Full Force Theater Musings

Moving...

2009-12-23T17:01:00.002-05:00

This blog can now be read at The Huffington Post,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cara-joy-david/

Also, fans of musical theater blogs should check out Donna Lynne Champlin's blog at: http://donnalynnechamplinsfirstsolocd.blogspot.com/ and everything else I've ever recommended.

Readers--please follow me! I love you!

Neil Simon out; Elvis In?

2009-11-02T23:11:00.002-05:00

Does that subject header make sense? It does when you consider that the closing of The Neil Simon Plays means that (unless things change) this spring the Nederlander will be occupied by Million Dollar Quartet, a musical featuring actors playing Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley that most of you probably forgot was announced for a Broadway berth. And if you think this post is about how in recent years we've seen both Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley musicals bomb on Broadway, that will have to be saved for another time, because this post is about the much more interesting failure of The Neil Simon Plays.

I read Patrick Healy's analysis of the closings in The New York Times and was left with the feeling that what he was saying was that it is generally impossible to produce a Neil Simon play today. That is unless it features marketable "stars," which the recently shuttered production of Brighton Beach Memoirs was lacking. I think that is crap. Yes, it doesn't help Neil Simon that many of his lines have become cliched or at the very least seem tired in 2009. But, still, I think there are many people who want to enter into the theater to the warm embrace of a time gone by. So why then do I think Brighton Beach was such a failure?

Well, I think a lot of it has to do with marketing. The ads were not good and I do not believe there was any sort of direct mail campaign. This is a show that needed flyers in the suburban JCC. It didn't have them there. The ads should have really promoted the titles and had quotes about the brilliance of the plays. This art was hopelessly old-fashioned and made it seem like the two shows were playing on the same night. And if the producers wanted David Cromer to be the "thrilling" part of the mounting (though I am not sure how that would possibly make sense), they should have said "an all new production from the acclaimed director of..." I mean, something. It was also unclear from the ad what show was playing when. My mother, for example, asked me if Brighton Beach was closing next month, as she had heard on the radio that Broadway Bound would be opening then.

You can say this all didn't make a difference--but that is foolhardy. Shows are made by marketing. For a smaller scale example, look at Altar Boyz. Yes, it got good reviews, but so have some other off-Broadway shows that failed. The reason it succeeded was the marketing, making it sexy and young and utilizing a street team element to make its fans seem more involved. If the ads had just had the title treatment and one Times quote, I don't think Altar Boyz would still be playing. Look at Jewtopia--crappy show, but great title and great marketing. Posters everywhere. I remember going to the clubhouse at my grandparents' development and seeing a small Jewtopia poster and a bunch of flyers. There should have been Brighton Beach $25 off coupons in that same place. People that live there would have totally gone to see Neil Simon. But did those people even know Brighton Beach Memoirs was open? If they are like my grandmother, they might have read the Newsday review a week late, the same day the closing was announced.

Now, I am not criticizing the press campaign, as there was a good amount of press (brought to you mainly by press agent Jim Byk, who I believe I've said here is one of my three favorite sources for musical theater history information). But, when you have a star-less Neil Simon play, target marketing is essential. It gives people who read a sort of positive review, extra incentive to go see the show. That $25 off flyer means something to people going to the JCC in Rockland County. These aren't people who know they can go to Broadwaybox to get a discount code. These are people who want to see the colorful flyer--they want it where they go to the gym or to play cards or they want to get it in the mail. The review or the David Cromer feature in The Jewish Week might not get them to call for tickets, but something targeted to them might just do it.

Do I think a better marketing campaign would have made Brighton Beach a hit? No, I am just listing factors that I think would have helped get us at least to Broadway Bound. And what of Broadway Bound? I have to say, I feel like I've seen Brighton Beach Memoirs 100 times (which cannot possibly be true), but I was excited to see Broadway Bound, which I am much less familiar with. Am I similar to the majority of audience goers? Probably not, so I am not saying Broadway Bound standing alone would have been a hit. But I do think, as stated above, the whole roll-out concept caused confusion. I also think it actually dampened excitement rather than heightened it. Case in point: my friend's parents wanted to see one of the Neil Simon plays, but they were waiting for the Broadway Bound reviews to get excited enough to buy a ticket for one. They knew in this time of economic uncertainty, they could only go see one of the shows and so they were just sitting back and waiting. I mean, let's face it, The Neil Simon Plays are not like the Coast of Utopia trilogy. In the case of Coast, you had a long gap and a subscription base and you also had a fascination element: people who saw one Coast of Utopia entry and loved it felt it necessary to see the others. This was not the case with Brighton Beach and Broadway Bound, even though they are two plays featuring the same family and are in that way more tightly connected than the three Coasts, they have different titles and seem to stand alone. After all, they were not written to be all done at once. Love of one might mean you would be more likely to buy tickets to the others, but there wouldn't be a compelling need. We all know what happens in them.

Would stars of helped? Yes, of course. Would more street marketing have helped? Yup. Would it have helped if the production was amazing? Uh, huh. And what else? Tons. Many things went wrong to lead to the failure of Brighton Beach Memoirs, not the least of which was a poor choice of venue that I think made the play seem even smaller than it was meant to be. Because of these numerous factors, it is unfair to imply that today's modern audiences simply don't want to see a Neil Simon play.

You are Pretty Enough for All Normal Purposes

2009-10-26T14:38:00.003-04:00

Or so a line in Love, Loss and What I Wore says. But my question is more: Are you well-mannered enough for all normal purposes? But more of that later. First, I want to point out the fact that I have seen 8 Broadway shows and 3 off-Broadway shows in the last month and my two favorite have been off-Broadway (one of them being Love, Loss and What I Wore, the other being Circle Mirror Transformation). Now, don't get me wrong, we all know I LOVE my Broadway, but, I'm just sayin....

Anyway, I thought I'd do a random thoughts post. For those of you who are new to the blog, know that I do these from time to time to get out many of the theater-related things on my mind in one shot.

1) It continues to bother me that choreographer Sergio Trujillo begins some of Playbill bios with: "Broadway: Jersey Boys (2006 Tony Award, 2009 Olivier Award); Next to Normal, Guys and Dolls, All Shook Up." Note to people reading this: Sergio Trujillo has never won, or even been nominated for, a Tony Award. He was nominated for an Olivier Award, but he lost out. He puts this in his bio because the show won, but, um, yeah, that is not how people usually do it when they are choreographers and did not even contribute to the given show one big dance number. (And, yes, I refuse to count that finale number.) It is possible Mambo Kings would have brought him a nomination, but we know what happened there.

2) So, most people know my feelings about eating in the theater. (See, the story of mine I am most proud of: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/05/theater/05eat.html .) At the time that story ran, back in 2007, the Shuberts were holding strong as a theater chain that did not allow people to eat at their seats. They continue this, in theory. There is a sign up at every Shubert theater that says you cannot bring beverages back to your seat. It says nothing about food, but, I understand the idea they are trying to convey. However, I was in front of the bar 2 minutes before Oleanna started and I noted the person behind the bar selling a giant pack of Twizzlers to someone, not telling this person that the candy could not be eaten during the show. Now, you may say: "This poor girl doesn't need to tell the customer that--he should know." But the days of Miss Manners are behind us. If you sell a giant pack of Twizzlers two minutes before the start of a show without an explicit warning--where do you think that guy is eating those Twizzlers? And, indeed, all during this play people were chewing around me. Please make it stop. Please. I beg of someone.

3) I can't really comment on the God of Carnage cast in any great detail--because, well, what can I say about the new cast that the grosses won't? BUT, I do want to note that with Annie Potts coming to Broadway, the Great White Way has now officially welcomed all the Designing Women. That includes Meshach Taylor, who you may (or may not) remember was a bizarre stunt-cast for Lumiere alongside Toni Braxton's Beauty. So, welcome, Miss Potts. I have always wanted to work in an industry that embraces ALL Designing Women and Golden Girls.

4) No one really talked about who, in my opinion, loses out most by eliminating first night press from the Tony voting list: the lighting designers and orchestrators. Those of you who are confused by this statement--let me explain. The majority of the Tony voting public doesn't usually pay attention to such things--if the show is a hit, the just let those people share in the credit. I doubt people really thought Peter Kaczorowski's lighting in The Producers was stunning--but was there a doubt he would win? And how many people don't really understand the difference between the score and the orchestrations? The voters who had a tendency to take notes on such things were the critics. And now even their vote is gone, giving way to the sweeping mentality of the masses. Sad.

5) I haven't been reading the message boards and I didn't get through all of the reviews---does anyone else think that, in Memphis, Chad Kimball is doing Christian Slater's voice?

6) Sitting there watching Bye Bye Birdie I thought many thoughts. I think the first was: "Wow, this may well be much worse than Pal Joey." But somewhere along the line I started thinking about how much money it cost to present the catastrophe on display. Then my mind immediately jumped to the LORT contract, which allows non-profits to pay actors less for something like the first few months of a Broadway production (I think it varies by house, but I'd have to verify). This hasn't been covered much--but we're about to approach a time when 7 Broadway houses will be filled with such productions. Think about it: Roundabout has 3 theaters, MTC has one, Second Stage will be at the Hayes and the Beaumont makes six, but I am also adding 1 more to represent whatever Broadway house has an LCT production while South Pacific is still in residence at the Beaumont. Now, before you argue that it is actually 6 because South Pacific is off of LORT, I am just saying that 7 theaters will be filled with productions that, for at least a certain amount of time, will be entitled to discount pay rates. Does anyone else think this is going to be a growing problem for actors in years to come? I can see the contract negotiation difficulties now.

That's it for today. As always, feel free to post or email comments. I leave you with another quote from Love, Loss and What I Wore: "If you wear them again tomorrow, everyone will think it’s the new trend. That’s how trends start, you know?"

Horror at Home

2009-09-25T14:37:00.001-04:00

Seven years ago I attended a play at the Julia Miles theater called Carson McCullers (Historically Inaccurate) by Sarah Schulman. It was embarrassing for everyone involved, especially Jenny Bacon who had to get down on her knees and say strongly "but I'm a boy!" Years later author Sarah Schulman would write a letter to those involved in another one of her horrible plays that shouldn't have been produced (which received horrible reviews, of course) saying basically "the male critical establishment is trying to get me down" and I would think two things 1) how can i get involved in the lynching? and 2) i think Linda Winer is a woman. But, regardless, I share this with you because i have often thought back to how uncomfortably bad that play was. And it was co-produced by Playwrights Horizons, who has produced some good stuff over the years but also some really, really horrible stuff, as I suppose can be said of any company, though they've seemed to have more than their fare share of the horrible. As much as I have disliked some of the stuff Playwrights has put on since then, I believe they've finally outdone themselves in the embarrassment department with THE RETRIBUTIONISTS.

Yes, I know, I had heard it was horrible before I saw it. Why then did I see it? Well, because my mother likes supporting jews. She had read about it and wanted to see it and I, ever the good daughter, told her we would go. And during it, as to make me feel better that I was missing a party to sit through this thing, she said multiple times: "I still say the idea what good."

But, let's talk about how we get from what was an interesting idea for a play (I agree), to what is onstage now at Playwrights. No one is ever going to convince me that was a good script from the start--the underlying script was hackneyed and contrived and had so many things thrown in that I began to think Daniel Goldfarb was at one point inspired by Dr. Evil and Threesome. BUT I don't blame a reader thinking that the script had some potential and, with more development, could have been good(ish). I do blame someone for thinking it was ready to be produced on a major off-Broadway stage. That said, with a better production, more things could have been worked through in rehearsals. The play could have at least been somewhat refined. But, instead, all four leads were bad. I have heard Cristin Milioti is talented and maybe the others are somehow too (though I have more doubts about the rest of them), but then they were all miscast. Something. I can't tell you. The acting of the leads was just atrocious--the lead girl, Margarita Levieva, was particular bad, she even had a fake evil "ha" laugh at one point. Seriously. She did it in earnest. Adam Driver, playing a supposedly charismatic leader, had no charisma and grabbed around a train window. You can't do that--there is supposed to be a wall there! Come on! I fear Leigh Silverman may have just not worked with any of them. Like, maybe she showed up once, gave some minor notes and then said "do what you want. make a show." I can't think of any other reasoning behind the embarrassing thing I sat through. A good 20 people left at intermission. Four more came back but then couldn't actually get through the second act. Someone behind my loudly groaned twice--not because of a lesbian kiss or anything but because of the horrible performances and dialogue we were being bombarded with.

This performance I attended was being taped for the archives. Maybe it will show up in a "what not to do" class--I'm not sure what other function it would have. But I will say: shame on everyone involved. I think part (and just part) of the reason this play was done without requiring further pre-production development is that it is about jews and many jews go see things about jews and so those things tend to sell more tickets ahead of time. It's one thing to greenlight a comedy for those reasons, but to do it with a Holocaust story is tasteless.

West End Girl

2009-09-22T23:35:00.001-04:00

Let us all take a minute to applaud those involved with 39 Steps. Who ever thought it would have lasted this long? Seriously--it was an impressive feet to keep it chugging along. The producers clearly kept the break-even low and the press reps. did a great job getting Times stories. It's one of those rare transplant success stories. Everyone involved deserves our congratulations.

This leads me to my next topic, inspired by a recent Ken Davenport post on his blog. (Who, unrelated to what I am writing about now, has as his top post something that begins with: "Have you ever wondered where it all began? What started the discounting phenomenon? And more importantly . . . who started it?" all questions I can answer unequivocally with a "NO.") Ken posted an article that came to his attention from the London Evening Standard about how many people are investing in theater in London. Because, in times of recession, investing in theater is apparently not as risky as some other things. By some other things--does he mean the lottery? dog-fighting? buying art by someone selling in union square not because you like it but for investment purposes? Anyway, moving on, this raised a good point--that investing in theater in London is i think a better bet than investing in it here. Lower start-up costs and lower break-evens are among the factors that are involved. I remember watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in London with its 20 kids and thinking "we'll be lucky to get 10 in the States" and, indeed, the show cost more to mount here, but had less people involved. (Though please no one correct me on the 2 to 1 ratio because I'm just making that up and it may be exaggerated, as is my license.) But I wonder has anyone really done a side by side comparison? Profits for plays with under 5 actors on Broadway vs. profits for plays with under 5 actors in the West End? Because they do always seem to have more crap moving in and out there. I suppose if someone had attempted a study, we wouldn't necessarily trust their results. This is because they don't officially report grosses there, so an examiner would have to rely on producers' words, not always the most trustworthy things. But it's an interesting question... The article says only 1/3 of shows there lose money, which seems to me to be very low. I don't know. Ken?

Speaking of things I don't know about, I'm back on sexism. Now Philip Boroff has implied that Charlotte St. Martin maybe gets paid less than Jed Bernstein did because she is a woman. Umm, again, Wellesley girl speaking here, someone who completely believes that women are paid less than men simply because they are women, but, GIVE ME A BREAK! What about the fact that they are both overpaid? What about the fact that she knew nothing about theater when she started? You can say a lot of bad things about Jed, but I feel fairly safe in saying he could name all the Sondheim shows (or would at least recognize their names).

OK, I need to rest from ranting. I will end on a happy note--I am super-psyched to see A Little Night Music. Seriously. Can't wait. I love revivals if for no other reason than i get to hear my friends Billy and Don complaining about what is wrong with the production that wasn't wrong with the original.

I Like to Complain

2009-09-18T10:50:00.001-04:00

I refuse to comment on the Avenue Q move, I could, but I could also comment on Jon & Kate and I don't because, it's not worth it for me to add to the discussion. So I told you all that I would comment on the unsurprising rise of Jordan Roth, right? That I can/will do... in brief. I have known Jordan for quite a while. I appreciate his kindness towards me in recent years and the effort he has put in at Jujamcyn re: Givenik (which is a great thing I was very happy to sign up The Al D. Rodriguez Liver Foundation on). But I'm very wary of spin. It's great that a younger person is heading up a theater organization--I hope he is hugely successful. But I did note that the coverage sort of glossed over the "purchase" part of the story and Jordan's less-than-stellar track record as a producer. I didn't even remember he produced The Karaoke Show--and I still don't remember what The Karaoke Show was--until I read his American Theatre Web bio (which says: "He was graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University," which I thought was incorrect but is apparently just a traditional way of writing such things). Anyway, all that said, Jordan is a popular figure in the theater now and I like Jordan and I wish him success. I just like a big picture...Of course, nepotism is in full bloom over at Nederlander and the Shuberts, well, whatevs, so Jordan has a shot at out-shining those groups. If Jujamcyn does great things during his tenure, maybe people will write about him without mentioning his rich parents. One can hope.

So--I know this happened weeks ago--but Kerry Butler only doing 6 performances in Rock of Ages? Come on... And I know Amy Spanger didn't even do that many, but then again she also claimed The Wedding Singer was grueling, so, you can't judge by her. I know that there are those out there that are going to say these songs are super hard to sing, but, yeah, I really don't think that character has as hard a time as Kim in Miss Saigon. I mean, I'd rather people say they are not going to be there than just not show up (like half the other actors in the industry are doing all the time now), but I still wonder what happened to the days the same person showed up and belted out songs eight performances a week. I even think those were the days of less amplification and therefore more belting. But, anyway...

Yesterday, I attended the press conference for the announcement of the winners of the Steinberg Playwright Award (also referred to as 'the mimi,' which I have to honestly tell you kept making me think of Mimi Le Duck and that horribly misguided off-broadway staging of it). Congrats to the three winners, this post isn't about them though. Something happened at the press conference that annoyed me. A journalist (whose work I believe I've mentioned here before in a non-flattering way, but who shall remain nameless now) asked why there had "never" been any female winners of the award. Now, this is only the second year of the award. Last year, it was only given to one person, Tony Kushner, and this year to three. I was so taken aback by this question that I actually turned around and asked someone on the press team to confirm for me that this was just the second year. Eduardo Machado, who is on the award's advisory committee, stood up and gave a great answer about how good playwriting isn't about gender or race. But THEN someone from the board felt the need to get up and justify the fact that there was no woman on the list. This person informed the journalist that the advisory committee had been concerned about this topic and had thought hard about it and consulted the board about this matter. I am all for women's rights--I hope for the day when the Tonys feature as many female authors as male authors. I mean, I am a Wellesley girl. But we're not talking that these people have given 50, or even 10, awards and none have gone to women, we're talking about 4 males. Four. That's not a huge pattern of discrimination. This is like when all those articles about women playwrights came out supporting bad--or at the very most mediocre--plays just because they were written by women. I'm a huge Lynn Nottage fan--I think she is one of the most talented playwrights being produced today. I think Ruined was the best play I saw this year. I hope she gets the Mimi next year, maybe she will. But I don't think the committee should pay special attention to her because she is a black woman. If they don't like her body of work as much as I do, they can give their award to someone else they enjoy more, even if that is a guy. I don't think like Theresa Rebeck deserves this award. And I genuinely don't think it should be discussed in gender contexts at this stage. Yes, there is sometimes a need to look at something and say, "Wow, there have been 67 men and only 3 women recipients, there may be an issue here." If it rises to that degree, then I'd question it. Totally. And there is no bright line rule to when it rises to a degree that is questionable, but I'd have to say that, the Steinberg Playwright Award isn't there yet. Bringing up the gender issue now cheapens the process. It's why when women do achieve things they are often said only to get it because they are female. It's wrong.

Happy New Year to all my fellow jews! I shall be back next week.

I've Missed You All

2009-09-11T22:57:00.003-04:00

Well, here I am. My loyal readers know I haven't posted in a very long time--the reason being I simply didn't have the desire to do it after all the loss that happened in my private life. But I have been keeping up.

I've seen a lot recently... And I'll start by commenting on The First Wives Club. I met/spoke to one of the producers of the show shortly before it was announced that they had hired Francesco Zambello to direct. He boasted about the "red hot" director they were in negotiations with. Of course, this is before anyone saw The Little Mermaid. This is when people thought Disney must know something the rest of us didn't about Zambello's ability to direct mainstream musicals. Now--I am going to detour a little bit here. I often wonder why producers continue to think it's easy to direct a musical comedy. I had this argument with some people involved with 9 to 5. Producer Bob Greenblatt only wanted Joe Mantello (who he went to high school with)--Mantello wasn't always eager to do it, but Greenblatt so wanted him. Joe Mantello has done some good things, but, he's not known for his jovial spirit. Why was there this insistence that he would be so great at directing a big budget musical comedy? The same thing with Zambello... She knows how to direct certain things, but I am not sure why anyone thought she would be a huge musical comedy director. I see why Disney hired her--she and her team were known in opera circles for being good with striking visual images and The Little Mermaid was something that seemed to need astounding visuals. We know how that turned out, but it was an attempt on their part to do something creative. That said, why anyone else hired her is a mystery to me. What about her resume screamed Little House on the Prairie? What screamed any mainstream musical?! Even if The Little Mermaid was a hit, I'm not sure anyone would want to be Zambello's Green Bird, but at least if The Little Mermaid was a hit there would be some legitimate reason to support her. Now, there is the theory that goes you have to take a risk sometimes, these other producers were taking a risk on her. But, the thing is, Disney was already taking that risk, so I am not sure I wouldn't have waited to see whether it paid off before taking my own risk on the same person.

OK, back to The First Wives Club. It's not good. There are some good tunes and Rupert Holmes did an okay job, I just can't point to one thing I really liked. It was HORRIBLY directed. Or not directed actually. The producers know this and now Zambello is gone and they plan on mounting the show at another regional with a new director. We'll see if it happens, but that is the plan.

I also finally saw West Side Story recently, which I was super excited to see. I was very grateful to be going. It actually ended up to be only my second experience with a mid-performance stop--it was halted for ten minutes do to technical problems. But I wasn't phased by that and I was happy the whole cast was there. I must admit I had mixed feelings about the language change a few weeks ago. On one hand, I am against compromising a director's artistic vision this late in the game just to pander to audiences. On the other hand, I don't speak/understand any Spanish. Not having seen it when all three songs were in Spanish, I can't comment on that version. (I do hate when people comment negatively on things they haven't seen--my friend Billy knows this more than anyone.) But I will say I find the one song in Spanish sort of bizarre. Why that one? Because it's Maria alone with her friends? But then 'America' too is Jet-less.... I don't get it. And I found it odd. Yes, I know what they were singing, because I know the lyrics to the songs in West Side Story, but I am fairly confident everyone does not. Just printing the lyrics in the Playbill doesn't negate the problem because no one wants to read the Playbill as the show is going on. I know the Spanish is supposed to make it more authentic, but we all know it is not authentic. It's a musical. This goes back to me whole "I don't care if Mama Rose was small in real life" argument.

Is this enough for my return post? I think I'll wait until next time to comment on the promotion of Jordan Roth, which was the least surprising thing to happen since In My Life closed.

I shall end with a very heartfelt thank you to those of you who have donated to the liver cancer charity we set up in my friend's honor. I was going to send you all my own personal thank you notes, but it was not clear which people donated from here and which people donated for another reason.

Monotonous

2008-12-27T00:54:00.002-05:00

Wow, it's been quite a time for things I love in theater. Really. There is so much to talk about.

1) PRODUCER STATEMENTS
My favorite thing of the last few weeks was the Vanities delay statement. It was great to hear that the production was "being rescheduled for later this season out of responsibility to the investors at this complicated economic time, which makes it very hard to support a new musical on Broadway." I would have preferred: "due to the fact that, currently, while it is fun, this doesn't seem like a Broadway show, we've decided to hope and pray and then maybe we will come to realize that this is an off-Broadway show if a musical other than Altar Boyz or Forbidden Broadway could exist off-Broadway, but, since it is virtually impossible to survive off-Broadway, we'll probably scrap the whole idea." As someone who has seen it, that would have been my dream statement (well, a better written, more coherent version of that), but, alas, maybe we will see it, though hopefully the writing will be tighter than when I saw it previously.

