Ken Jones wrote a story about a possible London production of Grey Gardens, in honor of the fact that some of the team, and Ms. Ebersole, headed to London to talk to producers and theater owners. The story started: "A London production and a national tour were mentioned as possibilities for Grey Gardens when the musical was still running in Broadway in spring 2007, but those prospects now look to be vague." Umm.... were the prospects ever less vague? And, if they were, "mentioned as possibilities" isn't the right wording to get that across.
Anyway, off-Broadway League spokepserson David Gersten (who i love), had been sending out "Off-Broadway is still open" releases every week during the strike. I hope he continues to send them. After all, off-Broadway will need more publicity now.
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3 comments:
After initially resisting "Enchanted," I let myself go and darned if that show didn't strike a chord with me. Amy Adams was great.
Amy Adams was all kind of awesome (and PS, when will I be seeing James Marsden on Broadway, please??), but with Alan Menken and Stephen Schwarz, those were the best songs they could come up with?
The songs were mediocre... or less. But the whole thing was so charming. And Amy Adams rocks.
James Marsden was going to do Broadway a couple of years ago, but then had to film another x-men. Alas. We could use him.
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