2) RIDICULOUS TRANSFERS
Not since A Class Act.... Rock of Ages. 'nuff said. Actually, I'll say this: I wish everything success, so I hope it has a low running cost.

3) PULL QUOTES THAT SAY NOTHING ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Pal Joey is a good show. And I appreciate the critics mentioning that. I often think people blame the show when it is the production's fault--I thought that a lot about the recent Sweet Charity, (though I loved Applegate) the production made the show seem worse than it is and so people said the show was just out-dated. I disagree. So I do like critics talking about an underlying show in a positive light. But... umm... poor Roundabout... "Glorious songs" (or whatever) only sells to people who would have been attending anyway.

4) THROW EVERYTHING AGAINST THE WALL AND SEE WHAT STICKS
I understand that theater shows need to attract all kinds of audiences, but I wish some of them would pick a tone, a style and, I don't know, maybe really focus in on main characters. There are so many random things going on in Shrek, I walked out thinking the creatives must have been high. And--is there any need for Broadway jokes coming out of the mouth of a small town kid from Indiana in 13? (That is where he moves, right? Indiana?) I mean, I personally love randomness in life in general (I use the word "random" all the time--my mother even used it in her post as sort of an ode to me), but I think it takes away something from the quality of a show. Would In My Life have been better without the lemon subplot? I don't know... when your show is going to be ridiculous no matter what, you might as well go all out... but, in general, some judicious editing is often wise.

5) CLAY AIKEN GETS A SARDI'S CARICATURE
Can they just stop giving these? Please? And, of course, Aiken is not nearly the worst of them, but he was the last straw in my mind. Can there be criteria beyond performing once on a stage and eating/drinking there? I mean, it's there place, so they totally should hang up their patrons, as they please, but, maybe I just want no coverage of it whatsoever. Because, when people cover it, it somehow makes it seem like a respectable honor. I think it used to be actually. Ah, how times have changed.

I am actually going to stop now because I want to sleep. Next week I am going to write a happier post (I hope). Meanwhile, two closings things... First, please go see Striking 12 if you never have. Lastly I want to take a moment to say something about the passing of Eartha Kitt, who was one of my father's very favorite performers. Eartha was one of those people who was exactly what you thought she would be like--a real personality. She was always very nice to me, even when I bombarded her with news questions. And she had such a presence on stage, even when she was not actually doing very much. You never lost Eartha on a stage. Of course, the news was mainly about Pinter this week (and, you know, that little holiday we had), but the loss of Eartha is a significant one in many ways. She was an old time perfomer--always giving the audience what they wanted. She never wanted to move on from the purring, she knew what people came to see.

Mama's Talkin' Loud

2008-12-17T01:03:00.001-05:00

I have much to write about some of the happenings in the last few weeks… But that will wait until I post again later this week. (The delay will be good because I have yet to see Shrek and I will probably want to comment on the reviews/show.) Right now I am going to turn over the blog to my mother. This may be the only time this ever happens, so let me introduce her to those of you who do not know her. I have a Jewish mother (complete with baking skills) who lives in the suburbs and loves theater. An example of how this played itself out in my childhood: I was raised to believe Harvey Fierstein was really, really famous and amazing. You get the idea. In many ways she is my litmus test for how the non-tourist audience of her ilk will react to something. I take her to almost all Broadway shows; she knows virtually every press agent by face. And she loves to talk about the theater—my friends want her to start her own blog! Based on what I have said about her, you might imagine that she is a big Mandy Patinkin fan. So when I was invited to see one of his shows at the Public, I knew she would be the one who would have to comment on it. We saw Dress Casual on Saturday night (it is playing in rep. with two other Patinkin concerts: Mamaloshen and Celebrating Sondheim). I will say that, in my opinion, if you like Mandy, this is definitely for you, if you don’t, you will likely not be converted. But I will let her say the rest on this topic and, as a special bonus, she will also discuss Billy Elliot just because she wanted to do so. (My disclaimer is of course that the thoughts below are not my thoughts and I do not endorse them, I'm just giving them space.)

Jill David speaks:
“I must start by saying that I am a huge Mandy Patinkin fan so there is definitely some prejudice involved here. Going to the Public is always somewhat of an experience because their organization is somewhat sporadic. For example, the ushers seemed to have no idea of the seat locations so people were put in the wrong seats and then had to move climbing over many more people than necessary

To the show. Dress Casual was the one show out of the three that has no song list because, we are told in the playbill, it changes all the time.

Lights fade, stage black. Lights come back on to reveal the star in the middle of the stage in black t-shirt slacks. He immediately launches into song – “Children and Art” - from Sunday in the Park with George, with Mandy playing all the parts in different voices. It seems to go on forever. But his immense talent is evident. The show continues and the pace picks up, thank G-d. The songs are interspersed with amusing anecdotes from the past. He tells a story about Joseph Papp and launches into a Yiddish song, "Yossela,Yossela," that, as far as I am concerned, would be worth the price of admission. Mr. Patinkin is not only a singer with an unbelievable range, but a wonderful actor. He not only sings the songs but acts them out. The show lasts over 2 hours without an intermission but you will not get bored (if you make it through the first song). Take my advice and do not miss it.

A show you can and should miss is Billy Elliot. If this is the Broadway musical of the season, Broadway is in really big trouble (having nothing to do with the economy). The book, adapted from the hit movie Billy Elliot, has potential. The score is totally non-memorable. The first act is interminable and totally random. The second act is better, perhaps because it is so much shorter. I know that the critics gave this show good reviews. I don’t get it. Maybe they think that if something is a hit in England it has to be good. NOT.”

Hmmmm...

2008-12-01T23:52:00.001-05:00

Did anyone else not understand Michael Riedel's Friday column? I mean, I am the queen of not believing the reasons given in press statements for actors being out, shows being delayed, shows being cancelled, etc. So I am all for his sentence about the theater press buying things too easily -- though for me the problem is less things being accepted too easily and more reporters printing things whether they accept them or not--but that isn't relevant here.

What I am saying is his whole claim in the first few sentences is that it wasn't the economy that torpedoed Guare's play at the Public and so it's stupid that people printed it was. Then later on he says it was the economy. See, here is the issue, yeah, they pissed off Carole Shorenstein Hays, which, well, isn't smart. BUT, in another economic climate, they would have gotten away with it. Just like there are randomly people who want to produce August Wilson plays (a fact I often don't get), there are usually people that love George Wolfe enough to support his stuff. Just not now. So, okay, while they didn't lose Hays because of the economy--I am sure she has lost some of her money recently but nowhere near enough that this would put a dent in her savings--the economy did in fact screw them in the end.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

2008-11-23T00:40:00.000-05:00

So I've gotten some flack for not posting in awhile, but I must say, there has sort of been nothing exciting going on. I've been busy working and nothing has screamed "blog about me." But, I have to talk about American Buffalo...

Though first i want to praise one of my favorite Broadway performers--a girl who should work way more than she does--Meredith Patterson. Longtime readers of this blog know I've been a fan of Meredith's since she was Peggy Sawyer on Broadway. I desperately wanted her to be the lead in Never Gonna Dance, but that didn't work. And there have been other roles in recent years I could have totally seen her in and, instead, we got people who weren't as good. I saw White Christmas in LA because of her and I saw it here tonight. I know she doesn't have the flashiest role, but I hope people spot that she is completely in period and doing great work. She is consistent throughout and has the right style. seriously.

Now onto American Buffalo. Usually when shows open and close they don't have stars in them, so it's somewhat less embarrassing. Like who even remembers who was in that musical at the Circle in the Square? But this was a big Mamet revival, directed by the respected Robert Falls, with three different named stars in it. And actually that last thing was part of the problem--this show had the most random cast on Broadway. Honestly. It was hard to believe. I loved it so much because if you told non-theater people about the casting they didn't believe you. My friend Barbara's only reaction was: "WHAT?" And so there were only two alternatives--it could have been a genius stunt that surprised everyone or not. And I was hoping it would work somehow, but, no, it didn't. They were acting in 3 different shows. John Leguizamo was pushing SO hard, Haley Joel Osmet wasn't pushing at all and Cedric the Entertainer was somewhere in the middle (or maybe at different points on one poll and at different points at the other). More than that though--can someone explain to me the play? What was the point of reviving it? Anyone? I just don't get it. I mean, I'm not a huge Mamet fan, but, if it's enjoyable, it's enjoyable. I don't get this play. What is the point? Why have we sat there? I really want comments from fans.

Oh, speaking of Mamet, I enjoyed Speed-the-Plow well enough, but.... Did anyone else realize it's like $1.46 a minute if you sit in the orchestra (in non-premium seats)? Because, I feel like in this economy, I want more for my $1.46 a minute. I want dancing and/or big sets and/or free food and/or Shirley MacLaine.

The Green Monster

2008-10-02T02:18:00.000-04:00

I know what you are thinking--this is the wrong Wednesday. Well, last week I had internet issues... and then holiday prep. hit... so you are getting this Wednesday. Happy New Year to my fellow Jews.

It's good because it's just in time to comment on the Chestor Gregory Shrek casting change. Now, let me tell you--they had a hard time casting that Donkey. I had a friend who was in time and time again. For a long time they just couldn't find the exact right person. I was hoping when the news of Gregory came out that they had finally found him, but, I guess not. Is it his fault? Maybe. I don't know. I will say that the whole Jason Moore thing always made me nervous, as I believe I've said here previously. Yeah, Avenue Q is good, but I've never been sure how much of that credit he should get. It never seemed like he was the huge driving force behind the concept; at the time it was happening less was said of him than, let's say, Rando during Urinetown. BUT, nevertheless, after the success of Avenue Q, Moore began hot. Then he directed Steel Magnolias which, um, wasn't well directed. And, yet, people continued to think highly of him. He escaped heavy criticism. Even those that admitted to me they felt the revival was poorly directed thought that he was still a good musical director, it was just that particular show was difficult. I want Shrek to succeed because I want all theater to succeed and I like Brian d'Arcy James, but, still, I wasn't sold on Moore. Now, with the casting and costume changes and the addition of Rob Ashford, I wonder what other people are thinking about Mr. Moore. Of course, I hope these changes are the sign of a smart director. The addition of Ashford makes it seem like, if they are, it's not Moore, but, I do think it is wise to make changes. I am all for changing what doesn't work--to me, that is the purpose of a tryout. I've never understood why shows go out of town and then make only tiny changes even if they aren't very good. Why did Cry-Baby not come up with a big opening number after La Jolla? Why do so many shows keep leads that aren't good? Is it just the money issue? Isn't it better to pay out an actor than have your show do worse because of him/her? (Note that I am speaking generally and not of Mr. Gregory.) I mean, I guess it is a win/loses thing when it comes to all changes, but, I tend to think most are worth it. I am not investing though.

Speaking of which--who is investing now? The recession hurts all of theater, but it particularly hurts riskier ventures. Which is sad. But true. So, I fear we won't be seeing a lot of adventurous things having commercial productions in the neat future. Stay tuned though, I suppose.

And I leave with a "thank you" for the comments below and for the emailed good wishes.

Hello, all

2008-09-22T02:23:00.000-04:00

Those of you who know me, know that the reason this blog has been on hiatus is that, shortly after my father's death, one of my closest friends, Al D. Rodriguez, was diagnosed with cancer. With the stress and sorrow of it all, it just didn't seem important to keep up this blog. But, I just got back from his memorial service, and someone there reminded me that Al loved this blog. So I am going to try to bring it back. On Wednesday, we'll have the typical Cara theater musings, but, for today, I am going to paste a note I sent to my email list a week after Al's death.

Note that since this email, the foundation has been established. The the Al D. Rodriguez Liver Foundation now exists. If you want to donate, you can make a check out to the foundation and send it to Carlos R. Ortiz / 166 East 35th Street apt. 11G / New York, New York 10016.

Here we go:

Those of you who know me well know that, with the losses of my grandfather and father, this has been an extremely tough year for me. Through all of it, my dear friend Al Rodriguez was there for me. He was one of the best people I ever knew. Last week at this time he took his last breath--less than six weeks after he was diagnosed with liver cancer. On our last night out, Al told me that, if he survived, he wanted to help educate people who did not have medical insurance, did not have a regular doctor and did not know that they could have a silent killer inside them. A foundation that will bear his name is being established with that aim. In the meantime, in his honor, I send this email:

Al never took a drink and was asymptomatic until right up until his diagnosis. His cancer was likely caused by Hepatitis B, a virus that can be prevented by vaccination. It is transmitted through contact with infectious blood, semen and other body fluids. Many of you may have gotten the vaccine in your infancy, but, if you have not, I urge you to look into it. In New York City, there is a way to get a vaccinated for free: http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/std/std2.shtml . If you are suspicious of the vaccine--some believe it has bad side-effects--I recommend you at least get screened for the virus, so you know if you need to do frequent liver cancer checks. (There is no vaccination for Hepatitis C, which also causes cancer, but there is a screening test.)

I know this all seems like a "this will never happen to me" thing. If I had read it a few months ago, I think I would have hit delete. But, on this day, I urge you to take a minute to make sure you are being careful.

The major thing Al taught me was to take care of your friends--so many times this year I got caught up in stupid things and forgot to be there for him. He never held it against me, but I know I need to do better in the future. And this is how I'm starting. I think he would have wanted it that way. So, please head my advice and pass on the word in his memory.

Blue Skies

2008-07-06T23:11:00.000-04:00

OK, I know, I know, I never got back on a regular schedule... It was all Tony stuff, all the time and I just didn't have anything to add. You know why? I didn't have any passionate attachment to any of those shows/performances. It was such a blah year for me. I don't think I'm alone.

Anyway, so it looks like we're in for the Broadway return of Diana DeGarmo, who I like and thought was a great Penny Pingleton. No, she's not going back to Hairspray. She's going to Hairspray producer Adam Epstein's other show, Godspell. So, that makes like her, Gavin Creel, Telly Leung, and, oh wait, I stopped caring already. That was quick.

Now, I know Broadway is Raul Esparza crazy. But am I the only one who thinks Leap of Faith needs a bigger star? Now, by that, I don't necessarily mean a television or film star... But somehow I want a bigger star, someone who commands the stage no matter what. Someone who you are always watching. I'm only always watching Raul when he's being out-of-control... I say this because the material isn't amazing enough on its own, it needs a big star. It's the kind of thing that person is really going to need to sell the hell out of... I hope Raul is that person, but I'm not yet convinced. There is nothing new about that, but I was just thinking about it.

I do hear Allison Janney is now singing better, so that's good for all those of you out there who, like me, are Dolly fans.

What can I say about Legally Blonde the television spectacular? It's really something. I like all the "a broadway actress has to bring it all the time" talk. Has anyone ever seen multiple Jessica Boevers performances in the same show? Because, let me tell you....

OK, sleep. More regular posts in the future. I promise.

Greetings

2008-06-02T01:34:00.000-04:00

Well, I've been on hiatus more that a few weeks... It took me a long time to get back into the swing of things and I apologize for that. Thank you all for your well wishes during my time away. Don't expect much from this first musing, but I'll be back to full force soon.

While I was gone, the Summer Play Festival announced its lineup and both my favorite composer, Joe Iconis, and favorite playwright, Billy Finnegan, have shows in the festival. Congratulations to the both of them. I want to encourage everyone to see Joe Iconis' The Black Suits (and you will then know it is not financially unproducable off-Broadway, no matter what evil people say) and Billy Finnegan's Esther Demsack. Those of you who are longtime readers of this blog, know I've previously excerpted another play of Billy's, that's how much I love him. So, you know, go support him.

Also, while I was out, news broke that NY Times main theater guy Campbell Robertson is going to Iraq for the summer. Apparently it is more action-filled than the summer NY theater-scene. This came as news to me.

So, this week, I saw three shows: Top Girls, Saved and In The Heights. I don't know how many of you have seen Saved yet, but it has three lyricists and yet features lyrics like "Refugees from a refugee camp" and ""Life is screwey, you do what you can/grab onto a life buoy..." In The Heights you all know about, so moving on.

Top Girls... I don't know if I've ever written here that Top Girls is one of my favorite plays. I love it! And I was so happy to finally see this production! I was surprised when MTC first announced it last year because I know that some of their subscribers have in the past complained about weird things and, um, this is Caryl Churchill, but, MTC actually did it, so let's also applaud that right away. Sadly, some Tony voters in the audience didn't share my enthusiasm and there were a handful that left after Act I. This really pisses me off for many reasons, one of which is that Tony nominee Martha Plimpton has her juciest stuff in the second and third acts. So, basically, if you leave, you're not seeing the main part of her performance. That's shady. Of course, as is well known in the community, many Tony voters don't go to half the nominated shows (despite the fact that they are supposedly not allowed to vote in a category where they have not seen everything), so I know someone out there is totally thinking: "Well, at least they went..." But, no. It still sucks, whether they saw some of her performance or not. If you are a Tony voter, you should be able to sit through an entire show, unless you're physically ill. To not sit there shows disrespect to the nominated performers. Now, there is some argument that if only the show is nominated and you hate it in the first act, you might as well leave because you know there is no way you are voting for it. But, in a case where there is a nominated performer, unless that performer REALLY rubs the voter the wrong way in Act I, that voter really needs to stay for the rest of the show. This is especially true when, as is the case here, that nominated performer plays a different character in the rest of the show. I mean--do I really think that the people who left thought, after the first act: "martha gives the worst performance ever and no matter how genius she is in the coming acts I'd never vote for her?" NO! So, basically, the people who left, unless they were actually ill, are just shady and disrespectful.

I'm tired now. That is enough for my return entry.

Hiatus

2008-04-02T23:12:00.001-04:00

Due to a death in the family, this blog is on hiatus for a couple of weeks.

Cara

2008-03-30T22:41:00.000-04:00

Is dealing with drama out-of-town. She'll post Wednesday.

Inside My Mind

2008-03-27T00:19:00.000-04:00

Some quick hits:

Now that A Tale of Two Cities is apparently happening, I guess I have to stop calling it "Masada, The Second." Oh, well.

The big question of the week to me is: What will Glory Days do to the Tony race? It's out-of-town reviews were not like 'this is the best thing ever.' But, yet, it will almost surely earn a Best Musical Tony nom. How about the actors races? One lead, one featured? I'd bet book and score, because we like to support young-uns. So, that's a lot of noms.

Gavin Creel in Godspell. Wow, that's the most exciting choice ever. (Sarcasm.) I mean, I like Gavin, I do, but I was hoping for someone a) with some outside name recognition or b) someone very different. Maybe that is just me. I know people love Mr. Creel.

Is anyone else not at all surprised at the Rent extension? I mean, nothing closes in June. Don't be ridiculous. So when I heard about the ticket rush for the "final" performance I was like--"UMM.. that's so not the final performance!" I mean, come on. Why are you spending $7000 for a ticket to a performance in June? (Yes, I know--why are you spending that much for a performance anytime?!? but, that's another story.) I mean, they are letting people exchange tickets for one final to the other... This is "subject to certain restrictions," but it's still nice.

Poor Mask. All these years and still not great. I saw the long ago concert and I liked the score, but it wasn't a show and the score didn't go with the book. The composers held out for tons of money and some other drama stuff and so for years no one would do it. Now, someone finally has and the critics don't like it. Is it a surprise a show has been sitting around for years and still hasn't been improved? I wish it was, but it's not. (NOTE: I did get two emails from non-theater people who saw a photo from the show and had to email. So, maybe there is an audience for it, regardless. Though I'm not sure these people who actually attend.)

I believe I've written here before that I LOVE Pamela's First Musical, the book. So please go see the BC/EFA benefit of the musical. Support it, applaud loudly and then one day maybe we'll see a fully staged version of the musical. I've been waiting...

Who is Sam Thielman at Variety and why is he incompetant? I mean, normally I tend not to blame the journalist because it could be the editor. But, in this case, I doubt it is the editor. First he wrote Julia Murney was part of the current cast of Wicked (umm... no) and then, in another story, he wrote this sentence: "Williamstown Theater Festival has announced the rest of its '08 lineup: a new production of Christopher Durang's "Beyond Therapy" with Kate Burton will be directed by Les Freres Corbusier A.D. Alex Timbers at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, opening July 8." Well, yeah--the Williamstown cast will also be seen at Bay Street. But... what is the quoted sentence missing? Umm... maybe the Williamstown dates? Any mention that it will also be at Williamstown? I'm just saying...

That's it. Rest time.

You Could Be Dancin', Yeah...

2008-03-23T23:02:00.000-04:00

I don't have much to say tonight (I am a little exhausted), but I do want to talk about Dancin'. I'm surprised not more has been made of this huge step into commercialism by Roundabout.

I know previously I've discussed my support of Roundabout doing random money-making things. Because, in general, I think people that put on big shows should be entitled to make money to support them. Roundabout has many times previously taken a show that commercial producers just couldn't manage to get on and done it. One past example is The Pajama Game. Another example is the upcoming Pal Joey. But Dancin' is a little different.

Back in the fall when news surfaced of this Dancin' it was to be a commercial Broadway revival with a Toronto tryout. For whatever reason, that plan did not work out. So now we have a Roundabout production at Studio 54 produced in association with Greg Young, Elaine Krauss, Dancap Productions and Richard Levi. It is of course standard procedure to list the commercial producers, as these are the people that are hoping the show is a huge hit and they can move it and capitalize on its hit status. So, the deal is, for those of you who know nothing about the industry, it takes a lot less money to get something on at a non-profit because of a lot of factors, especially LORT actor contracts which allow for lower salary minimums. Like, they knew Love Musik was iffy commercially. So the commercial producers put it on in association with MTC in the hopes that people will love it and they'll be able to move it. If it is not well-loved (which was the case with Love Musik), the commercial producers lose a lot less money than they would have if they put it directly in the Belasco. But this is all usually (with some exception) done behind-the-scenes. It's not something you would know unless, well, you knew.

The Dancin' announcement has something markedly different about it-- the statement "that "A national tour of DANCIN' will open in the fall of 2009" following the Roundabout mounting. That makes it clear that this is a commercial endeavor right from the get-go. Of course, I'm sure if it is a bomb, the tour will be scrapped. But its announcement says something.

RIP Curtains

2008-03-20T01:02:00.002-04:00

Well, Curtains will end its New York run on June 29. It will have run almost a-year-and-a-half, which is a healthy run... but it has yet to make back its $10million capitalization and it is doubtful that it will.

There is an odd thing about Curtains--it was a show that lasted a while, had a great lead who won a Tony, was fun, and yet never had a tremendous amount of buzz. (Despite a very committed press agent.) To me personally, before it came, there was a certain excitement about seeing a new Kander & Ebb musical. But that excitement never reached the masses. That's not to say the show didn't sell at all--it's still around, which is saying a lot... But it was never a show that a great amount of people were like "We MUST see this."

Why not? You know, when Curtains opened, it had that old-fashioned feel and I thought it would attract people who wanted to see that sort of thing. It had great dance numbers. The song Thataway, which was catchy. Two strong lead performances, one by a television name. So it had things going for it... (And it's hard for me to say that about anything with Karen Ziemba in it.) But, most of all, it should have had going for it the Kander & Ebb label.

There are very few musical theater songwriters who are famous. Kander & Ebb are famous. The general public doesn't know that in addition to hits they've made flops. They just know their names and thus associate them with hits. But, even Kander & Ebb apparently don't have names that are marketable enough to sell a show with a named star automatically. (Yes, I am sure their name sold some tickets, but not an astounding amount by any means.) Which leads me to think--is there any songwriting team who could truly sell tickets to a contemporary, non-theater savvy audience? If someone uncovered an unheard Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, would it sell enough tickets in advance to really build up super-buzz? I don't think so...

Now--the second part of this inquiry is... Is that sad? Part of me thinks it is. Part of me wishes tons of people rushed out and bought tickets to see a new Charles Strouse musical. But, the other part thinks--maybe shows should stand and fall on their own. But that's never the case. Every show brings with it the reputation of not only its songwriters, but its stars and creative team. So it's never just about the plot and the quality. And, thinking about it that way, it does make me sad that the general public no longer supports certain songwriters. It shows a lack of respect for theater history, in a way. Then again, we all know so few people care about theater in general anymore. It doesn't really surprise me that you can't continually fill a theater with Kander & Ebb fans. You can fill a theater with Julia Roberts fans, but, she's not a theater person. And that says it all.

It's late. I'm tired. I've lost track of where I was going with this. Musings for the night over.

I get my coffee...

2008-03-17T00:18:00.000-04:00

Greetings from Long Island, where I am dealing with yet another family situation. My life is exciting, isn't it?

In The Times article about Young Frankenstein today, Campbell Robertson doesn't discuss my favorite point: That all the new commercials prominently display the phone number, which is 1-888-Mel-Brooks (or 1-888-Mel-Broo), seemingly saying, "Hey, you may hate Young Frankenstein, but remember who wrote it! You love Mel Brooks!" That number might have been around before the bad reviews, but never have I seen it so much...

Anyway, the biggest news of the past week (the news I ignored on Wednesday) was the "huge success" of In The Heights. I have yet to see it on Broadway and I'm excited to one day do so... I hope all its problems were fixed in transfer. But I want to take a look, as I often do, at how spin frequently takes over from fact.

I was out Sunday night and I kept getting calls about the "rave" Times review for the show. Sample caller: "Cara, did you read the Times review? It's so good..." Then, when I got home, I did read the review. (I try not to read reviews before I see the production, but, because I saw this off-Broadway, I figured it was semi-safe.) Am I the only one who didn't read it as a rave? I mean--here is what I got from it: this guy is great, his music is top-notch and the choreography is interesting, but the story isn't good. That to me isn't a rave. That's like: go see it for this guy and his tunes, but the show needs work it didn't get in the transfer. Now, it does say "go see it" but it's still not a rave, in my mind. Yet the spin is so "RAVE." That's all I hear. I'm happy to hear that people are excited about something--especially something that can bring in a new audience--but I often wonder why spin takes over on some shows and doesn't on others. The same thing happens out-of-town--I think I mentioned before that for a while the buzz was randomly that Cry-Baby got across-the-board GREAT reviews, when, in fact, that isn't true. And, again, if the people are excited, I'm excited about that excitement, but.... I'm confused by it as well.

Perhaps there is a bent to support new artists in the theater? A Catered Affair won the majority of San Diego critics awards over Cry-Baby yet the NY buzz on that was much softer on that out-of-town. Of course the reasoning could be that Cry-Baby is THE NEW JOHN WATERS MUSICAL and A Catered Affair is a musical version of a movie I did not remember seeing... But, the reasoning could also be based on the fact that (despite this being Bucchino's first Broadway show) Cry-Baby seems like it has a hipper team attached to it... And we like to support hip teams more... (Someone is going to point out that Cry-Baby is more of a big crowd-pleaser and so the positive reviews of that were more like 'this is great fun!' and that is natural based on the subject matter... but I contend there is more to it.)

I believe the desire to support young theater artists is a perfectly valid one. So I am not attacking it. And I'm not saying that's the reason for overly-positive spin reviews of certain shows receive. I'm just saying that is one possible theory behind it. I'm sure there are many more... (Thus ends the disclaimer portion of the evening.)

Now I need to get something to eat. Until Wednesday...

Dear Little Girl

2008-03-13T02:14:00.000-04:00

I’m very excited I got back just in time for news to surface of the return of They All Laughed!, er, “The Untitled Gershwin Project.” It was back in 2001 when I first saw this show. It was already on at least its second director—right before Goodspeed, Christopher Ashley had to step in for a then-hot John Rando.

The show was tremendously troubled—it was somewhat enjoyable, but very slight and confused. Though for years after I kept hearing about rewrites and new readings. Joe DiPietro was working away on it. But, honestly, I never thought we’d see it again. I maybe blame Drowsy Chaperone for this Gershwin return, because Drowsy made people think an old-fashioned musical could sell. (Now, note, I personally never thought Drowsy was an old-fashioned musical, but I’m talking about other people’s conception.) Before that, the last new, old-fashioned musical was maybe Never Gonna Dance… and we know how that turned out.

Anyway, so it’s back. Now, interestingly, Christopher Ashley is out, Kathleen Marshall is in. And the show is, in theory, heading for a December Boston tryout in preparation for a Broadway bow next year. Original producers Jonathan Pollard, Dena Hammerstein and Bernie Kukoff have been replaced by another three, Scott Landis, Emanuel Azenberg and Ann Marie Wilkins.

Will we ever see it? Well, Azenberg is a big name, so that adds some weight to the whole thing. I’m not holding my breath or anything, but, that’s something. But the bigger question is—if we see it, why? We all know how DiPietro’s last big Broadway attempt at taking on an old catalog, All Shook Up, went. (Note that Ashley directed that one.) Plus, Broadway has seen a Gershwin revue before. Well, actually, one concert-like revue, Fascinating Rhythm, and one new musical incorporating old songs, Crazy For You. Just as Crazy For You was loosely based on Girl Crazy, They All Laughed was loosely based on Oh, Kay!. So do we really need it?

I mean, I’m all for supporting brilliant musical comedies. I’m a musical girl. But, let’s face it, we know this isn’t going to be genius. The most we can hope for is fun. And, if that’s all it’s about, isn’t Crazy For You a safer bet?

Just musing… I will of course be excited to see the new They All Laughed. I like fun and hopefully it will be that. That being said, I don’t know if I’d mount it for $12 million, but, then again, I live in a tiny studio apartment, so, it’s not like I’m mounting anything for $12 million.

Sorry

2008-03-10T01:00:00.000-04:00

Cara is again not available to post tonight. She will return Wednesday.

A.C. Slater's full name? Anyone?

2008-03-05T23:58:00.001-05:00

I am back... and would like to extend my own personal welcome to Mario Lopez. When are we getting Tiffani Amber Thiessen and Mark-Paul Gosselaar? Oh my god, why did they not do Barefoot in the Park?

So I got back on Monday, but I haven't had much time to catch up on the gossip, as I've been catching up on, I don't know, actual work. Thus this will be a more general topic.... Secrets of a Soccer Mom. Clearly, this is going after the Menopause the Musical audience.... but does it really have the name to capture them?

It's a marketing issue, I believe. Because Menopause had a genius title--like I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change. But Secrets of a Soccer Mom could be ANYTHING. It could be about affairs, ala Desperate Housewives. But it's not. It centers on mother's talking about their lives at a soccer game. How do you make that seem interesting in marketing materials? Because there is an audience out there for it--it's the Menopause audience. But you have to know how to target them.

This is what Ken Davenport and his team does so well--target his audience. There is a crowd for Altar Boyz, Awesome 80s Prom and My First Time, but all three of those titles easily could have bombed. The reason they succeed is because of the way they come across, which is young and fun. And the right people got that message.

So let's first look at the Secrets website. First of all, on the flash it says "under the expert direction of Judith Ivey" credited to The Times and on the inside is a quote from the Times that says "the knowing direction of Judith Ivey." But, moving on. The champagne and theatre boutique is a clever ploy. The website is in general cute, which keeps the focus on that this is a comedy. So that's all good--but they need to get people to the website or the theater. It's not like everyone is just going there randomly.

My friend's mother lives in the NJ suburbs and belongs to a community group that sees theater. I saw her at a party a couple of weeks ago and I asked her if she was going to see Secrets of a Soccer Mom , but she hadn't heard of it. Now I'm sure they've done press and ads in The Record and Star Ledger... So why hadn't she internalized any of it? She is the audience... And I don't know the answer. Is it maybe that there needs to be flyers at the supermarket? This seems like a show perfect for train station and supermarket cart promotion. How about ads in the Pennysaver? Is anyone with me? That's really the audience that needs to be pitched and pitched again. I mean, my friends aren't going... It's all about these soccer moms. And these are busy women--you need to keep pushing for them in places you know they'll be.

Anyway, so I have no idea what I was thinking of that, but there you go. It will be interesting to see this in the long-run. We all know the audience is there. They have nothing else to go to. But we don't know if they'll come in droves to the Snapple Center. Stay tuned.

Sunday's post will hopefully be less random. Now I'm off to watch Project Runway.

Wednesday

2008-03-02T19:51:00.000-05:00

Cara is still dealing with a family emergency. She should be back by Wednesday.

Today

2008-02-28T02:28:00.000-05:00

Cara is out of town due to a family emergency.

Come my little friends

2008-02-25T01:16:00.000-05:00

So, Oscar night... Why did they have Amy Adams sing the boring song and Kristin sing the more fun one?

Anyway, let's talk about Campbell Robertson's "james earl jones curses" story. Why do more people notice it now than when Ned Beatty did it? Is it indeed, as the end of the story says, that it might be "the shock comes from watching the actor known from "On Golden Pond," "Star Wars" and CNN get so down and dirty?" Or is it a color thing? After all, those are the options.. and there are options...

One way of looking at why people didn't notice it from Beatty, is Beatty seems like he often does yell and scream and curse. Whereas I don't see James Earl Jones cursing. Mostly because James Earl Jones is more classical and mannered. Beatty seems like he could be a scrapper--so it wouldn't stick out when he did it.

The other way of looking at it, is because this is an all-black cast, people notice it because they think it is the producers' attempt to make the show more hip and urban. I know people who buy this reasoning. But, let me tell you, the only people who notice it and would have this viewpoint are theater people. Because it wouldn't really make sense for the producers to do this purposely--for people who are used to hearing curses and don't know Cat on a Hot Tin Roof--they won't notice them. Would a younger crowd really be more likely to recommend a show because people curse in it? I suppose you could argue that it makes the show seem more current and therefore younger folks would be happier with it, but, well, that's not true. Cursing isn't really a current thing. And, again, I don't think most younger people will notice them. Now, sure, you could argue that while they wouldn't stick out, they'd add to an edgy feeling, but I just don't buy it. If the play is going to seem dated, it's going to seem dated with or without salty language. (I've never used the phrase 'salty language' before and it feels very sailor--I love it.)

So, yeah, I'm backing the "James Earl Jones doens't seem like he would curse" approach. And I'm also fine with the curses... I don't think they add that much, but they don't bother me either. There are certainly shows with more!

22% Cara

2008-02-21T00:15:00.000-05:00

I am sick and have two stories due tomorrow. In other words, this isn't the time for post. But I love you all. Well, that's probably not true. But, whatever.

No Habla Espanol!

2008-02-17T22:50:00.000-05:00

I just got back from Feeling Electric, er, Next to Normal. I really liked that young girl.

That observation is not related to anything else in this post.

So Celia fascinates me. I haven't discussed it on here before (I mean, since the post when I got home from it and shared with all of you the life lesson that when you sing your skin color changes) because I had pitched a story about it and I don't like to talk about story topics on here because, you know, conflict.... Anyway, now that Variety has written it, I feel free.

First I want to state a correction to something in the story. Gordon Cox (or some copy editor) wrote that the show played one English performance per week when it began... It was actually two. This makes a difference because it makes the leap to three seem, well, less dramatic.

Now moving on... The reason I am fascinated by it is it's showing that there is a market for commercial productions in Spanish. Puerto Rican Traveling Theater has done the 6/2 spanish/english divide before, but, to the best of my knowledge, there has never been a major commercial production to do it. (Maybe some historian can tell me of one....) Does anyone remember Latinologues? That Broadway show toyed with doing all-Spanish performances but the producers were unsure of whether the formula would work. Celia clearly proves it does.

Will we be seeing more of this? Should In The Heights maybe do some Spanish nights? (If Spelling Bee can do "gay" night...) I think so. Clearly there is an audience who wants to come see Spanish-language shows. Because, I actually disagree with the Variety story in this sense... My friend at New World Stages has long said that the English nights are half empty. Now half-empty is of course better than the 90% empty I'm sure many other shows are, so, there is that... but, in general, people aren't really flocking to the English nights. I'm actually not sure why they added another one, other than the fact that maybe they were hoping that with their new legit press agent and more mainstream press, they would need another one... But, regardless of this detail, no one would dispute that the reason Celia is still running is the Spanish nights. People flock to them. So why wouldn't other shows do it?

This is not the case where the musical was so amazing it worked in this one case. This musical is bad. Sure, the music is familiar and that helps... But I truly believe most of it is people craving this type of thing. I'm not, but, my cravings so don't matter. If they did, I'd run out of here right now to get waffle in a bag.

Pipe cleaner ears?

2008-02-13T23:05:00.000-05:00

Michael Riedel ended today's column by stating: "Let's hope that when they do find a Shrek, they don't put him in a green foam-rubber suit." Which leads me to the question--what do we want Shrek to look like? Ideally?

I don't know how many of you remember the Seussical costume debacle... During the press "sneak-peak" of the show pre-Boston, the team showed off drawings of Catherine Zuber's over-the-top costumes. She was creating some kind of fantastical world with giant costumes. Then the actors put the costumes on and, well, no one liked this ridiculous world... I think one of the actors said to me at the time something like "I feel like I'm a stuffed animal on parade." That sounds good to me, but, it wasn't meant in a good way. A few days into previews in Boston, word was out that Zuber was canned and William Ivey Long was in. (There was then an incident when Long told the cast to go out and buy their own yellow suits instead of wearing Zuber's old costumes.")

And so, from this little drama, I suppose we can say that big foam costumes are indeed bad in the eyes of many. But what is good? How do you bring a cartoon to life? The non-literal Little Mermaid costumes have been attacked. So can you only go the way of The Lion King? Do we think Shrek should look like The Grinch except with ogre ears?

I mean--this is one of the natural difficulties inherent in these things.... And how can you overcome it? I honestly don't know. There is something to be said for reinvention, but clearly that has recently gone awry... There is also something to be said for wanting the figure onstage to look exactly like the image in your heard, but, then again, a giant foam ogre would look cheap and cheesy. Can there ever be a perfect medium? The Lion King has been praised for its look, but it is questionable whether that model will work time and time again.

Now, while many people think the score and the book are the most important parts of a musical (as they should), in the cartoon-to-stage projects, I think the costumes might be the most important thing to get right. You go too literal and you'll be berated. Too experimental and children will cry. Screw up the look and your book and lyrics won't matter much...

So, I look forward to seeing what they'll come up with at the end. As we know from Seussical, there is no way to tell now what will be up on that stage come fall.

Who is that masked man?

2008-02-11T00:19:00.000-05:00

I love how some things never in theater never die. They just keep coming up and up again. Like Lone Star Love. Is that over for good now? Maybe this last time buried it… maybe…

But this week we had Zorro, another one of my favorite “oh, it’s here again” musicals. Of course there were those dueling Zorro musicals in the late 1990s that did actually get done somewhere (I think). But then does everyone remember back in 2001 when Ricky Martin was reported to definitely be starring in the West End production of a different musical production of Zorro? Back then, John Gertz and Adam Kenwright had supposedly asked Robbie Williams to write the music. Remember?

Well, I’m just not sure if this is the same Zorro. I guess it is because Gertz and Kenwright were involved back then and they were involved now, as per Variety. So this is like the 5th team they’ve tried to get together? There was a reading of what I think was this version of the show last year in New York. The biggest name involved is now The Gipsy Kings.

But here is what confuses me—according to Playbill and a bunch of other sources the musical is based on Isabel Allende’s 2005 novel about Zorro. Now, other sources just have Allende “presenting” it. The show’s website doesn’t list her as a member of the creative team at all (though it does say she is producing the musical) and Stephen Clark is listed as the sole librettist and lyricist. (Note that at some point a few years ago Clark was on board just as lyricist and The Clearing scribe Helen Edmundson was writing the book—I don’t know what happened there.)

So does this mean everyone who is reporting that the musical is based on her novel is just suffering from sloppy reporting? Because then that clearly means this is all too confusing for the majority of people to follow. Well, it’s in these cases we’re lucky that like 200 people follow the theater this closely. No one will be confused because 20 people knew all this confusing background crap. Theater fans might remember the Ricky Martin thing, but probably not anymore. Though Allende is a best-selling offer… so maybe her fans will pay attention/care…. And therefore I guess there is a real question here.

My main point is—does the world really need this? Is this something they really needed to spend 8 years trying to get off the ground? Really? I hope it’s great, but…. Do we need more than one big budget musical with a masked man as its titular character? I know I don’t.

Short One...

2008-02-08T00:02:00.000-05:00

This post is delayed, but it's still sort of going to suck. Sorry. Other things on my mind.

But I do want to talk for a few lines about this week's big off-Broadway news. So off-Broadway shows rarely, rarely recoup. We all know that. I can't tell you how bored I am with that subject. This week though, the production announced that Altar Boyz recouped. YAY! That's exciting. Now, here is what I find odd... I like Ken Davenport, I really do, I'm a big supporter. He was my star guest recently even. And so I am thrilled he is doing so well, but, umm, well, we got 3 releases on the same day each saying one of his shows recouped. Ummm... Did they all recoup the same time magically? Like no shows ever recoup, but not only did all three of his recoup, but they did it at the same time? Like triplets? Like a happy family? Or is it that they were holding onto the individual recoupment information until they could make a big splash? I think that. Anyway, this aspect of it made me laugh.

But let's just look at the Altar Boyz aspect--this is, again, great news. Most casual observers thought Altar Boyz was a hit a long time ago. That's the odd thing about theater--if the show runs over a year, people act like it's a hit, but often even those shows (and we're talking about both on Broadway and off) never make money. So, not that there are many non-theater savvy people reading my musings, but, if anyone stumbles across them, I want you all to realize that even longs runs don't necessary mean profits. Look at Jekyll & Hyde -- 3 1/2 years and what to show for it? Like--wouldn't you all think Naked Boys Singing recouped forever ago? But, no...

So, there you go, just a couple things to think about. Though there is no more exciting a topic that Corey Haim's Variety ad. So just think about that. For days.

Stay Tuned...

2008-02-06T23:56:00.000-05:00

I rarely do this, but I must change my blogging schedule... New post tomorrow! So check late, late tomorrow or, actually, Friday.

The Brain

2008-02-04T01:24:00.000-05:00

Last week was a horrible, horrible week in my life. I can't even describe on here how bad it was. And yet the Young Frankenstein coverage made me laugh.

Sillerman and Brooks are doing a '$450 sucks' promo tour it appears. And the media is encouraging it. Now here is why this makes me laugh: they are all saying that the ticket price caused the backlash that led to the bad reviews. It's like: "If we hadn't done this, people would have focused on the art and that would have helped us a ton." Umm... actually... No. There still would have been ridiculous expectations attached to it and the product would still be just plain old ridiculous. They should be happy for any talk that takes away focus from the show.

And I love how in Variety, Gordon Cox writes about Sillerman: "his humility is refreshing." Umm... this is not refreshing, this is a desperate attempt to make it seem like the show is good. I mean, again, basically what he is saying is: "Sure, I screwed up, but without that, you'd think this was good... You were just trying to kill it because of me... and that's not fair..." That's not any better than the: "The audiences love Urban Cowboy" push.

Has it ever occurred to anyone that a real industry backlash would include a lack of coverage? When in fact this show gets more coverage that any other? And, let's rewind... Remember when The Producers set a high ticket price post-reviews and a bunch of the coverage hinted that, while rich people/tourists may spend the extra money to see the ultra-hyped show, the industry would turn on it. And yet that never happened--it was a Tony darling. Because, the truth is, if you have a good show, the industry will forgive your greed. There might be a slew of bad coverage, but, then, with a good show, all is forgiven.

When you have an Odd Couple or a Young Frankenstein, sure, you're in trouble, but you're in trouble whether you had a ridiculous price or not. It's true that people may expect more the higher the ticket price (like they expect more from on Broadway as opposed to off-Broadway), but critics aren't paying... And they may think: "Should a person really pay $450 for this?!?!" but if it's really good, they forget about that part because the $450 isn't coming out of their pockets.

Anyway, I just love the promo tour. I'm truly sorry I missed the Arts & Leisure panel. While it was going on I was in CA watching Tonya Pinkins perform to an audience of 30. Not as fun, I assure you.

Step Up!

2008-01-31T00:48:00.000-05:00

That title has nothing to do with anything other than that the commercial for the movie was just on.

I'm so sorry I missed the Jerry Springer protesters. I hear they were really something. Please share stories if you have them.

For this blog post I am going to do a little something different. I had for some unknown reason never read the comments to my post about the possible quality differences between Broadway, off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway. And I wanted to really respond to them.

First, RLewis said "we're all in this together - each have their trash and treasure, so why the competitiveness?" That I will respond to... I don't think there should be competitiveness. I would never boycott one. And i'd never say to someone: "I don't see [blank] because theater is better [blank]." But clearly people do say stuff like that, as evidenced by that woman saying it to me. Personally, I'm really excited about the next show at The Mint. I'm more excited about that then Passing Strange. (Have I ever said on here that I have NO IDEA what Passing Strange is about? Because I really don't... help? anyone?) I know that seems weird for such a Broadway baby, but, there you go. Rlewis is right... support all theater. Go see what sounds interesting. Blah. Blah. Blah.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT! I promised it and here it is... The second comment box was actually asking a question: Why is off-Broadway so much more expensive than off-off-Broadway? I have my own theories, but I figured I'd go out of the box and ask an expert: the Barnum of off-Broadway (as Campbell Robertson labelled him), Ken Davenport. I think the beginning of his answer talks about the off-off/off difference and then he moves on to the off/on difference. So you get a little bit of everything. So, for the first time ever, I turn the blog over to an industry person: "I don’t believe actual base salaries are problematic off-broadway. The only problem with labor are some of the 'extras' (benefits, etc.). These get a little out of control for something so small. Most of it is in the design . . . especially lighting. And all of the extras associated with that. When you add moving lights to an off-broadway production, you don’t only add moving lights. You add a programmer, you add a lot of maintenance, etc. Theater costs (rent) and advertising are the other major expenses that drive up the costs. While some publications like to think they are doing their part in reducing costs by offering “small theater rates” or “off-broadway rates”, these rates are in no way in proportion to the actual difference in potential revenue from a Broadway show to an Off-Broadway show. It’s well over $2k to pay for a 1/4 color ad in Time Out. Do you think any Off-Broadway show is selling over $2k worth of tickets per week from one 1/4 color ad in Time Out? Yet, if big budget for an Off-Broadway show is only $10k/week, that means 20% of it just disappeared in that one ad. And do you think 20% of a show’s audience per week is from Time Out? No."

There you go. I am officially refusing to discuss Mermaid on this blog (for the time being at least), so on Sunday you'll be in for more musings, non sea creature related and hopefully non crap related.

So Much Better?

2008-01-28T00:27:00.000-05:00

I was going to talk about the whole Live Nation sell-off, but I just feel I can't add anything to that conversation really.

So I am going to talk a little about the search for the next Elle Woods. Like for Grease: You're The One That I Want, the point in my mind is not really to find an unknown talent, it is to get publicity. Therefore, like Grease, Blonde actually sort of hopes to cast a pro. The casting people are again encouraging Broadway vets to audition and go through the whole training thing as if they needed it. So basically they are televising a search to find a new Elle Woods, which is what they are doing, so that is okay. But they are not televising a search to find a great unknown.

That being said, they may end up with an unknown. After all, despite some competition from experienced NYC theater people, we have Max and Laura. And then the question becomes--how much training will someone with no real stage experience need to be able to perform the role of Elle Woods 8 times a week? That role is harder than either Grease role. And I feel like even if they get someone GENIUS--someone way better than the original star (and there is a possibility that will happen)--there may be a big stamina problem.

That is a concern. The other thing I will bring up is less a concern more a curiosity: How much will this help? It is going to be tricky to tell. When do we judge from? When the show starts airing? Before that even because of the publicity the ads will bring? Will we have to wait until a new Elle goes in? Because then we're getting into the difference I previously discussed between people buying tickets to Grease after they saw ALL of that promotion vs. people buying tickets to Grease to see Max and Laura--my feeling was more people fell into the first group than the second (even though there were plenty Max and Laura supporters out there).

The most interesting thing to me would be if we could see if the broadcast vs. cable difference mattered. That is a good question. But we're never going to be able to answer it--there are too many variables. We don't know how Grease would have done without its big talent search--so we have no baseline for that show. We will be able to tell ratings, but that is also sort of not comparable in many respects. So, alas, this whole thing will just end up being boring for me. Will I watch? Of course. I'll feel the need. I hope I enjoy it, though I'm not getting my hopes up.

The saddest thing in life is wasted talent

2008-01-24T00:03:00.000-05:00

When Playbill first reported that eligibility decisions would be made on January 17, I wrote it down like any oddly obsessive theater freak. This weekend, when there was still no word on what those decisions were, I asked around, with the majority of people I asked assuming that the meeting had been postponed. But it had not been postponed, it’s just that no one had reported the results. Please take a moment to absorb that and then to laugh.

Done? Ok, moving on. This week there were a bunch of stories announcing decisions—on the websites and in Variety. They reported about the August actresses—a decision I’m happy about—and a bunch of other actor things. But they missed the major story, that A Bronx Tale is somehow eligible for Best Play.

Is He Dead? is also eligible for Best Play, but that is not perplexing to me. Sure, some thought it would be a revival because Mark Twain wrote it and he, well, has been dead awhile. But it was just discovered and no one had ever heard of it, so, I can see the Best Play thing. Not so much for A Bronx Tale. I believe the decision about A Bronx Tale proves how the rules are so vague and hard to understand that we maybe should bother trying.

1) Why is A Bronx Tale not Special Theatrical Event?

Anyone? I have written before about how weird I think this category is. See: http://carajoy.blogspot.com/2006/03/tonys-part-1-what-hell-is-special.html
The rule states: “A "Special Theatrical Event" shall be any production in an eligible Broadway theatre that is, in the judgment of the Tony Awards Administration Committee, a live theatrical production that is not a play or musical.” So, basically, it says it is about the people in that room. But, we, as fans, have hoped that it would be about more than just that—that there would be some kind of pattern to the decisions. As I said in that previous post, that has not come to pass. Basically, as I said in that last post, in the past it has appeared that productions that could possibly be considered iffy get whatever they request. Some productions, like Bridge & Tunnel, wanted Special Theatrical because they knew that was a guaranteed win. Others that were borderline have chosen to be a play or a musical in order that their cast and creative team could be nominated. In this case, now Chazz Palminteri has a good shot at a Best Actor nominee... But I don't think this was a strategic choice by the Bronx Tale team--I think it is more likely that A Bronx Tale simply forgot to ask to be Special Theatrical Event. Or the other possibility is that there simply won’t be enough Special Theatrical Events to have a category and, knowing that, the Tony peeps opted to make it a play rather than toss it a Bridge & Tunnel-esque random special award or exclude it from any chance at anything. Both of these explanations I offer are reasonable. Not fair, but reasonable. So, let’s move on to my second, more major issue with this ruling…

2) Why, if A Bronx Tale is not a Special Theatrical Event, is it being considered a NEW play and not a revival?

Really, this is where I lose it. I am sure someone reading is going to think: “Well, because it was never on Broadway before.” But, um, remember that good ol’ classics rule. This rule states: “A play or musical that is determined by the Tony Awards
Administration Committee (in its sole discretion) to be a "classic" or in the historical or popular repertoire shall not be eligible for an Award in the Best Play or Best Musical category but may be eligible in the appropriate Best Revival category, if any, provided it meets all other eligibility requirements set forth in these Rules.” That rule is the reason Broadway productions of shows like Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune and Little Shop of Horrors have been considered revivals in recent years. Both of those had only been off-Broadway in the past, but both had movies and were considered in the “popular repertoire.” Sounds like A Bronx Tale, no? Now, someone out there is going to argue that “historical or popular repertoire” means a show that has either been done a lot in the past, or is currently done a lot, throughout the country and A Bronx Tale isn’t that. That is about the only argument you can come up with to explain why this is not a revival. It’s not a horrible argument either, it’s just one I worry about. This is 100% a very familiar title. It’s just as, if not more, familiar than Frankie and Johnny. So—if we’re saying it’s not familiarity, if it instead has to be something that tons of people do… That is a fair interpretation of that wording—but who draws the line? Because it’s often pretty clear if something is famous or not… If we asked 100 people on the street would the majority know what the hell we were talking about? But, when you say it needs to be done in places across the country. How many places? Is there a cut-off line? And maybe that is indeed what they are basing it on (if there is any thought that goes into these decisions) -- Three Days of Rain was considered a revival a couple of years ago – which is a show that has no movie and no huge widespread title familiarity, but is done by a good amount of regional theaters. How many? Well, I guess enough for it to be considered in the “popular repertoire.” I mean—is anyone else seeing how ridiculous this is? I could go on and on with examples and counter-examples and maybe come up with some reasoning behind the choices, but, eventually, it’s just going to be pointless. Actually, I think we’re already there.

Every Little Thing

2008-01-21T02:30:00.000-05:00

I was interviewing a theater fan today--an elderly, affluent woman--and she said something interesting to me. She said that she generally doesn't go to Broadway shows and attends very few off-Broadway shows, tending to focus more on off-off-Broadway because "more good shows happen there."

Is that true? More theater certainly happens off-off-Broadway than on Broadway and so, yes, I suppose it probably is true that more good theater quantity-wise happens there. But if we were to base it on percentage—would it be true? I think not.

Though, of course, this gets into who is judging what a good show is. Certainly, this is in the eye of the beholder. Some people think Cyrano was brilliant—I was bored by the pretty, lifeless production. So I wouldn’t put it in my “good” slot, but others (Ben Brantley) might. This woman may have thought THOM PAIN (Based on Nothing) was the best play ever, then there is me.

That being said, if we took a critical tally of all reviews and gave each production a final letter grade based on the tally, we’d find out that percentage-wise, off-off-Broadway does not beat Broadway in terms of quality. Of course this undertaking would require more effort than anyone would want to commit unless they were getting paid for it.

There are many variables that might lead me to be wrong—for instance, critics and audience members tend to be kinder to things which have a lower budget and require people to pay less. Yet, still I have the feeling that percentage-wise better theater does not happen in miniscule places.

I anticipate that one response to this is to say that Broadway is burdened by commercialism and thus must necessarily be worse than off-off-Broadway, as plays that premiere in a 10-seat theater below a church likely remains truer to its creator’s original vision throughout development. Here is the reason I think that is crap: a creator’s original vision is often sucky. So, yeah, I believe in not compromising due to ticket sales. I couldn’t believe when Dracula made the decision to cut out nudity in order to attract school groups. But just because you’re not burdened by such pedestrian concerns doesn’t necessarily mean your final product will be good.

Now, off-Broadway (with only one “off”) is an interesting issue. In the commercialism light, it is important to note that off-Broadway is not a middle ground—sure it has less commercialism concerns than Broadway, but a hell of a lot more than off-off because of the substantially increased production costs. Additionally, production values generally take a huge step up when dropping one “off.” Therefore while off-Broadway is wedged between these two other large groups, it cannot really be seen as a perfect compromise between them. In terms of quality of shows, I’m really not sure what we’d fine percentage-wise. Again, its lower budget and ticket cost means people tend to be kinder, but ticket costs for major off-Broadway are dangerously close to reaching Broadway range, so how much that has an influence in this case is iffy. There is indeed more off-Broadway than Broadway and so quantity-wise maybe more good shows. But I’m genuinely not sure what we’d find percentage-wise between Broadway and off-Broadway. That being said, between off-Broadway and off-off, I think the former fares better. After all, there is such a gluttony of off-off that it brings the quality percentage number down. Sure, you might be able to get 10 people to watch your Hamlet told backwards in an insane asylum with singing sock puppets, but you’re likely bringing down the off-off-Broadway quality percentage figure.

And now I’m off. I have about 12 emails asking me when I think Color Purple will close to make room for Shrek. How dare these people talk about closing so soon after Chaka Khan makes her Broadway debut? It’s shameful really.

The Music Ignites The Night

2008-01-16T22:50:00.000-05:00

So, I am sure you were all about the 100th story on theater internet sites that ran today. But, of course, the big news was really the closing of Rent. The news is so big that my regional theater post will have to wait...

I know, we can all say the news isn't so big because, let's face it, this has been years coming. Indeed, I can't count how many times I've heard that Rent was over. But now it finally will be... Though I doubt very much it will close exactly when the release said it will. Regardless, by this time next year, there will be no more Tango: Maureen on Broadway.

I want to use Rent to discuss two distinct problems that befall many long-running Broadway shows:

1) Many people have already seen it.
Yes, well, duh. This is so obvious it is stupid to mention it, but, of course, I must. Once a show has run on Broadway for over 10 years, we all know that a lot of annual tourists or regular theatergoers will have seen it. So that definitely eats into an audience.

2) The show risks becoming less than it once was.
Here is the tricky thing--there are certain shows that are in a way timeless. In other words, these shows will always be interesting to a new crop of viewers. That doesn't mean they'll be open forever, but they have a better chance of lasting longer. Phantom is a big-budget tourist attraction. There are always families wanting to take their kids to see The Lion King. A show like Rent is a harder sell over time. It succeeded originally because it really spoke to a group of people. Those people have seen it, many times probably. And, for a long while, new crops of Rent-heads were born. But now, with more rock musicals littering the stage, the possible future Rent audience is being parred down. After all, shows like Spring Awakening are racier and more now (that show's actual time period notwithstanding). So a big part of what made Rent so popular--its edge and its ability to attract new kinds of audiences to the theater--is now gone. If Rent opened now, it would be less than it was when it opened in 1996. Now, in a way, Rent created its competition. Would there be a Spring Awakening if there was never a Rent? It's hard to say. There may have been another Rent-like show that proved the success of rock musicals not in the Andrew Lloyd Webber vein. But there is also an argument that, without Rent, the crop of musicals today would be very different. Those who hold to this second theory believe that, if Rent opened today, it would still be what it was in 1996 because it would still be revolutionary. To this I have to disagree--even in a sea of Phantom-esque scores, 2008 is not 1996 and Rent simply has lost some of its topic edginess.

All this is not to take anything away from the amazing run Rent has had on Broadway. It influenced a huge amount of theatergoers--way more than The Lion King ever will.

And the winner is... The actress who used to look like Glenn Close

2008-01-14T01:42:00.000-05:00

I get to the airport today to find out American Airlines has canceled all afternoon flights to NYC because of the snowstorm. You New Yorkers might be thinking--what snowstorm? That's because there has yet to be one there, yet I'm stuck in LA, having spent three hours at the airport just to come back to the place I have been staying. In other words, I am in no mood to post tonight. (Had the Golden Globes special been even somewhat fun, it might have boosted my spirits but, as I couldn't even sit through 6 minutes of it, I'm still cranky.)

So--Wednesday people. Wednesday, a day when I just may talk about the regional staging of Metamorphoses I saw here. Or at least something about some of theater. I have to live up to the blog title after all.

Near the Sea

2008-01-10T04:14:00.000-05:00

So I looked at Variety and saw the headline that said: " Foster joins 'Spider Woman' cast" and I thought "Jodie Foster in a movie version of Kiss of a Spider Woman." But, alas. (I also love how in the story, about the Signature Theater revival of the musical, it says "will play here" as if Variety is associated with a regional location beyond LA and, maybe, NYC, this "here" referring to neither.)

Anyway, I am still in LA. I just returned from attending The Color Purple, so I feel very NYC at least. My email box is flooded from messages of people who have seen Mermaid. Now, in 24 hours we'll know what the "real" critics think. But will it matter? That we won't know for a good while... And there are multiple scenarios to consider:

1) Good reviews = A joyous day
2) Mixed reviews = I'm 100% sure the show will keep on selling (and by mixed I mean mixed major reviews, not like good reviews from two people in Kansas who happen to have stumbled upon a Broadway opening mixed in with bad ones)
3) Bad reviews =
A) Doesn't matter (See Beauty and the Beast)
B) Sales begin to slow down in a few weeks (See Tarzan)

I have this much to say about it: The Little Mermaid is a more appealing title than Tarzan. It's a story of a girl fighting for her dreams. Tarzan is about cultural imperialism. So score one for Ariel.

That being said, if multiple critics say this show doesn't have the heart/integrity of the movie, that might possibly mean trouble. Because--after all--Beauty may have been crappy, but mostly because it was so literal. And that helped it... You know there is this odd thing--people want stage work to be transformative, so they don't want to see the same exact thing that was on the screen. Yet they want to see the familiar--they want the songs delivered how they remember them being. Logically of course these things don't go together, but they do in the practical world. So, what I'm saying is, if bad reviews could possibly have an effect (and that's a big if), I think only certain types of bad reviews would have that effect.

I won't be reading the reviews tomorrow, so no reaction on Sunday. This is because I'm not going until I get back to town and I don't want to have my mound clouded with such things. Plus, I'm on vacation, people. I'm so not keeping up. I logged onto Variety just for all of you.

I'll join you again Sunday on the East Coast, home of the coolest people.

Me Tarzan

2008-01-07T02:38:00.000-05:00

Greetings from the Los Angeles, home to an exceptional amount of small theaters. Here the buzz all day was about Natasha Lyonne hitting off-Broadway. OK, not really.

I write to you today having just spoken to someone from American Musical Theatre of San Jose about their production of Tarzan. (Note: I ask him if I could write this post or else it would be too shady to do so. I say this to the people who do speak to me, so they know their opinions won't end up on the blog.) I don't know how many of you read about this--this is the one that was recently announced that is debuting next year at Theater of the Stars in Atlanta and then going to like 5 other theaters. Now, when I first spoke to this person about this production, he said "It's a whole new Tarzan," which meant to me it was actually a new musical version of Tarzan. Like The Wild Party duo or the two Tale of Two Cities. But, no. It's the Broadway score and book with a new production tailored around it. (Direction and choreography is by Lynne Taylor-Corbett, who I think is an odd choice, but I won't delve into that aspect of it now.) This guy said they'd make it "a great show."

Now, as I've said here before, I didn't hate Tarzan. It was exactly what I thought it would be. That being said, it of course was not good. Some of what was wrong was Bob Crowley's fault, sure. But I think you really have to ask yourself--how much of it was his fault? If the characters had done more than stand facing straight at the audience when they sang, the show would have been helped. On the other hand, it still wouldn't have been a great show.

So the question you always have to ask yourself is--is it worth spending the time to change it? Is there only one element that is ruining the show? And often there are pieces that I see that I think, "Well, this had potential and then..." Bright Lights Big City would have been problematic originally no matter what, but the NYTW production really killed it. That was a musical you could see something in somewhere. Tarzan isn't that kind of musical. There is just not that much there the way it was written.

If Lynne Taylor-Corbett did the most genius job in the world, some of the show's problems would go away, but no way all of them would. This guy I was talking to was blaming the failure of the show on Bob Crowley and, um, it's important to realize that Bob Crowley wasn't the only problem. The new songs weren't effective, the book wasn't near good enough. Which doesn't mean it shouldn't be produced anywhere--it's Tarzan, of course it is going to run places. But it's a common mistake to look at a show with potential back in the conception stage and then put the majority of blame on one failed show element. There are some shows that can't be saved exactly as they are on the page. (And, actually, before someone posts this, yes, I am aware Bright Lights wouldn't have been amazing as it was written at the NYTW time, but, that is something that could have been a tremendous amount better had an original director really shaped it. That was a project that would have benefited from collaborative shaping during the inception period.) And I really have to say I'm not sure Theater Under the Stars is going to come up with a much better Tarzan than what we saw. So is it worth the effort of trying? Couldn't you just do our Tarzan without some/all of the flying? (And I only say without flying because the flying took so long to learn and was so set specific.) That's pretty much what I would do. Now, again, it's important to make every show as good as it can be, so I admire them spending the time and effort to really create a new production. I just worry, based on what this guy was saying, that they are expecting too much from this show. There could have been a great show based on Tarzan, it's true. But using this score and book, you're never going to get one. No matter how many of the Phil Collins songs the audience members can sing.

Happy 2008

2008-01-03T01:40:00.000-05:00

Have I ever talked on this blog about how big a supporter I am of Striking 12? I so am. Really. I would tell you all to go see it except it's already closed. Alas. As we Jews say, "Next year in Jerusalem," or in this case maybe, "Next year at some off-Broadway space."

Anyway, people who know me know that I would be happy if every show on Broadway was a success. Seriously. Whether I like the particular show or not. As far as I'm concerned, the more success there is on Broadway, the better chance we have of getting people to really care about theater again. No, I don't think the random success of certain shows is what will do it (as the last two posts have made clear), but if we had like 20 hits, that might lead to something. Possibly. Maybe. But, plus, I know a lot of producers who I want them to stay producers and not go bankrupt. And I know a lot of actors and I want them to have jobs. So, yeah, I in some ways support everything. So, people associated with some of the below shows, know that even though I may be mean occasionally, I wish you luck. Truly.

And now onto the next five biggest stories of the year in my mind. I have to say, I actually struggled to come up with this Top 10 list. The strike so dwarfed everything else. But I came up with them. Did I mention they were in no particular order?

6. There Possibly Are No Worse Things Things You Could Do
It depends how you look at it whether the whole reality show thing worked. On one hand, it offered tons of free publicity and Grease sold tons of tickets. On the other hand, Broadway ended up with two crappy leads (one simply mediocre, one completely miscast, totals two crappy in my mind). But what to me was more shocking about this revival is how those leads weren't the worst part of it. Grease is a story to me because it represents a huge failure of Broadway professionals I respect. I mean, I'm a big Kathleen Marshall fan. I was extremely upset when Wonderful Town lost the Tony. But, this, everything was wrong with it--it had no redeeming features. Usually when a show has no redeeming features you can blame some novice behind-the-scenes. Sadly not so much here. People tried to lay it on those kids, but, I'm telling you, even with good leads, the production would still suck. OK, you can argue that everything had to be changed because of what Kathleen Marshall was dealing with in terms of leads, but, I don't buy that. You can't blame Rizzo being dressed like she's in the Hot For Teacher video because Laura Osnes is a Broadway newcomer.

7. Miss Celie's Pants are Filled with Joy
If you had told me when it opened, that The Color Purple would still be running, I would have looked at you like you were crazy. Truly. But the marketing of The Color Purple is so genius it matches Disney in terms of genius. It's not all Oprah either--it's everything. Fantasia. The coverage of the church groups. You know, I'm always telling producers they need to target their audience better. Like, my grandmother's Hadassah group should have known about 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother. Yet is so rarely happens that word gets out to enough of the right people at the appropriate time. But its all worked in The Color Purple's favor. You have to be impressed by that. This year I was sort of in awe of it.

8. Legally Blonde: I'm Serious
I know some of you are out there thinking (if you think in Cara-speak): "Legally Blonde is such a non-story. There has hardly ever been more of a non-story. It's there, it's running, whatever. Is it the MTV thing you're talking about? Because, ok, I'll give you that." Yeah, no. The MTV thing happened and it didn't revolutionize the theater, so, that is not why I write about Elle. I write about the pink lady because I've hardly ever seen an out-of-town tryout help and yet possibly hurt a show so much. So everyone thinks it is going to be mediocre (except I had high hopes because I honestly love the songwriting team) and then it goes to San Francisco, which had been a show killer, and gets good reviews. So people are psyched up. They read about the reviews in the NY Post--they buy tickets. Theater people like me--who read the reviews--tell their friends, "Well, it's actually supposed to be really good." And then, once the NYC theater people see it, they sit there confused. They ask themselves things like: "Why does this have better buzz than The Wedding Singer had?" And people just leave the theater puzzled. Bothered. Bewildered. Not so much bewitched. This confused reaction is the result of the good buzz not matching the product. Whereas, without that hype, the theater folks (and I'm not talking about the teen fans--I'm talking about the critics and such) still would not have liked it, but they would have stared slightly less blankly during it. Instead of being just another candy-colored confection, Blonde became a disappointment post-San Francisco. Does that really matter? Did those reviews really end up altering these reviews? I don't know, maybe not, but I wonder.

9. The Death of Coram Boy
I almost forgot Coram Boy existed. Seriously, I didn't remember until I saw the picture of the girl/boy on Playbill.com this morning. And it's shocking to me that I forgot because when Coram Boy was going on I considered it a huge story. Here is a show that had a 99% chance of losing money, no matter what the reviews were. I mean, it was a straight play with a choir. The paid for a full choir. And oddly they sort of didn't have to--it's not like the choir did that much... They were really something to see, but... OK, I'm getting off track. So the 1st interesting part of the story is that it happened on Broadway intact. No one tried to cheap out. There were 40 people in that cast, way more than a musical these days. Let's take a moment to seriously applaud that before moving on. Moment. Ok. The 2nd interesting part of the story is that Coram Boy was such a miscalculation. I actually liked it--as long as I am sitting through a long straight play, I want it to be interesting to look at and this was that. It was really something to experience. But, that being said, that product was never going to attract a Broadway audience. I guess there was no way to tell that the critics would work against them--it was pretentious and they often like that sort of thing. But what made it so perplexing to me is they were basing the whole thing on the critics. Once they didn't get them, they had absolutely nothing else. There was sort of no giving it the old college try. And in a way I'm all for people admitting defeat--especially when, as in this case, even success probably wouldn't have meant monetary success--but I also admire a Plan B.

10. In the Heights/37 Arts
If I was in a room with two other theater journalists (and of course there are only like seven others) we could totally play "You know your theater complex is in trouble when..." with 37 Arts and be there for a good 20 minutes. You can imagine everything we'd say and so there is no need for me to write it all out. But what remains to be seen is whether the In The Heights move would really rightfully be part of the list. In some ways it has to be: "You know your theater complex is in trouble when you don't have enough faith in it to leave your own show there." In other ways not so much. If the show is a huge hit on the Great White Way, you can say the fact that it was off-Broadway, or more specifically at 37 Arts, was the reason it wasn't sold out previously. If the show doesn't do so well on Broadway, then whatever it was or was not had little to do with 37 Arts. I think that makes sense.

Happy Rainy Sunday, or something

2007-12-31T02:29:00.000-05:00

Did you know Gina Gershon has a CD? My friends gave it to me tonight. It's not what you would expect, well, it's not what you would expect if you were me. I was expecting rock. Instead it's ballads. Just in case you wanted to know.

Meanwhile, I was going to write my next 5 stories of the year. But it hits me that no one is going to read this tomorrow. So I've decided Wednesday, 2008, will be a final look at 2007. Instead today a clarification about one of the last five.

In response to my #2 point the last time, I received a few emails about the fact that in many ways theater is now at the forefront of culture. (There is a comment below that speaks of its popularity with young people, that's along these same lines.) That is true--Ugly Betty goes to Wicked. We're witnessing the return of the movie musical... My contention is that the majority of it is theater for the sake of amusement rather than art. That sounds very pretentious and those of you who know me know I'm not at all pretentious... (One of the big Broadway producers always refers to me as a "populist," which I'm not sure is a compliment, but, whatever.) What I mean is, it used to be an art form all on its own. People went to the theater to experience something truly special. They dressed up, they wouldn't dream of eating popcorn while a show was going on and talking was rare. Now a lot of people treat a Broadway show as a live movie. And while it's great that so many people are going and buying tickets--and I'm very happy attendance is up--theater is simply not as cherished as it used to be. Does that make sense? I mean, people go and they love it. Those people would probably miss it if it went away. People cried when it did go away this year! But less and less people care about it as its own individual art form. Many of you remember The Times' Friday theater column. In my very first year in this business, 2000, I knew non-theater people who read it because they wanted to know what was going on in the "world" of theater. By the time it went away, 4-5 years later (I can't remember now), I didn't know any non-theater people who read it. The drop-off in readership among theater people could be related to the websites, but the people I'm talking about didn't read the website news. They only read The Times column to begin with and then they simply stopped reading anything theater-related. You could blame that on the person who was doing the column, but a lot of it is that people stopped caring about what is going on in the theater "world." They choose individual shows to see, or they buy subscriptions to certain non-profits, but they care less about the art form of theater.

Attendance would be up on Broadway if all we had was stage versions of recycled movies. This is because it's a combination of people wanting to go to something special--it's expensive and thus a treat--but many not really wanting to see something special. That's why I don't think this is about attendance or the fact that people who have latched on to specific shows. It's a general statement about how few people truly care about the theater. I deal with these people everyday and, I'm telling you, the numbers are growing.

I hope all of you have a happy holiday. (I really want to say: "I've had a good life, I've hope all of you have good lives too." And for the 2 people who get that very obscure Broadway show reference, there, I've said it.)

This Isn't The Greatest Post Ever

2007-12-27T02:11:00.000-05:00

Nine people have found this site by searching "The Black Suits." I find that odd, but I do support Joe Iconis so there we go. Meanwhile--it's time for the year in theater. Well, the first half of my list of my personal top stories. These don't have anything to do with anyone else. It's all about me. And they are in no particular order. I like the random.

1. The Strike
Yeah, whatever, we all know.

2. The Decreasing Import of the Theater
The theater is becoming less and less important as an art form. What do I mean? Ticket sales are up, you say? Wicked is selling out everywhere! We have huge hits! Well, yes, but most people go now because its like going to an amusement part except with no rides or activities. That didn't really make sense, but I think you all know what I mean. People eat popcorn. They text-message during shows. OK--I hear my friend Don now, "You think? Carajoy, no one has cared for years. And you're just realizing this now? NO ONE CARES!" And of course he is right--I've known for years. But this year it really hit home for me more than ever because of the increase in bad viewing habits and because of the strike. During the strike, I kept talking to average people who didn't even know it was still going on... and didn't care when told. New Yorkers in general just didn't care all that much. When the musicians had their strike, people seemed more fired up. This time the people most fired up were the families that weren't getting in to see Ariel swim.

3. The Frankenstein/Mermaid Mishap Overlap
Just as Broadway shows do not open the same day, big Broadway-bound musicals don't tend to open on the same day out of town. But Young Frankenstein and The Little Mermaid did. My friend at Disney thought this was great because the NYC vultures would all be camped out in Seattle and would leave them and the Rocky Mountains alone. Indeed, Young Frankenstein invited the New York press, while Disney wanted to have their tryout in peace, the old-school way. But sadly for Disney this didn't work out so well. While Campbell Robertson and Michael Riedel might have made the trip to Denver regardless, I highly doubt Variety chief theater critic David Rooney would have travelled from New York to there just to see Mermaid. But he was going to Seattle and just tacked one more stop onto his trip. His scathing review really hurt the public perception of my most highly-anticipated stage musical. I don't think I've ever gotten so many calls asking me if I read a given review. (I did read it, though I still refuse to internalize anything bad about this show and am counting the days until I see it.) So, producers, place your openings far apart. Meet. Decide these things. Help me help you.

4. No Grosses, No Problem
Young Frankenstein caused a big uproar by refusing to report their grosses. (Yes, I know a "big uproar" in our world means that 122 people were on it. Moving on.) For years I've heard people complain about having to report them, mostly because people like me use them as ammunition. But there are positives to it--people believe the numbers, so if you're a hit, it shows and being a hit builds future ticket sales. We all know you want to see what everyone else is seeing because you want to know why everyone else is seeing it. Duh. Also, it is a good way to see industry trends, which can be helpful to producers as well as writers. So there are those producers who believe in the reporting. But many other producers believe the bad outweighs the good--they do it begrudgingly for tradition-sake alone. They do it because they think they need to do it. Now a few are thinking they might not 100% have to do it. And I believe tradition doesn't suffice as a reason to do something you don't believe in. So I'm with them there. On the other hand, the only reason critics wait until opening night to put up reviews is because of tradition. When there were reduced-priced previews it made logical sense, but now it's just a tradition thing. Readers would rather critics went first performance. Producers wouldn't want that. Do they want an end to all tradition? Because they shouldn't be able to just pick and choose what they want to keep--all or nothing I say. (NOTE: I could do a YF ticket price post but I refuse to give them another entry.)

5. Jeffrey Richards
For those of you who don't know, producer Jeffrey Richards is also press agent Jeffrey Richards. So he's someone I've dealt with for quite a while. (Fun fact: A very long time ago, Ken Mandelbaum worked for Jeffrey in his press office!) But, as a producer, his first three Broadway shows were Gore Vidal's The Best Man, A Thousand Clowns and Enchanted April, which wasn't exactly a great string. However in recent years Richards has been on the rise. And currently he is a main producer on four Broadway shows. Really. Four. And two of them, Spring Awakening and August: Osage County, are hugely acclaimed. Plus, he is the subject of this month's Playbill feature. So it's been a pretty sweet 2007 for Mr. Richards. He has all of Broadway talking about his great taste. (The fact that he also produced things like Trailer Park is so forgotten.) Young producers talk about him like he is an idol. I'm not alone in thinking that his high level of success is a major 2007 story.

Randomly...

2007-12-23T23:15:00.000-05:00

I want you all to expect that I am going to be a huge supporter of the Alli Mauzey Tony campaign. I don't know her personally but she is genius in Cry-Baby and I am going to go out on a limb and say, while I have not seen either A Catered Affair or South Pacific, she probably deserves a nomination more than anyone else. (Even if people in those shows are giving the best performances ever, she still should get in. I am going to be very depressed if a mediocre performance from a better known performer a mediocre performance in a better known role takes Alli Mauzey's nomination away.)

We live in a community where this was considered a "starry" cast by a legitimate internet journalist: Will Chase, Ashley Brown, Noah Galvin & Christiane Noll. Seriously. I mean, I'm a big Will Chase supporter, but.... yeah.

I finally read Time Out's big blogger feature. In it, Linda Stasi said that the word "musings" in a blog was the sign of bad writing. I was thinking of sending an email to Linda Stasi mentioning how writing things like "I wish I hated this cheeseball show as much as I used to. But damn, if it ain't a hoot and a half." isn't a sign of a genius writer, but I thought better of it.

I am going to add one name to Playbill's Dancing in the Dark (which the Weisslers are in theory bringing in) cast list: Patrick Page. I rarely report things like that, but I thought I might as well... If they are reporting scattered unconfirmed people, I can too.

I turned on the TV today and I saw Gwyneth Paltrow and Jake Gyllenhaal speaking and I thought, "What the hell movie were those two in together?" Then I heard him say: "Mathematicians are insane." Then of course I knew--but what was striking to me is how much that movie clearly made absolutely no impression on me. Oh, well.

My friend Billy, who is smarter than me, read the comment about the Morton/Dunagan split and came up with precedent for splitting a mother/daughter in such a way. In The Beauty Queen of Leenane both Anna Manahan and Marie Mullen could have been considered lead, but they were split. Both won, so it was a good strategy.

I wasn't sad at the Drowsy closing announcement (it had a nice run and this way I know Alli Mauzey will have a venue to show everyone her Tony-worthy performance) but I do feel sad that Cindy Williams closed it. So much for "we're gonna do it!"

Was anyone else excited about the Joan Rivers supporting cast? Yosefa Forma, Tara Joyce and Adam Kulbersh! Yeah, I have no idea either.

Poor Brad Oscar, replacing the unknown Jeffrey Kuhn who replaced the unknown Steve Rosen. Being the next Monster would even be better. Though he will get to work with Clay Aiken, which is I'm sure every Equity member's dream.

IBDB, my favorite Broadway database, has now started linking to Amazon.com for CD/DVD purchases of related titles. It feels a little less like an information source now and a little more like a not pretty sales forum.

I don't think I saw this in the stories I read about From Up Here--it's author, Liz Flahive, is best known for being a beauty editor at Lucky and Teen People. That doesn't say anything about the play, I just like those fun facts.

I am so happy Christian Borle is no longer doing Catch Me If You Can. I never understood why they thought he was right.

I was saddened a couple of weeks ago that The Times' head theater reporter wrote a story in the theater section about how busy impersonators are during the holiday season. I'm the first one to applaud tacky white suits and sequins, but this story was a bad sign. Clearly the legit theater has gotten too boring.

I'm not sure I think Jack O'Brien is the perfect choice for a Phantom sequel, but I suppose that is a much better idea than Joe Mantello doing 9 to 5.

I almost forgot--the big news of late was the League's name change to The Broadway League. That was huge. I'm sure it was huge news all throughout the country. Why report about baby Spears if you have stuff like this?

I'd like to thank... Woody Shelp for our wonderful hats...

2007-12-20T00:38:00.000-05:00

Quick, who said it?! Who thanked Woody Shelp in his/her Tony speech?! He/she's a possible nominee this year... And who else is a possible nominee this year, you ask? Well, let's see. It's a little hard to tell right now, as there will I think be a lot of category juggling this year. But let's try and take a stab at it, shall we? Remember, people, it's not who deserves it, it's who Tony's fickle, sometimes slightly deranged finger will point to.

BEST ACTOR - PLAY

Ben Daniels, Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Charles Edwards, The 39 Steps
Laurence Fishburne, Thurgood
Morgan Freeman, The Country Girl
Rufus Sewell, Rock 'n' Roll

BEST ACTRESS - PLAY

Eve Best, The Homecoming
Laura Linney, Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Frances McDormand, The Country Girl
S. Epatha Merkerson, Come Back, Little Sheba
Amy Morton, August: Osage County

BEST ACTOR - MUSICAL

Daniel Evans, Sunday in the Park with George
Cheyenne Jackson, Xanadu
Lin-Manuel Miranda, In the Heights
Paolo Szot, South Pacific
Tom Wopat, A Catered Affair

BEST ACTRESS - MUSICAL

Kerry Butler, Xanadu
Patti LuPone, Gypsy
Kelli O’Hara, South Pacific
Faith Prince, A Catered Affair
Jenna Russell, Sunday in the Park with George

BEST FEATURED ACTOR - PLAY

Dylan Baker, November
Brian Cox, Rock 'n' Roll
Byron Jennings, Is He Dead?
James Earl Jones, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Jim Norton, The Seafarer

BEST FEATURED ACTRESS - PLAY

Sinead Cusack, Rock 'n' Roll
Deanna Dunagan, August: Osage County
Martha Plimpton, Top Girls
Phylicia Rashad, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Rondi Reed, August: Osage County

BEST FEATURED ACTOR - MUSICAL

Harvey Fierstein, A Catered Affair
Christopher Fitzgerald, Young Frankenstein
Boyd Gaines, Gypsy
Shuler Hensley, Young Frankenstein
Matthew Morrison, South Pacific

BEST FEATURED ACTRESS - MUSICAL

Laura Benanti, Gypsy
Leslie Kritzer, A Catered Affair
Andrea Martin, Young Frankenstein
Alli Mauzey, Cry Baby
Loretta Ables Sayre, South Pacific

We shall see what we shall see...

GUEST BLOGGER IN DA HOUSE

2007-12-16T22:12:00.000-05:00

Mid season Tony predictions!

BEST PLAY

August: Osage County LOCK
November
Rock ‘n’ Roll LOCK
The Seafarer

The Farnsworth Invention is dead in the water. Mauritius will be forgotten. The buzz on November went from zero to positive in the last week – Jesse Green in the Times claims that it’s hilarious on paper, and he actually has taste. There’s still the question of where Is He Dead? will end up. A case certainly could be made for Best Play eligibility, especially with all the press David Ives has been getting. I suppose The 39 Steps will have similar eligibility questions, so we’ll have to wait on that too. I have hopes that that Edward Albee play Me, Myself and I will be wonderful and transfer from the McCarter. If so, it will certainly be a contender. I also have hopes that something else will pop up Off-Broadway or beyond and sweep to Broadway. Something usually does. Dead Man’s Cellphone, anyone?

BEST MUSICAL

A Catered Affair
Cry Baby
In the Heights
Young Frankenstein

I think the first three are looking increasingly more likely, but they can’t yet be called locks. Talk of Jason Robert Brown’s 13 has diminished. It was never very loud to begin with, but should that change, it could contend. That fourth slot could go to Xanadu, though I worry Xanadu might have trouble hanging on through the winter and without the opportunity to go back and see it again, the nominators might forget its charms, which I think are considerable. Yet it didn’t even sell out during the strike. What was that about? As for Passing Strange, I smell disaster. The ghost at the Belasco claims another victim!!! As for the mermaid at the Lunt-Fontanne, I hope she’s good… The pictures have been looking more promising… We’ll see…

BEST REVIVAL OF A PLAY

The Country Girl
The Homecoming
Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Top Girls

Boeing-Boeing might be coming-coming, and if so, it certainly could be nominated-nominated. I suppose Cymbeline or Cyrano or Come Back, Little Sheba could be remembered. Or not. As for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof… Its leads will certainly do better than Ashley Judd and Jason Patric five years ago, but the Debbie Allen of it all… Call me crazy, but I need to wait and see.

BEST REVIVAL OF A MUSICAL

Gypsy
South Pacific
Sunday in the Park with George

Can I officially ask – no, beg – the Tony people to PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, for the good of all things Tony, PLEASE allow this category’s slots to be reduced. If there are only four shows eligible, reduce the category to two nominees, three if necessary. But if only four musical revivals open and all four get nominated for Best Musical Revival, that’s not award-giving, people!!! That’s attendance-taking!!! And when one of those shows is this God-awful production of Grease, it’s criminal. Please? I’m begging. In the meantime, I refuse to put Grease as a nominee.

On Wednesday, acting predictions! Lots of category juggling to do there, but I’ll do my best.

Bitch of Living

2007-12-13T00:40:00.000-05:00

Someone emailed me that they used Givenik. Yay!

On another note, we were supposed to have a guest-blogger tonight but I am actually here. Why? Because something annoyed me so much this week I felt the need to address it.

I love gossip--as a child I actually wanted to be a gossip columnist when I grew up. And at some point I was close... So I don't mean to attack gossiping, but at some point, individual rumors should be stopped. And with that in mind I really need to address one rumor that upsets me--Ken Mandelbaum did not leave that website I don't like to name because he got caught videotaping a show. This week I got 3 calls asking me about Ken because this week that rumor was AGAIN on the message boards. It is a renaissance of a rumor I was hoping had died. It is 100% not true. You can believe but you want, but I was there when he stopped working at said website. I know this rumor isn't true. It's not my place to say what happened (it's not my story to tell), but I can promise you the split did not have anything to do with videotaping a show. (Has anyone noticed the change in editorial content there?) I don't know how that rumor got started--it's not based in reality. Ken Mandelbaum is also not a total recluse. That is ridiculous!!!! I was talking to him last month at the Hilton Theatre. Who is saying these things? I mean, come on. I know some people don't know any better.... And I know that some people genuinely miss Ken and are concerned. I appreciate that. I'm not accusing you folks of anything. Hopefully you'll be happy to know that the rumors are not true! But to the people who do know better and are saying this crap or letting it be said, I ask you to remember that this is about a member of the theater community. This man really cares about the history of theater--that's very rare. I know a lot of times when I have a question I think "Ken Mandelbaum is so the only one who would know this..." (And I ask and sometimes he answers and sometimes he doesn't--just the same as when people email me, sometimes I know the answer and answer right away and sometimes I tell myself I'm going to think about it and then fail to respond by accident.) So whether you personally like him or not, you have to respect that. And these kinds of rumors don't show respect to him and his level of dedication.

Ok, that's it. Though another thing that annoys me--as long as I'm on a roll, is this ongoing Charles Isherwood drama. I mean it even inspired a magazine cover... And people are still talking to me about it. And I just don't get it. Honestly.... I'd like someone to explain. I mean, if it was just about that one story, I get that, but, of course it's not. It's more "he should be fired/he sucks." What makes him worse than any other critic? I would understand if he didn't support anything, but he does. I mean, not only does he support some obvious critical darlings, but, look at his Xanadu review. Is it that when he doesn't like something he's mean and some other critics are more wishy-washy (some people call this "understanding" but I'm more blunt)? Is it that these people just don't agree with his opinions? Because, overall, I rarely agree with him, but, then again, I rarely agree with any critic consistently. So I don't get why he is being attacked more than anyone. Is he anymore responsible for the fall of Rome than anyone else? I mean, I guess you could argue that that story triggered it all.... but... eh. I mean, again, our tastes aren't similar, and I'd like if every critic had my tastes (that way my shows would get more play), but that is never going to be the case...

Last thing that annoys me--"???? star ?????" when the person has hardly been in the show/was barely in the movie. For example, Playbill recently wrote ""Lost" and "One Tree Hill" star Blake Bashoff will make his Broadway debut later this month as the ill-fated Moritz in the Tony Award-winning musical Spring Awakening..." I watch One Tree Hill (because of my love of absolute crap) and I don't remember ever seeing him on it. I looked it up, he was on it twice, but, my point is taken. (Note, I do remember him from Judging Amy, totally. There he had a big role.) I mean, as a writer, I'm sure I've done this sort of thing myself. But that doesn't make it cool.

Guest blog on Sunday/Wednesday! Huge! Wait for it! Lose sleep!

Time For Cheer

2007-12-10T01:44:00.000-05:00

And the world goes on, as does the writer's strike. As much as the stagehands strike threatened the Broadway season, now we have this to deal with too. Actors' schedules are all screwed up, thus altering casting for spring/summer productions. So, in other words, we're losing people we should have had.

On the other hand, thinking ahead, the possible SAG actors strike, might give us people we wouldn't ordinarily get. For instance, in February (the time Speed-the-Plow is in London), Jessica Alba and every other leading lady in Hollywood will be rushing to finish all the movies they had on their schedule before shut-down threat time. But this summer they may be free. Alba said on Regis & Kelly that her involvement in the possible Speed-the-Plow Broadway revival was based on whether there was going to be in an actor's strike when a bunch of SAG deals expire June 30. (She also said "it was just talk" and she was "freaked out" and she didn't know if "audiences would want to see" her on Broadway. As for the last point, I personally think she'd generate attention at least. Clearly Jeffrey Richards thinks that too.) I am actually somewhat surprised we're getting SAG stars at all in the winter/spring. Like--shouldn't Terrence Howard be capitalizing on his recent success and fitting in some film just in case? (On an unrelated note--does anyone else think Terrence Howard and Anika Noni Rose are not really a hot combo when you picture them as Brick and Maggie?)

Anyway, I love the idea that a bunch of theater producers are sitting waiting for there to be a SAG actors strike. It's really genius. I have zero idea if there will be an actors strike--I suspect no one knows until after this WGA mess is settled, but, let's muse. (I should say that I personally don't think there will be a SAG strike, but, I'm often wrong.) The question remains--what can it mean for us? If the west coast is heading into the summer with a real threat of another strike, they'll be a rush to get things done and then there could be a scheduling hold. If there is no strike or if it's very short, the question remains how fast the actors will be needed back on that other coast. But, my feeling is, if there is a strong possibility of a strike, you'll suddenly hear a lot about July/August productions of plays with Hollywood stars. I say plays even though I wish this meant we'd see like James Marsden in a new musical... I say plays because plays are easier to put up quickly/cancel without much loss. Of course, another issue becomes the theatre situation. Will we have the houses to fit in a bunch of random limited runs? Only a couple? If we don't have the houses or the strike duration is super uncertain, will we see these people as star replacements? Certainly, the people at Hairspray and Chicago are so keeping track of this. When is Debra Monk leaving Curtains? Maybe some Hollywood person could go in that!

I know a lot of you out there think we shouldn't be waiting on Hollywood folk, but, these people often bring in business. That's the end result. Some are good and some are not. Some sell and some do not. Though even the lowest rent film star would sell more than a Broadway look-alike. But it's all sort of a crap shoot, a sad one at that. And, actually, I find a lot of it ridiculous, but, that's the business we're left with. If only the people who read this blog could sustain the theater industry I assume we'd have a different industry. (If I alone could sustain the theater industry, I would encourage every producer to cast Anne Heche. For real. But apparently others of you have an Anne Heche limit, so like after the first production with her they'd be good for a year or so.)

Anyway, I have other work to do. Work does not stop during blog night. Alas. And even if I could ramble on--would you care? Also--unrelated--does anyone care that the Givenik site that Jujamcyn is acting like just went up was up at least since May (which was the first time I saw it, though it may have been up a while before)? I guess not. A good cause is a good cause, whenever they get around to promoting it. I myself created an account, though I was a little sad to see the big sold-out shows only were offering groups through the site. So like I'd normally tell you all to get Little Mermaid tickets that way--you could support Ariel and a charity of your choosing (though I sort of don't get why my high school is on the list of possibilities) with the same purchase--but, alas, you can't. But buy your A Catered Affair tickets through it. Might as well. Support.

Killer Strike?

2007-12-05T22:04:00.000-05:00

Well, good morning Baltimore. Or whatever. (Did I post here before that, during the strike, I found the giant "You Can't Stop the Beat" billboard hysterical?)

Since I last wrote you, we got the grosses for last week. So, what we saw was the big shows were big, despite the strike. If they were effected by some group cancellations, they clearly made it up in single ticket sales. Shows that you would expect to be middling--or worse--were, well, worse. Notably the Xanadu average ticket price went down a good amount from where it was during the last two strike weeks. (Though it's still at $80.58, which is substantial and way better than any experts predicted it would be six months ago.) Really, I found the grosses sort of uneventful. Which I guess is good? Well, not good for the blog, but good for theater. Of course we still have to deal with January and February. On that note--did anyone read all the way down in Campbell Robertson's Friday post-strike analysis piece, because it ended with Kevin McCollum saying: "The months of January and February historically have been more devastating than any strike." Umm... So my take on that immediately was "Hey, it's good to see this many shows back on the boards, but don't get used to them." Great? Though of course we all know the harsh winter is particularly hard on tiny people, like me (though I love the cold, I may blow away one day), and Broadway. So it's not like he was delivering shocking bad news.

And with that in mind--let's talk about Broadway's straight plays, particularly August: Osage County. We're in a little bit of a crunch, more shows are opening now than should be. This means that each show gets to soak in the sun a little less. Does it matter? August: Osage County (which has a title my friend Kevin Manganaro described last year as "the best thing ever") got across-the-board amazing reviews. The best play Broadway has seen in years! Rush to the theater! Buy full price tickets! Of course that's exciting. Really. Genuinely, as a theater person, you so wait for that.

But August: Osage County was the third Broadway show to open in as many days and tomorrow another show opens. This can't be good for August. And here we're talking about a straight play with a random title and an unknown cast, so, it needs help. And this backlog is not helping it. But how much is it hurting it? That's harder to say.

You know, outside of the community (containing people who would be going to see the play anyway), it's not like plays are buzzed about for days. They get their big reviews in the paper, people read them and then the next day they read something else. They've made up their minds if they are going to buy tickets already and that is that. So if you look at it that way, the effect isn't horrible. That being said, there is another argument. If Play X opens on a Sunday, gets rave reviews and then nothing opens for a week, if someone thinks to themselves on Wednesday, "I want to buy tickets to a play," they're probably going to go buy Play X. Now if Play X opens on Sunday, gets rave reviews then Play Y opens on Tuesday and gets just somewhat good reviews (though not nearly the raves X got), Play X might lose some of those Wednesday ticket buyers to Play Y. The question is: How many of those Wednesday ticket buyers exist and how many of those that exist is Play X losing? And there is sort of no way of answering that. My instinct is that isn't not that huge a problem. I talk to a lot of average theatergoers and, at least the people to, make a decision the day they realize Play X is the play to see. Now Play Y could alter that decision, but I don't think we're talking about a devastating result there.

But, the thing is we can't look at recent precedent really. Typically we do have a little crunch now and a big spring crunch. But that crunch doesn't usually involve 5 straight plays. And, additionally, during that crunch we don't typically have an unknown--to the general public--play that critics tell you to drop everything and go see. (If we do, it's a spring opener and spring is a different time audience-wise as it heads into summer, considerably better than heading into winter in terms of box office.) So we can't really look at 2006 and say, "Well, when this happened then...." It's all speculation. And there is never going to be anyway to tell because, well, it's not like we have one August: Osage County opening in its own week and another one opening this week. There is no control group. Sadly. But we will see what the grosses look like in the coming weeks and maybe that will tell us a little something.

Of course, I hope they are sky high. And if they're not, we're going to be hearing that critics don't matter anymore. But, eh, I'll never buy that. They matter less than they did years ago, but they matter. The question I frequently hear discussed is whether they matter in terms of full reviews or they just matter for ad pull quotes--in other words, whether the average consumer is reading Isherwood's review or they are just buying based on the pull quote in the ad. That's another issue that factors in to this whole date analysis, but I'm ignoring it because I think it's related. (Can you get your full page ad out when you're the only big ad? If you have 5 big ads you know someone is going to find quotes for each one.... which therefore minimizes the importance of the quotes in each...)

Anyway, something to muse on. Let me know what you guys think. Support August: Osage County and straight plays in general. (My friend, genius aspiring playwright Billy Finnegan, is so going to love this post because of that last line.)

Part of My World

2007-12-03T00:05:00.000-05:00

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.

Day 19: The Final Frontier

2007-11-29T01:33:00.000-05:00

The Little Mermaid will "swim" again!!!!! I genuinely am so excited.

I have to say--I had heard hardly anything from the room all day. And I got worried. Then I left messages for some people not in the room who know stuff and no one got back to me. And I got confused. And then I decided I didn't like people. THEN, before I headed into the St. James for tonight's performance of The Grinch, I heard almost everything was settled other than some drama over what the retroactive pay rate would be. So I thought, "I know they'll announce the settlement during the 4th reprise of 'Who Likes Christmas'." But, they waited until well after all the Whoville had shut down for the night. But, that moment finally came.

If there was no settlement tonight, I was going to offer my mother's theories about what the compromise should be. (They somehow involved confusingly involved maintaining the status quo for current members but creating new rules for new stagehands, which doesn't make any logical sense, which she eventually admitted, but she really sold the idea, and over half the time that is what matters.) But all the talk of what could be done seems irrelevant now--what is done is done. And that's why I'm not going to talk figures or anything because 1) it would be based on random rumors and 2) that's the job of Campbell Robertson or Gordon Cox.

I will say how fascinating this strike has been to me. First of all, it shows you how few press people actually cover Broadway. You had like 5 reporters who knew what they were talking about and then reporters asking Local One members questions like, "What do you do, just raise and lower the curtain?" (I heard that. Seriously.)

Then, and here was my favorite part, depending on who a person's sources were, they had completely different outlooks, especially this week. On Sunday night, when I wrote the blog, random people kept calling and telling me "settlement," but when I spoke to people in-the-know the picture was less rosy (obviously with good cause). On Monday, when I spoke to more people actually involved, everyone on the producer's side was like "we're so getting it done tonight." That's why you had a story in Tuesday's New York Post being like "Mamma mia! - the shows may go on tomorrow." That was sourced primarily by producers, I'm 99% sure. Now, for me, Monday, I heard from producers that they were close but then I also spoke to union guys who were like "umm, no way." I'm sure that is why The Times stories were all more cautious. Of course, you always get different stories depending on who you speak to. That's obvious. But this was one time when actual written reports were so flat-out different. If you read the writers strike reports, it's not as like that (in my opinion, at least).

So this brings to an end our weeks of tumult. (Well, assuming union approval in 10 days.) Let us all chill out. And so I am cutting this short to catch up on TV. I figure it doesn't matter because not so many people are going to read this blog on the day after the strike because they are going to have so many fact-based strike stories to read. As it should be. Feel free to email me at carajoy@gmail.com with questions or if you have anything you want me to touch on Sunday.

Anyway, I'll leave you with a moment from my night. At The Grinch the ENTIRE middle F orchestra row was empty. So my friend Mikey says to me: "Is it an emergency row in case Angelina Jolie decide she wants to bring the children?"

Day 16: Enough Already

2007-11-26T01:13:00.000-05:00

Poor Playbill. Really. Lets all take a minute to mourn the career of the person who put that "strike over" story up today.

Over it?

OK! Well... what do I have to say? Really nothing--this will be lame. I heard very little from the room today. Then again, instead of paying attention all day, I went to Cymbeline. Seriously. I gave up on caring the one day some progress was actually made. All I've heard since I got out of LCT's pretty three-hour epic (after the initial flurry of "it's over" and then "oh, wait..." messages) was that we very well could be in for a settlement. (Though I'll believe it when I see it.) IF it happens--who won't cheer? I mean, there will be those members of both the League and Local One who don't think whatever compromise they work out is a good one, but those people will barely be heard over the cheers of others. As it should be.

And I feel lame writing this without knowing if there will be cheers. By the time, you read it, there could possibly be, so everything I'll write now may be pointless. Nevertheless, I'll write for a bit, but don't count on genius.

IF (I caps that) there is a settlement, the question then becomes: Will this strike have a long-lasting effect on Broadway? This hasn't been the best PR for our little community, of course. But I don't think it will have a long-lasting effect. For a couple of weeks, attendance will be down as compared to where it would have been had it not been for the strike. But that's about it.

On the other hand--will it have an effect on labor relations on Broadway? I think it will. I think the League has shown they can act tough, but the unions have proven they can stand firm in solidarity. I've been very critical of Jeremy Gerard's pieces in the past, but people emailed me that they liked his most recent column, "Questions for Dim Bulbs Keeping Broadway Dark," so I read it. He raises some valid questions, but I am going to answer one right now. The question went to John P. Connolly, executive director of Actors' Equity Association, and it asked: "Do you seriously think Local One will get your backs if you walk out for two weeks with no end in sight next summer when your contract expires?" I want to say, first of all, let's hope there is no strike in 2008. (Those of you who believe in a supreme being, please pray.) But, then, I want to answer, "yes." Here is why--remember back when Local 802 had their strike and there was all that talk that the show would go on with 'virtual orchestras' if Equity would cross the picket line. For hours we were sitting at Equity waiting for them to decide what to do--then came word that Local One would not cross the picket line, so Local One made the decision for Equity. If they were willing to stand behind the musicians firmly, I believe they would be willing to stand behind Equity, especially after this. But, again, I am going on the assumption that no one will need to stand behind anyone next summer (other than those randomly dancing in a conga line, that is).

You know, normally, I'd fight against anything that brought back the current revival of Grease and, yet, I'm so beaten down now I will applaud its return. That's what this strike has done to me. Alas. I just want to be able to see The Little Mermaid. Is that too much to ask? Really?

Day 12: Who Is Happy in Whoville?

2007-11-22T00:54:00.000-05:00

I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees for the trees have no tongues.

John Lloyd Young played his last performance in Jersey Boys tonight.

Oh, wait...

Anyway... I can no longer count what day we are in on two hands (you of course know this if you know me and know my hands are not freakishly deformed). I'd say "things have gotten nasty" but, of course, they were nasty before this block of time, the general public is just seeing more of the nastiness now.

Let's discuss how genius a PR move this Grinch thing was for the union. They agreed to remove the picket line knowing Jujamcyn wouldn't let them in. That's so obvi. And even though I consider something odd about The Grinch actually coming back (I still believe there is something decidedly unjust about it), by lifting the strike lines the union pulled the PR momentum away from The League. And I've discussed how essential PR is a couple of posts below. Plus, the fact that Jujamcyn lost in court is a big actual hit. Note that for all the hype, I don’t think the decision has much consequence on the whole deal, but, it’s still really something.

So the grosses came out for last week and the Broadway shows that are open weren't all sold out. Partially I think that is because very few people know that any of Broadway is open--the headlines all read "Broadway dark" not "All but some shows dark." I sort of wish people involved with currently running shows would make their own signs and march, or at least stand. Like someone in Xanadu could stand near 45th and 8th (in the image in my head it's Xanadu press agent Pete Sanders, but feel free to invision Douglas Carter Beane or anyone else there) with a sign with a big red arrow that says: "Some shows are open! Xanadu is Thataway!" But, also, it's a result of what is currently running. Notice Mary Poppins is basically selling out. That's because it's family friendly. I made the point about Mr. Alabama, saying that it was almost impossible for him to make alternate plans at this stage for his family. The reason is--no good tickets are available for the family-friendly shows. Is a family going to see The Ritz? A non-family friendly show will obviously see a lower leep than a family-friendly show would in like circumstances.

What grounds the Nederlanders are suing on, I'm not quite sure. I know what they are saying, but, well, legally, I don't think that argument holds much water. My favorite part of it is the picket sign part. Did everyone hear/read this? Part of the Nederlander "proof" is that the picket signs say that the union is protesting against the League and the Nederlanders are saying: "But our agreement isn't The League agreement! So that shows we shouldn't be involved!" OK, well, they do have a different agreement. But, umm, they are members of the League (and of course their contract with Local One is expired also). So I'm not sure what the sign evidence is really getting them, but I can see complaining that the signs should be more colorful.

Anyway, the producers had this big hope, left over from last week, that Equity would really be the ones putting pressure on Local One. Equity hasn't been obliging. However the Equity execs know that some of the rank-and-file is getting a little edgy, so they've made an effort to really clarify the points of the strike. In particular, members now have available to them a Myths v. Facts sheet, which I love. The thing I love about this document is that the first page directly counters League points, but by the second page it goes a little beyond its purpose (and randomly brings in some Young Frankenstein-related color). For instance, page one talks about the mopping payments, the flyman requirement, the alleged real truth about Local One salaries, etc. But then check out two examples from page two:

MYTH: The League came to the Stagehands with honor, respect, and good faith, and the greedy Stagehands have walked out on them.
FACT: The employers continually attack the Stagehands in the media. They don't treat the Stagehands with honor and respect. Instead of continuing negotiations in October, the League walked out and unilaterally imposed non-negotiated work rules. That's usually seen as a declaration of war on a Union. The stagehands went to work under these rules and kept pressing to re-open negotiations which began again on November 7th. See Next Fact.

MYTH: The Stagehands walked away from the table.
FACT: Local One stayed to negotiate until 2 a.m. in the morning on Thursday, November 8, only to be told that the League was "too tired" to start at 9:30 in the morning. Thursday night, the League negotiators felt that preparing for the opening night party of "Young Frankenstein" was a bigger priority than negotiating. The League also reneged on compromises that had already been agreed upon, undermining the entire negotiating process. The producers knew that their final offer would result in a strike.

I mean—isn’t this stuff more worthy of a strong statement letter than a Myths v. Facts sheet. I’m just saying… I’m also just saying that I spoke to a big contract lawyer today and he agreed with my reading of the Equity Production contract. So that clearly will be legal battle #52 to result from this thing.

Meanwhile, on this Thanksgiving, I wish I was thankful for the progress that has been made in this battle, but, sadly, there has been none. I’m also not sure how the talks will resume with a Nederlander person at the table. Like: “Hey, I’m suing you for $35 million, but please let’s talk like civilized people.” Also—does anyone know how they got their damages figure? Because I think $30 million is a better number. It’s all about the evens man.

Well, instead of going to see theater this weekend, I’m going to see Enchanted. I need my musical fix! I wish all of you a happy Dead Turkey Day. I hope you all celebrate it with a vegetarian feast.

Day 9: What will become of us?

2007-11-19T03:10:00.000-05:00

On Friday, I was not as optimistic as some of my counterparts. They thought Disney magic would make it all go away this weekend. I hoped with all my heart they were right. Sitting in the Westin Hotel today before talks broke down, I sensed dread, yet I still hoped that some progress was going to be made. When I heard talks broke down I just thought: "So now what?"

Really. That's my question. The League announced that shows would be cancelled until Sunday, November 25, meaning Broadway theaters will surely be dark through Thanksgiving, one of the most profitable times for the industry. Prior to the announcement, while I didn't honestly think we'd be seeing a re-opening by Thanksgiving, I held out a tiny little hope that somehow the mayor would bang his way in and do something. That hope is now gone.

The pertinent part of the statement read as follows: "Out of respect for our public and our loyal theatergoers, many of whom are traveling from around the world, we regret that we must cancel performances through Sunday November 25." I have a little issue with this statement. Lets start with the first part--do we really believe anything about this whole mess has to do with "respect?" I think not, but, moving on...

Supposedly the announcement was made so that tourists could make alternate plans, but that doesn't make sense to me. I don't really have a better justification; I just think it's crap. If, lets say, Mr. Alabama is flying to NYC with his family and part of their plan is to go see Wicked on November 23--if Alabama cancels now and decides to stay home, he is going to be charged extreme airline fees, so that isn't very practical. So, Alabama is coming anyway--what kinds of alternate Friday night plans is he making? He is going to make a later restaurant reservation based on this info? Now, of course, some notice to Alabama is better than no notice. But is giving him this notice really worth 100% guaranteeing that no progress will be made in the next few days?

Also, "we regret we must" is very misleading. They didn't have to cancel performances through Sunday. They could have waited to see if something happened in the next couple of days, they chose not to do so. At least own up to it as a choice.

My question remains--why make this choice? I don't know the answer. Did they do it so Thanksgiving weekend could no longer be held over their heads? Was it to get a leg up in the public perception war? (I can see the coverage now: "Stagehands force League's hand and ruin Thanksgiving.") I mean I can see it being like a "we'll show you"-type thing... But isn't that where my grandmother would use the "cut off your nose to spite your face" expression? I just don't get it.

Plus, I think, and this is pure speculation, this might cause an odd salary wrinkle. The producers don’t think they have to pay the actors because of this clause in the League contract: “If the company cannot perform because of fire, accident, strike, riot, Act of God, or the public enemy, which could not be reasonably anticipated or prevented, then the Actor shall not be entitled to any salary for the time during which Actor's services shall not for such reason or reasons be rendered…” Look at the “could not be reasonably anticipated or prevented” worded. Well, last week, the producers probably couldn’t have “reasonably anticipated or prevented” the strike in the legal sense. But, given this announcement from the League, what about the coming week? Just something to think about.

Anyway, my source from the negotiations this morning told me he was "bored" in the room. I assume that is because both sides feel like they're hitting their heads against a wall. From both sides I heard tonight: "We made concessions, we had a good plan, and they won't meet us." Well, that seems like the same thing I've been hearing for weeks. So no wonder it's boring. The Disney guy apparently didn't hurt negotiations, but both sides said he wasn't as helpful as they'd hoped (which is obvious at this point). So now what?

I wish I felt like anyone was dealing at a rational level at this point. All the union guys I speak to feel like the producers are treating them like they are stupid. The League thinks they are being bullied. As I believe I've previously said on this blog, I believe the producers' tough-talking rhetoric from the beginning was a mistake. This is not a union you want to piss off--this is not a union (like some of the others we have in this industry) that you can bully. On the contrary, I think this might have been a time that the producers could have attracted more flies with honey. (Though I have no idea why you'd want to attract flies, but, still.) Apparently in the room this weekend the producers again claimed the Broadway failure rate was attributable to the union. On the other side of the table, a union guy said to me today: “Well, you have to understand, these people are rich.” So? That doesn’t matter. What does that have to do with anything really? I just don't see how those kinds of things are helping anyone. It just makes both sides dig in. So we have a bitter stalemate. It’s a situation where, in a way, an average observer sort of can’t be pro either side, you have to be anti both. The issues are so confusing I can barely follow them and both sides seem sort of ridiculous. That’s bad for us. And until the posturing stops, we’re not going to have a solution. And we need one. Soon.

Speaking of soon, it's in The Times that The Grinch producer is saying that his show will be up and running again on Tuesday because of some special arrangement The Grinch has with Local One (needed due to its souped-up schedule). This makes no kind of sense to me. I understand the sort of "We're already paying them more, so, our deal isn't the one they are striking over" aspect of it and, yet, still, overall, it doesn't make sense to me.

First of all—why didn’t he bring this special deal up to begin with? Isn't that something he would have realized? Secondly, my understanding has been, and clearly I’ve been wrong before, that the strike was sort of venue-related. So, for example, Disney is not a member of the League, but its shows in Nederlander houses are currently dark. If The Grinch in its Jujamcyn house comes back on—-why not The Lion King or The Little Mermaid at their Nederlander houses? After all, Nederlander was technically just observing in this negotiation, so shows in its houses should be more likely to get a break. Is it that when Disney went into those theaters they assumed the terms of the standard League deal but Grinch couldn't because of their schedule? And, if that is the case, what happens if Disney says "We'll give you extra money if you just reopen Mermaid"? Would that be cool? It just makes no sense to me that we’d see The Grinch on Tuesday. We might, but it would just be odd. If the union is coming back for them in their Jujamcyn house—-where does it end? This is another thing I just don’t get. I can’t even talk about this stuff anymore it’s all so ridiculous and confusing.

Last night, a Yale graduate student died striking down a set. My understanding is that the Yale practice is to have people do all-night strikes. So they were taking down the set from the Rep production of Trouble in Mind and something hit this student. It's so unbelievably sad. The person who told me about the incident said that he hoped it would draw attention to the odd and unsafe practices at Yale Rep. Except, instead, we’re all talking about The Grinch.

Day 5: Oh Mi God You Guys, It's Still Going On

2007-11-15T02:35:00.000-05:00

You know, I didn't want to officially cover the whole strike because, well, after getting home from sitting shiva, I just wasn’t in the mood. (Not to mention the fact that I missed 3 deadlines.) So I helped out a paper on Saturday by doing some reporting from the lines and then I thought I’d put it behind me. But I get 20 phone calls a day about it, so I feel pretty much like I’m officially working on it. And, in that spirit, I’ll of course talk about it. Because what else is there anyway?!?!

I hope everyone read this as a basic primer unless, well, you yourself or in the negotiations or are getting reports straight from them: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/arts/14broadway.html

Now… Does everyone remember that, after the Local 802 strike, it seemed like the producers won? I kept telling people “no… not really…” Because, let’s think back, the whole time during that negotiations, the producers kept saying “We will not accept musician minimums in any way.” Yet, we still have them. They are lower than they used to be, but they are there.

We had a situation where a bunch of producers were saying “Well, we’ve agreed to these things for years, but we never should have. They don’t exist in the West End, and now we don’t want them to exist here. We need to change this industry!” They failed to do that. There is an argument that Rome wasn’t built in a day (a cliché argument, but an argument nonetheless) and the concessions the producers won then began a dissolution of the system, but, basically, in a very significant way, it didn’t work out the way the producers wanted. (There are those that say the producers knew all along they’d never get eliminate the system, they wanted just what they got, but, let me tell you, I worked on it 24 hours a day and I think that is crap.) Yet somehow the public thought the producers won. Everyone I spoke to thought that. Why? Is there some kind of thing that we assume if a striking party makes any concession they lost? Was the world anti-union at the time (and, if so, are they now)? It never quite made sense to me. I think a lot of it has to do with media spin. It was all “Musicians agree to reductions, go back to work.” Now, that’s a valid characterization of events, but it sort of leads consumers to the wrong mental conclusion about the underlying battle.

Fast forward to 2007. We have a sort of similar situation in a lot of ways now. There are a bunch of producers and theater owners saying: “We’ve been doing this for too long. I remember why we did some stuff to begin with, but not others. And, anyway, it’s all not valid now. It doesn’t exist anywhere else. We need to change this industry!” Now, those of you who know the theater, know that it doesn’t exactly embrace change on any level. So there are those, outside the producers’ room, who are supporting Local One because, well, they support tradition. But, I’m not going to go into such things in depth. (I will say there is a certain “The producers made their bed”-type argument. For the union to agree to a lot of these things in 2007, after the producers have been going along with the previous system forever, it would be costing stagehands jobs. That sucks for Local One membership and it also sucks because then Local One leadership has to go to IATSE and say “Hey, we agreed to cost our members all of these jobs.” This is where the union’s whole “We need an exchange of equal value” drama comes in. But, this is all to in depth for this blog post.)

Anyway, getting back on track. Just like we had after the musicians strike, we have a little problem with semi-misleading coverage. This is playing to the public like an anti-minimum fight, just like the musicians strike was. I believe this is because all the talk about featherbedding makes it seem like “We have to hire all of these people we don’t need.” This is especially enhanced by the whole “We need to pay a flyman $160,000 a year even if there is no fly work in the show” sexy producers tidbit. So normal people think the issue is that producers want to eliminate existing minimums. In fact, this isn’t a fight about existing minimums because there aren’t technically stagehands minimums, beyond the hiring of one flyman (and maybe some other random assorted things like that). Read Campbell Robertson’s Times story linked to above and you’ll get a better idea of the actual battle points, but know that the general public, those that won’t read and really analyze Robertson’s story, is hearing something else. They’re hearing minimums and payment for mopping. And it’s going to be interesting to see how public perception plays out post-strike based on what the public is thinking now.

Why does this all matter? Why do the unions care who the public thinks won after a strike is done? There are a bunch of reasons, but I’ll give you just one. It’s true, no one is going to remember the exact settlement (or even what they thought it was) of this Local One settlement by the time the next Local One negotiation rolls around. But they will remember this spring when Equity starts talking to the League. And, even though theater is so insular in a lot of ways, a union is still helped a lot by public support. When a union negotiation is made so public, it in many ways lays the groundwork for another union’s negotiations. So if the public is really, really only pro-producers and thinks the producers made Local One cry, the producers have a little more leverage going into the Equity negotiations. If, on the other hand, the public thinks producers are rich evildoers and just keep trying to beat down working people, the producers know that Equity has the sympathetic momentum going into the fight. In the latter case, the producers are also going to fear that people eventually won’t want to support them.

Oh my god, this is so long I’m not even going to be able to get through it myself. Sorry about that. Stopping soon. I just want to say a couple of major last things: 1) I’m so happy that they’re at least going back to the table. 2) If it isn’t going well that first day, if I were running the stagehands and I wanted to swing public support a little, I’d give in on some of the sexy points and then hold a press conference. Of course, Local One is on muzzle mode and so this probably won’t happen. But, honestly, this negotiation is so not about flymen and mopping, that I might say, if I were a stagehand person: “Well, we eliminated the mopping charge and the flyman requirement and still the greedy producers want MORE, MORE, MORE.” This would also be something to show Bloomberg they are trying, incase somehow city leadership does become involved. Again, I don’t think that will happen, but that’s the Full Force musing on what I’d do if I were James Claffey. (Though hopefully we’ll amazingly have a settlement quickly and then if I were James Claffey I’d play “We Got The Beat” and dance.)

It’s 3am, I've lost track of whether this makes sense and I must go to sleep now. Know that I had an extra 30 minutes on my way to Young Frankenstein tonight and I decided to make my mother (who was with me) walk around so I could see what was up on the lines. There were a lot less people than there were Saturday, which I suppose is to be expected. But know that the cheeriest stagehands seemed to be outside Grease. I share incase you are in the mood to chat with one.

Day 2: The Terror Continues

2007-11-12T01:18:00.000-05:00

Well, huh. I don't want to talk about the specific points on either side, but I of course will talk about some strike-related things. This is a difficult situation, with a decidedly different feel than the musicians strike had a few years back. You know, the thing about the Local 802 strike was that it didn't seem quite as bitter beforehand. Also, it didn't seem like it would last that long. So though picket lines are never fun, the musicians were seemingly more laid back, chatting with people who passed and talking to the press. From what I saw yesterday and today (and my experience is by no means comprehensive), Local One has closed ranks, giving the general public very terse responses ("read our statement" is a big one) and making it a policy not to talk to the press. And consequently there was a more ominous feel on the streets today than there was some years ago.

I want to share one from yesterday. Patrick Paige was one of the actors nicely singing to people outside the theater. I mean I honestly thought that was genuinely kind (some other actors did likewise at other theaters). Yet someone, with two children in toe, passed him and called out "You really are The Grinch!" Now, you could take that two ways, but, as she had unhappy children with her, I don't think she meant it to be complimentary.

The difference today as opposed to yesterday was that there were many more actors on the picket lines. Apparently there was some miscommunication yesterday as to whether they were supposed to full out picket, so some did and many didn't. A bunch yesterday were just standing around. Today, with the clarification that they were encouraged to picket, they snapped into the march. But, alas, there was also a harsher feel out there today, maybe owing to the tough-talking producer's press conference of yesterday or the primarily pro-producers media bent. (If you didn't know anything about the situation and simply saw tons of kids crying on the street--wouldn't you want those losing strikers to suck it up and go back to work?) Claffey is of course not bending and that toughness is seeping down.

I thought the unions came off well in their press conference today, but the producers had more catchy sound bites from their press conference. They said sexy random things like "we're paying them extra to mop!" Those are hard things to counter-act public perception wise. People don't usually feel bad for producers, but then you hear them saying the average Local One member gets paid like $150,000 and, though your heart may not bleed for the producers, you also, if you believe this figure is accurate, sort of think to yourself "why should they get more?" So, there you go on that media-related front.

I feel one thing that hasn't gotten enough attention is this refund policy. The big line is to go to an open show if your show was cancelled, but there is a problem with that. Because the only way to get an instant refund is if you paid by cash or check at a box office and happen to find that box office open, it leaves a lot of people with tied up funds. So if you have a credit card with a low maximum and you charged your tickets online, to the sum of over $600 for a family of five, you don't get credit for days. Then maybe you cannot afford to go to a new show now. I think this whole "Well, you can get tickets to these lovely open shows..." mentality is a little faulty at times.

So I had tickets to Duran Duran last night, tickets I had to call in some favors to get. As most of you know, Duran Duran was scheduled to end their Broadway engagement this Tuesday. They have moved all their remaining shows now to Roseland, which, well, is certainly not the Barrymore. And while they are honoring tickets for last night at Monday and Tuesdays Roseland shows, it's not going to be the same. So I know the feeling a little bit--though certainly not to the same degree--of the family who is in town for two days and has tickets to see The Little Mermaid and cannot see it. (Let me say again how excited I am to see The Little Mermaid--I have a Little Mermaid calender and everything--and I'm not joking--so I do completely understand the tears a family shed over missing Mermaid, while I did not cry for Duran Duran.)

But this raises an issue beyond my lost Saturday night plans--what about Duran Duran's equipment?!?! Is it stuck in the Barrymore? Even if non-Local One people could get into the theater, it seems to me they can't move the equipment, as that is a Local One job. Now I guess they have backup equipment, but the stuff they were using at the Barrymore must be the cream of the crop. Did they remove it Friday knowing of the strike? It seems hard to believe... I mean, it's one thing to take your personal belongings outside a theater, it's another thing to convince stagehands the night before a strike they want to move equipment out... I don't know the answer to this, but I raise it as a curious point.

Also curiously, I got yelled at today on the street by someone who didn't like something I wrote on this blog. Ummm... People need to stop taking things so seriously. Let me issue a general disclaimer, this blog represents my musings. It's generally written after midnight, which means it is especially free-flowing. On the blog, I say what I am thinking at the moment, but it's not intended to be a declaration of fact. That doesn't mean I don't stand behind it all, I do. It just means I don't think anyone out there should be taking it that seriously. (You know, this is why for like my first year in this industry I didn't like to meet people. My theory was, if no one knew what I looked liked, there would be no public animosity... and I could spy better. I think Michael Borowski was the only one to meet me for like a-year-and-a-half. That was okay because he knew I loved him and thus he would never snap at me.)

Ugh--this strike ruined my planned post about how I think Rock 'n Roll is being given such a brilliantly staged production. (Now that I know people are taking this blog so seriously, it might have been nice to one of my favorite press agents had I been able to write that, but, alas.) I will just end with two more things. First, I rarely promote things written or created by people I know. But, I can, and so I will this time. For those of you who are Fire Island Pines people, I want to promote this documentary, When Ocean Meets Sky, available on www.craytonrobeyproductions.com. It is an interesting documentary on the history of the Pines and it features a bunch of theater people, including Mart Crowley, Jerry Herman, Larry Kramer and Sara Ramirez.

Secondly, I want to send my heartfelt sympathy to anyone adversely affected by this strike and to the people who are covering it. Strikes are sometimes necessary, but they always suck.

Pandemonium

2007-11-07T23:55:00.000-05:00

So I’m back. I’m behind on work, theater and television, but, I’m back. I want to thank everyone for their well wishes while I was gone. And now I sense the need to discuss some things that happened during this time.

A League survey came out that said approximately 65% of Broadway tickets sold were sold to tourists. I have no basis with which to contest that factually, but I do want to point something out about this figure that makes me not 100% believe it. This figure (and others contained in the survey) was based on “extensive survey data gleaned from audience questionnaires distributed…” That means people had to fill out questionnaires left on their seats (or whatever). Isn’t it more likely that tourists will do that? I took an informal survey of 20 non-theater industry New Yorkers today and only 2 said they’d fill out a questionnaire put on their seat and hand it in. I didn’t also ask tourists (damn non-scientific study), but I think the number would be somewhat higher if I went to midtown and asked tourists going into The Grinch. Again, I could be wrong… just something to think about.

Meanwhile, I’m very excited about a Take That musical coming to the West End. I believe now is the time for that ‘N Sync musical I’m sure people have been working on. On a non-boy band front, does anyone know what happened to Colour My World, the Chicago musical? I keep thinking about it. I have no idea why.

Also, today Riedel wrote Jessica Alba for a Broadway Speed-the-Plow, whereas I had written London. Broadway makes less sense to me—-another Speed-the-Plow?!?--but I’m all for the random and unexpected. Its possible talk of one grew out of the other, but, whatever the case, I’d be happy to have Jessica Alba on Broadway. I am, as I just said, all for the random.

And, yeah, this union/League crap. As most of you probably know, everyone has been told to keep taking their stuff home until further notice. Negotiations today did not go well, but, well, that’s nothing new.

On a final note--adios Spelling Bee. I’ll miss your cute TV commercials, if nothing else.

Cara Joy

2007-11-01T00:40:00.000-04:00

Due to a death in the family, Cara Joy will not be posting today or Sunday. She will return next Wednesday.

It's raining men

2007-10-29T00:02:00.000-04:00

Am I the only one who is impressed over the amount of press Rock 'n Roll is getting? I mean, I never thought it... And I don't understand it really... but there you go! Huge national breaks for it! Huge! I just hope I understand the show. I've received a primer so I have faith.

I was going to write about how glad I am that Roger Rees is gone from Williamstown (has anyone previously buried a theater company that quickly?), but instead I feel compelled to respond to the Variety article about female playwrights. I’m all for the rise of the woman—I am like the proudest Wellesley alum ever—but I feel this story is a little odd. It is title is “Women scribes boost play cache” and its subtitle is “Writers seeing gain this season,” these things said to me that this story was going to be all about how many women are having off-Broadway plays produced this year. That’s a valid trend story. But a major thrust of the story is actually that women are not well represented in terms of new plays on Broadway, but neither is anyone who is not white and male. Why are we having this discussion about women and not about everyone non-white? Because women are actually not a minority so it is all the more striking? I just don’t get it. I can’t even address this point anymore because I so don’t understand it.

Let’s imagine however that this story were a valid trend story just dealing with off-Broadway. The story quotes Playwrights’ Tim Sanford as saying he does think having a woman playwright on his season schedule is important. Playwrights is doing four shows with female scribes this year. Now, I read the script for Sarah Treem's A Feminine Ending before Playwrights decided 100% that they would do it and I thought “this show will never get produced anywhere—it is so bad.” Then Playwrights announced it for their season. I hope it wasn’t because the writer was a woman. I’d like to think that the Playwrights people just have bad taste and thus would have produced it if it were written by Samuel Treem. I hope that. That would make me happier. Because producing crappy work by women does nothing to further the cause of women.

That said, I'm all for the advancement of women. So I cheer any good new play on Broadway, but I indeed may secretly cheer a little louder if the good new play was written by a woman. I feel like Lynn Nottage is the big hope in this area. I look forward to seeing a play by her at the Biltmore.

No Dark Angel Fans Out There?

2007-10-25T00:40:00.000-04:00

I thought the blind item from Sunday was the easiest blind item ever written, but apparently I was wrong. That makes me think a lot of you need to watch more bad movies. Bad movies are very important. Really.

Speaking of bad stuff, I think we all need a minute of mourning for Viva Laughlin. I watched the first episode with my friend, super manager Jeremy Katz and he couldn’t really get through it, but I was sort of transfixed. I mean—come on. Who thought this would work? Starting with that horrible lead guy, it was all so misguided. But, of course, I am drawn to ridiculous musical numbers. I believe the experience of watching it was similar to the experience of watching In My Life. Speaking of In My Life, Joe Brooks is doing a new New York reading of his other musical, Metropolis. This one opened in the West End in 1989 and has played regionally. Brooks gave a bunch of interviews in 2002 saying it was Broadway-bound, but, well, we got In My Life instead. But fans of Metropolis have no fear—he is apparently still trying to get it here.

I was supposed to be covering the possible strike for an outlet and last week, when my first story was about to run, they showed it to me and I told them that I wouldn’t put my name to it. Because, practice what you preach. How many times have I complained about biased reporting on this blog? I complain about it because I think it sucks. I don’t want to put my name to a story that sucks. Plus, I want to be able to call out stories that suck and not feel like a hypocrite. Like I am going to do right now.

So you don’t think I just pick on Bloomberg, I have to call out the recent “League Begins Implementing Terms of Rejected Stagehands Contract” on Playbill.com. It DIRECTLY comes from documents sent out by the League. Thus, while it could be argued that what is presented are “facts,” they are certainly spun facts. Now, I’m not saying they can’t be used, but they need to be credited to the League. And here they aren’t so they seem like un-spun (if that was a word) facts. That’s why I think this story sucks.

People, I’ve said it here many, many times: believe nothing. Maybe you don’t even believe that, but, well, I can’t get into a philosophical circular reasoning argument.

Your flavor's hot!

2007-10-22T01:03:00.000-04:00

So, as you may have noticed from my posts earlier this week, I've fallen totally behind on all things strike-related. Thus this post will not be about that.

What shall I speak about? Let's talk about revivals. Recently I've heard around town that a certain Invisible Woman, let's call her, I don't know, Honey, is in talks to do Speed-the-Plow in the UK. I hear it might actually happen, which is more than I can say for Mr. Spacey's other attempts to get Hollywood stars out to appear with him. Remember all of those Philadelphia Story rumors? Who was actually reported as fact? Calista Flockhart? I certainly think Honey would be more of a get than Flockhart would have been. (Of course, Flockhart is a stage actress and Honey isn't, but, we all know I'm in favor of random celebrities taking to the stage.)

Anyway, this is a big year for Speed-the-Plow. I mean, it's a big year for any play that has Alicia Silverstone in a production of it anywhere. And I gotta ask--why? Is this a play we've all been thinking we need to see again? I mean, I feel like "been there, done that, moved on." Though, if you've all been waiting for it, congratulations. But there was just a big production of it in London in 2000. I don't know...

Godspell has got me thinking about this. I feel like, I just saw Godspell. I saw it off-Broadway. I saw a concert of it. I saw it at Paper Mill. Wait, so, I did just see it. Well, maybe not just, but.... And the thing about that Paper Mill production was that it was cleverly staged but it no way made me think "Broadway." Actually, the clever staging made it more comical and lively, but, um, it also made it seem more minor. It seemed small. So, yeah, sure, Adam Epstein is giving all of these quotes about how he was shocked to know it hasn't been on Broadway in a long time, but--who cares that it hasn't been on Broadway in a long time?!?! There are tons of people out there that love Godspell and I'm sure they'll enjoy this production... But have you all been sitting out there thinking "I need Godspell at a Shubert theater NOW!"? Honestly, tell me if you have, because I'm really curious. And, for those of you who are excited about it, do you think it will succeed without a star?

You know, there are things that don't seem great on paper but end up being huge hits. Maybe this is one of those. They are billing it as "From the composer of Wicked" because we all know people go see shows based on the composer. That happens so often. So, yeah, that's the way. But let's forget about that for now...

This doesn't look good on paper to me. I just don't see it working in a Broadway house for an extended run. If it gets great reviews, then they'll be good, but, for that to happen, I think they are going to need a very tiny house. And can you run a musical for profit in a very tiny house? These are the things that have to be assessed. With Xanadu's great Times review and low, low running cost, they still probably won't recoup. Unless Godspell somehow becomes a Rent for young Christians (which is a possibility), I don't see it happening.

Again, there are things that just happen magically on that stage. Stay tuned for that.

Meanwhile, yes, today was the union strike vote. Authorized. Duh. Supposedly no strike until December though. Yay? I know I said this post wasn't about that and it wasn't, but, if you are too bored to read more Times coverage (I only recommend Times coverage on this subject), there you go for the big update.

I've come undone...

2007-10-18T22:38:00.000-04:00

It's a never-before/never-again emergency blog post. I was wrong about the Nederlanders (as my new 12 messages tell me). They apparently will be exercising their power to not join the League in imposing the new contract on the union. This is a blow to the League the implications are tricky to assess. I have something due so I don't have time to go into it, but, the two arguments are: 1) This is a BIG hit to the League in terms of public perception and it could also affect theaters on the fence (I'll discuss what I mean by that in just a second) and 2) It has little practical implication in terms of what will be going on next week and will only effect things if there is a strike. More on this on Sunday. (Not only do I have something due, but I've turned off my phone so I actually knowing NOTHING. I like it too.)

Now, you'll note in the releases today that they sort of made it sound like "Well, Nederlanders are with the League but they CANNOT use this strategy." Ummm... I don't think that is true. Even though they have their own contract, my understanding (and indeed every one's understanding) was that they could do just about anything in solidarity. And they are clearly choosing not to do anything in solidarity, other than allow some odd statement to be released using their name.

Meanwhile, the answer about the Helen Hayes is that each of the individual theaters can still choose what to do. So, as of yesterday, the unions thought the Hayes may go along with the League. But I'd say that's unlikely now. But that's just me.
This is what I mean by no one ever really knowing what is going to happen in these types of things... Everything can change in an instant.

If you want to destroy my sweater...

2007-10-18T00:46:00.000-04:00

I previously thought this week was going to be quiet in terms of negotiation talk. But, in what surely is a sign that if there is some controlling being s/he hates theater journalists, it hasn't worked out that way. I went out last night, I turned off my phone and I turned it back on and had a dozen messages. Now, while my personality is very winning (a fact I continually tell press agents), I usually don't receive twelve calls in 2 hours and 40 minutes. But, apparently I do when the mayor gets dissed by a major broadway union and the League makes a big threat. That combination does it. Hopefully it won't occur too many times again.

So, meanwhile, I had wanted to talk about why i think Steven Pasquale will be a good Cable or the campy Orfeh-replacement rumors (I would be SO HAPPY if Kathy Griffin, Clay Aiken and Chaka Khan were all on Broadway at the same time--especially if Bruce Glikas could capture them all in a 'family portrait') or why I believe this Godspell revival is a bad idea, but I guess that will all have to wait because, considering I have 42 emails about the latest developments, that is clearly what people want to know about.

Some quick hits based on today's emails:

Yes, the Nederlander theaters do operate under a different contract and the Nederlander Organization isn't technically supposed to be negotiating. However, they will abide by all things happening and Nederlander theaters will be effected by a strike. My understanding, and I am by no means swearing this is true, the only theaters not effected by whatever happens will be the non-profits (Biltmore, AA, Studio 54, Beaumont) and individually-owned houses, the New Amsterdman and the Hilton. The Circle in the Square and Helen Hayes haven't really been mentioned much in this shuffle and both have shows currently running. I actually hadn't thought about it until recently (sorry--I have a lot of other things on my mind) and I don't feel like calling people now, so, I'll get back to you on this point on Sunday if it still remains unanswered. I will say I know the info the actors originally heard did not list either of them in the "show will go on" department, but they are indeed both independently owned... Campbell Robertson in The Times listed the Circle in the Square as one of the theaters that would not be effected. That makes sense to me, except then I don't know then why the Hayes would be effected... So, yeah, I'm no help here. (If I were to have picked only one of them to be strike-free it would have been the Hayes, as the Circle in the Square is under the co-direction of Jujamcyn President Paul Libin, so has a stake at the table, but, clearly that theory would not have served me well.)

Yes, I do hate the Bloomberg theater coverage. I've complained previously about their big news stories and now comes this irresponsible coverage... Apparently Jeremy Gerard's stories are editorials because they are in the "muse" section, but they are written like news and presented like news. It's really, really shady, especially considering Gerard is a reporter and is writing for an outlet that is reporting on this situation. If they put "EDITORIAL" in big letters up top or he kept saying "In my opinion" but neither of these things are present in the articles in questions, so, basically, they read like news and they are not. Making this situation worse (though through no fault of Bloomberg) is that, in our little world where there are less than 10 media outlets covering this "huge" issue on a consistent basis, people are believing the things presented and its firing some up.

No, we are not on a daily strike watch. Despite the huge rhetoric, this is going to drag out for a little while longer. Shows will go on this weekend unless some union member does something horrible (I won't give anyone ideas) and the League suddenly decides to have a lockout in retaliation. But, as that is highly unlikely, I believe we're safe. Now a bunch of you have asked about the 10-day gap supposedly required after the strike vote and before the strike. I'm sure all of these emails were from people concerned LADIES NIGHT OUT ON BROADWAY would not go on as scheduled next Wednesday. That gap is supposedly 100% required, but I'm hearing about it less and less for whatever that means. So, I don't know...

Yes, I do think the union will try to avoid the mayor as much as possible and will succeed in standing tough way better than Local 802 did. I've previously explained why I think this is so... I hate to repeat myself. Well, that's not true, but, still...

Yes, I did hear that the mayor told Claffey that the partial implementation would take place on the 17th. I have no easy reasoning to explain that.

No, partial implementation does not mean salary increases will be going into effect next week. These implementations are purely pro-League.

That's it. I am indeed too bored to go on. To the rest of you who emailed me, I'll try to get back to you individually tomorrow. Until then, the balcony is closed.

What do we know now?

2007-10-15T00:43:00.000-04:00

So last night, I went to see The Ritz then went briefly to my friend Bret's birthday at The Ritz and then returned home and got yelled at by a producer. Sounds like a fun night, right? You may ask: "Why would anyone want to yell at Cara?!" I mean, I'm very nice. But, alas, some people are blind to my charms. This particular producer took issue with the "no-win" stance I presented in my last post. He kept saying this new "force a strike" strategy would be the way the producers would win.

So, yeah, let's talk about that. Thursday this was the big brainstorm that went sweeping around town. I didn't pay much attention to it because it seems to me like it will take a lot of guts to implement and, well, I just wasn't sold it would happen. BUT, I will say from the producer's standpoint it is a wise strategy, smarter than a lockout would be at this point. Once we're talking about a strike, we're talking about a completely different thing. The headlines will be "Stagehands Walk Out! Stop Broadway!" It also gets rid of the thorny legal issue related to paying the other unions. If there was a lockout, the other unions would show up, expecting to be paid. The League wouldn't pay them, thus setting up a legal battle. This way, the other unions probably won't cross the picket line, thus meaning they are striking too... (Equity has authorized funds to go to its actors in any work stoppage eventuality.) Along with the pros, there are of course obvious cons to this producers' strategy, but there are major cons to every strategy either side could come up with at this point.

You know, as I said previously, it is hard to know what the truth is in these situations. Everyday you hear something new and very few people know the real deal. The best sources can let you down--not because they are protecting their side, but because they think they know the truth and they don't. Right now, it's 100% certain that, if there is not a lockout, the union strike vote has been scheduled for next Sunday. That's about all we got that I believe. This whole Local One-Iatse split would be very bad for the union, if it is true... but.... who really knows? And even if it's true now, it may not be tomorrow.

This producer, while yelling, asked me whose side I was on. And of course I responded that I'm impartial, which I am. But really, even if I wanted to pick a side (and I do not), I don't know enough to pick a side... and I know more than most! Which is why I say yet again: "Believe nothing." That sounds very like I've turned goth, but have no fear, I was wearing a pink blouse today.

Wednesday, unless there is a lockout, I will post about something not related to this issue. Even I'm bored by it. Actually, I was bored by it a long time ago. On Wednesday, I could have a whole discussion over why these things don't really close shows, even though that is what the spin is, but... I'd rather discuss why I hate CD box sets that have like two original songs and special edition DVDs that come out shortly after the original DVD; or something maybe theater related, to go along with the title of this blog.

Where are we now?

2007-10-11T01:12:00.000-04:00

People keep saying to me: “Aren’t you excited about the lockout? You’ll finally have something exciting to write about!” UMMMM… yeah, no. Covering a lockout or a strike is not exciting, it’s tedious and tiring. I just thought I’d get that out there.

So where are we now? Well, what I hear is meeting tomorrow. From all appearances this is sort of a Last Stand at Sardi’s. If there isn’t significant progress made, lockout Friday.

What does this all mean? I was at a Local One gathering yesterday (I am very equal opportunity and totally would have gone to a League gathering, had I not been afraid of being physically removed that is) and there was a lot of strong talk. A bunch of things were said against League Executive Director Charlotte St. Martin who has put her name on a bunch of strong anti-Local One statements and many see as having no knowledge of how the theater industry works. Note, though I did not say anything yesterday, I do not believe Charlotte St. Martin has had anything to do with these negotiations—I think she’s just sticking her name on things, as the public face of the League. But, regardless… Let me say, I don’t think the union folks are in a very flexible mood. And they have the advantage at this point.

I did back down and read the Bloomberg article. I wasn’t happy I had. This wasn’t written by Boroff, but, in my opinion, it was not solid journalism. I believe it was sourced by people on only one side of the aisle. By just crediting those folks as “two people involved in the negotiations” and not “two producers” or something of the like, it made it seem like a more balanced report than I think it actually was. I don’t think there was really a big “yield” on Thursday night. I think what happened was like “OK, you can hire less people like you want, but you need to give us giant theater masks in platinum and diamonds.” Of course, that is not EXACTLY what I’ve heard, but you get the idea. There were some foreseeable advantages to portraying the union as if they were truly buckling--I don’t think any of those panned out (and I actually think the move may have backfired), but it was a respectable try.

OK, I’ve complained about that enough all day today, let’s move on to what position I see the producers being in as of now. If there is a lockout, they appear evil and lose lots of money. If they go back to the table and back down from their tough “final offer” stance they seem weak. So it’s sort of a no-win for them unless the union totally buckles. (In my ideal world, there would be some sort of "does anyone think we can spike their drinks?" discussion going on.)

You know, one thing the producers have going for them is, if Manny Azenberg went to someone on the street and said: “Hey, they make us hire 10 people even if we only need 6” a bunch of people would totally think, “That is completely unfair.” I tried to explain it to my grandparents today and my grandmother said: “Unions are inflexible. This is what makes the theater so expensive!” I’m sure if the producers went to every person and appeared charming (hopefully they’d know to only send the nice ones, there are nice ones) and explained their side, they’d get a lot of converts. Sadly though, they aren’t going to do that. Instead, normal folk will get the story from the media and that story will be that they are locking good, hard-working people out of their jobs; that they don’t want to pay the other unions who did show up to work.

I have spoken to 4 producers in the last 2 hours and they all know they are in trouble. Much more than all the public perception crap I just droned on about, they fear their shows closing if there is a lockout. Meanwhile, the union people I speak to think, “Hey, if this doesn’t work out tomorrow, whatever.” Those attitudes show something.

Again, time will tell. I always opt for the show will go on, but I honestly can’t decide what will happen. I’m confused. I don’t know much—-I know very little about what the actual points and terms are at this juncture. So I can only share with you limited observations. Like the rest of you, I look forward to reading a Times story with the details. Hopefully on my way to a Broadway show.

I'm a bad motherfucker now but I once was cool...

2007-10-07T23:24:00.000-04:00

I wonder if anyone reading this knows what that title line is from. It's totally unrelated to theater.

Anyway... I’m back! And, while I’m not caught up on everything in the world quite yet, I couldn’t sleep well if I did not discuss the Local One/League negotiations.

So Local One and the League have agreed to another negotiation session to take place on Tuesday, October 9. That’s where we are.

I’ve heard from a bunch of people that there is a Bloomberg story saying the union is bending, but I’m not reading that story (a previous Bloomberg story completely misrepresented where information came from, so, for a couple of months I just won’t read that outlet). I’ve heard from my people on both sides of the aisle that there has been some agreement, but things are still very, very contentious. This is what we heard at this stage during both the 802 and Equity negotiations, so, you can’t really predict what will happen based on what is coming out of the room. (Remember, employment minimums, a main point in this negotiation, is what also killed the pre-strike 802 negotiations.) I could report to you all I’ve heard on detailed points—but would you care or even be able to follow it? It would be sort of pointless.

Instead, I need to discuss the difference between a lockout and a strike. The musicians had a big fat strike. That means that people coming to the theater from, let’s say, Kansas, arrived at Mamma Mia! to find that the people who play the instruments were refusing to work. Some of those Kansas folks understood, but some yelled at the musicians. Public perception-wise, the musicians were the greedy ones. (Though, of course, there is always the perception that producers are greedy… but, during that strike, it just about evened out…)

In this case, we’re talking about a lockout, which would be the producers not letting Local One members work. This move would effectively shut down the theater for a period of time and some shows would likely not survive. It’s true that the League has been shoveling away money for just this eventuality, but, that won’t save certain individual shows. But, that’s beyond what we’re talking about tonight.

So, the public this time is going to be for the union. They already see producers as fat cats (despite the fact that some have had to mortgage their houses to keep shows running). Now these fat cats are going to be seen as taking food off a stagehand’s table. That’s a big problem for them. It’s a problem not because people will immediately stop buying tickets to Wicked because of the lockout, but because the League wants to be perceived as a shiny happy organization reaching out to everyone. They want the city--and, especially, the city’s mayor and council--to see them as people trying to contribute to the city. The League does not want to be perceived as an evil organization. League members know they don’t want to piss off city brass—they will eventually need them. This is especially true now—with Equity negotiations just around the corner. League folks know they need to be strong before those start up.

So why lockout? Some League members say that exercising their lockout power will make the producers stronger; still others say what they lose power-wise is more substantial than what they gain. So we need to move past this one dimension of the issue.

Local One has been working without a contract since August 1, 2007 and the union is still making tough demands. If it were the case where, let’s say, the union was only asking for more health benefits, a lockout would be completely ineffective. In that case, it would pay for producers to keep living under the old contract until the union was fed up and decided to strike. But here we have the producers asking for something—they want to have to pay less people. So they know it doesn’t pay for Local One to strike. If they want their thing, they have to go out and get it. Many League members believe a lockout will put enough pressure on the union that they’ll buckle on key issues just to get their people back to work with a paycheck. They believe any heat will be worth it in light of the concessions they’ll gain. I personally disagree with this strategy because I think it underestimates the strength of the union they are up against. 802 is not the strongest of unions; Equity makes so many concessions on a daily basis, there is some assumption that a concession is coming even before talks start. Local One is different. IATSE is a big tough force. The union has its own money to help out its members and a lot of its members could get jobs in film and TV if a lockout were to persist. Of course a lockout would never persist because the mayor would get involved. He might not be able to get everything solved as quickly as he did last time, but, it’s not like we’d be sitting here in December only able to go to off-Broadway shows. The League is also well aware of this--they may get some of their demands by being obnoxious because once they mayor steps in, there will be some sort of compromise.

Yeah, so, if anything happens, we’re talking lockout and not strike and they are very different things. That’s basically what I wanted to say. Note, I am not expressing my views about who is right issue-wise because, well, they are too complicated to express in under 2 pages. This post is just to explain things as I see them strategy-wise.

To end, I just want to touch a little bit about what the other unions would do if there is indeed a Local One lockout. The majority of unions (maybe all) have no lockout/no strike contract clauses, so, if Local One is locked out, the likelihood is the other unions would not strike. On the contrary, they’d show up to work knowing full well they cannot work because, well, then they’d get paid. This won’t be seen as crossing a picket line because Local One is all for it. Get the producers to pay the other union folks for not working. Why not? And it won’t be like crossing a picket line because Local One members won’t object and, besides, all they’ll have out there is an “information line,” not a real strike-like picket line. Note, I have no idea what the difference in appearance is between an information line and a picket line…. But I’ve heard there is a difference. Hopefully, Campbell Robertson’s next Times piece or a Gordon Cox Variety story will clarify. I think Riedel will probably call it a picket line because that name is more colorful. Though, again, I always assume settlement. Always. So, as far as I'm concerned, we won't have to worry about any of this.

I'm not in town... AGAIN

2007-10-04T00:19:00.000-04:00

I promise things should return to normal on Sunday. I hope, at least. Until then, please think on my new idea for a combination Squeeze/Adam Ant musical.

Guest blogger says...

2007-09-26T23:55:00.000-04:00

Our blog mistress loves us, but she loves her family more (if you've ever met her genius of a mother, you'll understand why). So, while I'm sure she has many exciting tidbits to share about the looming lock-out, the collapse of 37 Arts, and the catastrophe that is Evi Quaid, we'll just have to wait until she's back in town. Until then, let's all "keep passing the open windows," one of my favorite John Irving turns of phrase, and a rare non-theatrical reference from my showtune addled mind.

Code of the West

2007-09-24T00:46:00.000-04:00

So, today at the BC/EFA flea market, I'm flipping through the costume sketches at the United Scenic Artists booth and I see one from the Paper Mill Funny Girl. Attached is a note which says something to the effect of: "Leslie Kritzer is on the brink of a big Broadway career. Price this one slightly higher." Seriously.

You know, this week has been a really, really tough one in my life. I'm sort of like a walking zombie. I've leveled out at about 12% Cara. And yet I still felt the need to attend this event. As highlights I bring you that Kritzer thing, the fact that Blonde's Nikki Snelson stood there signing jump rope handles (an idea which, of course, rocks) and the fact that, as I was passing the auction booth, there was this announcement: "We have a brand new auction item. Kevin Chamberlain's Ipod! Signed!" (Oddly BroadwayWorld felt the need to do live video of this event, which apparently included some interviews, but mostly included video of a lot of people walking.)

Anyway, while I've been a walking zombie this week, it appears I didn't miss much in the theater world. Annette Bening was the big news and, eh, I have nothing to say about that. So I'll talk a little bit about the strike. I NEVER believe that a strike will actually happen. It always seems like everything will be worked out at the last minute. I felt this way before the 802 saga, but I was proved wrong. I felt that way before the Equity drama and there it was worked out. So what of this now? I think it's about 50/50. I still feel the strike won't happen, but I'm willing to accept it is a definite possibility. The League is hording money and trying to spin already. Union people are making strategic calls to journalists. And the thing about this strike is this union has much, much more power than either Equity or 802 because its members have alternative means of work and thus can hold out a lot longer.

The thing I want to say is it's really, really hard for people not in the negotiations to really know the truth of them. I remember during the Equity negotiations I wrote a story with some things the League wanted. I then got a nasty email and phone call from League reps saying it was irresponsible journalism and I printed false ridiculous statements. Except I was sitting with the League treatise, so I knew that they were indeed trying to prohibit actors from playing basketball. And I truly believe the League reps thought I was lying--even they didn't know the truth. So think of how hard it is for journalists or you as readers... Therefore it is nearly impossible to pick a side or speak as an expert based on what you read in the papers. I always say how journalists (myself included) rarely show all the parts of the puzzle, but here it is in a way excusable; only a special few can show a complete puzzle when it is nearly impossible to figure out how all the pieces fit. Thus I urge caution when choosing a flag to waive here.

If there is a strike, we're so going to be discussing show closings here. That's it for now. I'm sad no one posted comments on Wednesday, even though I begged. Alas. I am also sad I cannot really comment on the rumor that Lone Star Love is off because, well, I didn't research and tickets are still onsale. Thus, while I would totally not be surprised at all, I got nothing concrete because I'm plain old lazy. Another alas.

Show Off

2007-09-20T00:38:00.000-04:00

I spent the majority of today at North Shore hospital, looking after my grandfather. It was not the happiest of days. Nevertheless, I brought back a story. For some reason the hall is decorated with laminated Broadway posters. Not from classics, but like from things that ran for a few years and closed 3-4 years ago.

My grandmother: "Cara, I noticed one of the posters was for Elton John in Aida. How could Elton John be in Aida? Was it a lot of years ago?"
Me: "No, it's his Aida, he wrote the music."
Her: "But Aida is an opera--it has music."

That was the only thing that made me smile all day. Because it's true. It made so much sense.

Oh, actually, I also smiled when I got home and heard about the regional premiere of In My Life. According to the press release description, Jenny has OCD. Except during rehearsals in NYC, that was eliminated. So... is this a revised script? One can only hope.

Anyway, so last night I was involved in an interesting discussion at the party for Playwrights Horizons latest. It was about whether theaters that receive government funding should primarily do American plays. Many people in the conversation, American playwrights (or aspiring ones), thought the answer was "yes." I have some difficulty with this. Don't we live in all one world? What makes someone American? Citizenship? What happens if the playwright is someone who has lived here her entire life, but was born in Australia and retains citizenship there. Should Roundabout not be allowed to producer her play? Or should there be a guideline that says if they produce her play, they then have to do plays of 50 people who have citizenship? I can totally see theaters wanting to support American playwrights--I do too--but this doesn't seem to me like something you could regulate. What do you think? I'd honestly like to know. (Oh, also last night, my friend abandoned me at that same party. Can you believe?)

On another note--I've decided January 6 for Drowsy closing, maybe before if there is indeed a lock-out. What do you think?

Look how I'm asking for comments! begging! pleading! I need to sleep.

Silence!

2007-09-17T00:04:00.000-04:00

Did anyone else learn today that Aida Turturro is going to play Mama in Chicago on Broadway? This means, in a matter of months, the same role will be played by Adriane Lenox, Kelly Osbourne and Aida Turturro. Think about that.

You know how I know off-Broadway is in trouble? It's not because of all the stories about the fact that it is in trouble (because I can't get through those anymore) and it's not because of the closings or the empty theaters... It's more because even people who really care about the theater have NO IDEA what is going on off-Broadway. Silence! announced an opening date and a theater--it was supposed to begin performances last week. They never said it was not starting last week, but, umm, it didn't. Money issues nixed it. And yet there were no splashy website reports of this. Apparently no one noticed. Celia, running at New World Stages, got rid of its director and, I think, it's choreographer. And, again, no one commented on it officially--no need--who cares?

Now I'm not saying people SHOULD care about this junk, but I think it shows something that even the people who really, really care about this business do not. I mean, these are people who care about ensemble changes at Wicked. Even those people aren't making a big deal about Silence! just disappearing. Which says to me no one cares. Even theater freaks don't care about off-Broadway... Why would ticket buyers?

On a completely unrelated closing note--I was at Broadway on Broadway today complaining about the lack of The Little Mermaid (scheduled to perform, but cancelled, supposedly because Sierra Boggess was too sick to perform)--which I was looking forward to seeing--and someone said to me: "Of course, Cara, with all your toys, you're the perfect Disney girl." Ummm... yeah. I really want to say here--once and for all--I'm actually not at all. I do wear shiny shoes and have many toys, but I'm not a huge Disney on Broadway supporter. I'm not anti-them by any means, but, I am not a big supporter either. A little while after I started in this business press agent Jim Byk (who I believe I'm mentioned on here before because of his mental musical theater history archive--I still think you should quiz him, if you know him and have the need) left the Richard Kornberg office to go work on Beauty and the Beast at Boneau/Bryan-Brown. I thought this was sad because a) the tiny Kornberg office has a special place in my heart and, especially, b) I thought it was sad that anyone would make a conscious choice to spend his career promoting that piece of crap. (Of course before Beauty I believe he was promoting Jekyll & Hyde, which... well, whatever, I'll leave that out of my commentary here. Let's just forget about that.) I mean, he went to go work on it. Purposely. And I really hated Beauty and the Beast. I just found it so schlocky. It ran and I'm happy when things are successful, but, I didn't get it. I mean, especially when they moved theaters and decreased cutlery size. I just... yeah. So I can't say I'm a huge Disney on Broadway supporter because I didn't like that.. or Aida... And while I said on here I got what I expected out of Tarzan, that is not saying much. Even the heavily lauded Lion King I think is all about the first 10 minutes (though I totally believe that 10 minutes is worth the price of admission as much as any show is). So, yeah, to sum up, I don't want to be known as a Disney on Broadway girl. I do want to be known as a big fan of The Little Mermaid movie, which is why I am indeed excited about the stage show, regardless of the out-of-town snarky remarks . The animated movies I own are The Little Mermaid and FernGully. Though I haven't seen FernGully in years. Maybe I'll go look for it now.

Hit Me Baby One More Time

2007-09-10T00:48:00.000-04:00

A little administrative note—Wednesday night is a Jewish holiday and thus there will be no blog post. I know that ruins all of your weeks.

“It’s a distraction when you’re out of town and you get national criticism”—so said Disney's Thomas Schumacher to The New York Times. That’s my favorite quote of the week because it says so much. Firstly I read the use of the word “distraction,” in this sense, as meaning like “nuisance,” not something to be taken seriously. Ummm… That’s one way of looking at it. (He then went on to talk about Beauty and the Beast’s reviews and how they didn’t matter. Now, if I were him, I wouldn’t want to refer back to Beauty, knowing how crappy it was, but, ok...) Secondly, “national criticism” is bothersome, but, as per this, not local. So, basically, this is “I don’t care what those morons in Denver say, but it’s annoying that David Rooney attacked it.” Yeah.

Moving on… How many of you readers eagerly watched Britney Spears? There is so much to discuss about it. I watched because the thing you can always count on Britney for is some sort of real show. This wasn’t one. To start off, there is only a small section of the population that would have looked great in that outfit. Old Britney was part of that population, crazy, hazy Britney is not. And she didn’t have much to do and yet she looked confused doing it—she looked down at the dancers in order to tell how to walk. Plus, I love when performers stop lip-syncing somewhere in the middle of the song. Usually they just forget—this poor girl looked like she lost the energy to do it—but, whatever the reason, that always cracks me up. Why am I discussing this on this bog? Well, it’s my blog and I can do whatever the hell I damn well please. Joe Iconis I’m sure has songs about how we can all do whatever the hell we like.

Though, actually, I must admit there is a connection here. No, it’s not Britney’s Sweet Charity discussion. It’s the fact that watching the coverage of her VMA opener gave me an idea that would help theater, especially musicals, tremendously. Did you see how confused/bored the audience members were when the camera flashed to them? That tells you a lot—that could tell creative team members a lot. That is why I am suggesting videotaping of audience members.

In the film industry they sometimes put people in a small room and watch their reactions to a given film. (This gives a more honest, immediate read than focus group talks or comment sheets.) They use this to decide if there is some re-editing that needs to be done or even re-shooting. But people behind films can’t typically do that much after these things. It is often too expensive to re-shoot and, with re-editing, you can only do so much usually. Think of all the possibilities this would have in theater.

Often you have producers saying, in response to criticism, “well, the audience loves that part.” They are judging based on laughs and applause, I suppose. They could judge so much better if they could just watch the audience after particular lines. Sure, now they could glance around, but with video cameras the whole team could watch the whole audience together and adapt the show accordingly. This wouldn’t mean much with non-musical dramas, I guess, but with other shows it could be an indispensable tool.

There are so going to be people out there who cry artistic fowl and that we should not be tailoring art to the masses. I am with you there, to some degree. I don’t think we should use this to rule every decision. But the masses are your audience. You need them. You need them to tell their friends to go. Or else there will be no show. Do we want to stand on principle and end up with a shuttered show?

I’m all for this idea. It’s not a new concept, by any means, but it’s never been applied full force in this way. And I think it should be. If I was the director of a musical and I saw Chris Brown’s clueless face during one of my musical numbers, I’d want to change it.

Look at My Name in Black and White

2007-09-06T00:35:00.000-04:00

Often I hear things and don't realize they are noteworthy. I'm telling you--it happens all the time. This Legally Blonde broadcast, I knew about forever ago. Last week, due to some Equity drama related to the actors signing on, it did develop some newsy edge. And, yet, still, I didn't think of it as really a big story. But, you know, when Riedel wrote it today, I saw that it was... somewhat... something. Truly. (I want to note that often I read things in the paper and still don't think they are noteworthy, but, here, I'm giving in to the print.)

Riedel notes that this is "unexpected"--I wasn't even surprised back when I first heard it. I think this might be a sign nothing interests me anymore. Though, I still say... A Perfect Crime... that is interesting.

But, regardless, moving on... The important question here is--will this broadcast mean something to Blonde? This musical did well this summer, but has been plagued by rumors of a dismal advance and desperate attempts at star casting. So they are looking for something, understandably. Is this it?

It can't hurt--I don't believe that it will have a detrimental effect. Though it may ward off some potential ticket buyers that don't like it on the screen, I firmly disagree with the assertion that if people can watch it on TV, they won't watch it in the theater. Riedel talks about this and uses High School Musical as an example of a successful tv movie/stage cross-over. That is a bad example in my mind because the show High School Musical is not EXACTLY the TV movie. It's a different cast, some different moves, etc. So the argument to see it onstage there is to see a new product based on a well-loved movie. If you love Blonde on TV, you are not seeing a related product if you head over to the Palace, you are seeing that EXACT product. Thus I find that comparison a little shaky. However I do believe there is an argument for seeing the exact product live--you want to be a part of it. End of story.

This "can it hurt" analysis assumes that the Legally Blonde broadcast will take off. But I'm not sold it will, so, let's get back to that. Even if Legally Blonde was the best musical ever and every MTV audience member who saw it at the Palace would love it, I still don't know if I'd sit here and say a MTV broadcast of it would be a tremendously effective tool. Because it's hard, unless you love stage musicals, to watch a broadcast of a musical and find it entertaining. Sure, we can usually enjoy a number or two, but, I, a proud musical theater lover, have trouble watching those PBS broadcasts. Even great bootlegs of shows I love bore me after 20 minutes--seriously, I watch them in doses. So I'm just not sure that many kids, even those who would love it if they did see it in the theater, are going to sit there and watch Legally Blonde.

That doesn't mean I don't think the producers are right for doing it--in a cost/benefit analysis I still believe it will work out. I just am not banking on this being a total savior type thing. Of course, I wish Broadway success in all outreach attempts, so I'll be rooting for this one. But then I think, in a few months, we may need to get back to the star casting. Scott Baio as Callahan? Anyone?

Darn Holidays

2007-09-03T00:17:00.000-04:00

I'm not tired, I'm wide awake, but... I'm also not in New York and thus can't really sit down and muse for you. But, Wednesday, that will be a better day for such things. I'll be in my studio apartment then, ready to discuss something.

For those who have not been to Walmartopia, I leave you with this note. All tickets are stamped: "No affiliation w/ Walmar" Just like that.

Under the Ground?

2007-08-29T23:58:00.000-04:00

Did anyone know there were premium seats for Walmartopia? I think there are two. $100 each. Run. Now.

Anyway, this is the post about The Little Mermaid, the musical I was most looking forward to this year. What upsets me most is that people think it's ugly. I mean, it doesn't upset me because I think it is pretty, I had to cancel my trip to Denver, so I have not seen it. But it upsets me because I had faith in Zambello and her team to at least make it striking... So when I hear of random corkscrews on the stage, I think "alas."

What happened to my underwater dream? All week I've heard rumors that new folks might be coming in--that we would have another Aida. That High School Musical might take the theater instead, giving Mermaid time to retool. But, I do not believe this to be the case. At all. We will see some form of this Little Mermaid--but will it be good?

When Zambello was announced, I was of course thinking "who?" I follow opera not at all. I've never even seen an opera. (I've also never seen A Perfect Crime, but I've made it my mission to rectify that.) So I researched and researched. I sadly believe I spent about four hours on this. And then I got hopeful. It seemed like her productions had some spark. Was my faith misplaced? Did the Disney dream and her vision just not mesh? It's really unclear.

I sense the script needs some jokes--everyone I know says it is just not funny. That seems like an easy fix. The design concept is not an easy fix. Yes, Seussical changed in costumes. Shows remove/change certain set pieces all the times. (Did you know I saw In My Life without the lemon at the end and then with it?) Maybe Mermaid can do away with the lizard outfits and the corkscrews. But to transform something people find ugly and open on schedule, it's going to take a lot of Disney magic. Maybe more than is available. Is the entire Disney machine really backing Tom Schumacher in this process? I am not sold on that.

We'll see. I hear there is some freaking out being done and I usually take that as a good sign, a sign people know change is needed. I get worried when I see iffy things and I hear that the team thinks the show is great. If I hear about freaking, I feel change is in the air. Changing bad things is usually a good thing. The seaweed is always greener in somebody else's lake.

I hope they can save my beloved Little Mermaid. I will be rooting for it.

The Day the Drama Died

2007-08-26T22:22:00.000-04:00

Those of you who know me, know I LOVE The Little Mermaid. I have been waiting for the musical for years. So I will have to dedicate a full post to its out-of-town opening, but, well, this is not that post. Because something more important happened this week than the out-of-town openings of The Little Mermaid and that other musical that I'm bound to find overrated. That important event was the closing of The Year of Magical Thinking. Please a moment of silence.

Ok, that was enough. You may ask--why does Cara think the closing of The Year of Magical Thinking is that important? Will she missed the falling backdrops? In fact, I believe the closing was important because, without Magical Thinking, there are no plays on Broadway. Musicals are all that you'll find on Broadway today. This will be true until mid-September.

In response to my Fringe post, someone commented that I am a Broadway baby. There is a point there, though I do go see tons of off-Broadway and one of my good friends is Bradford Louryk, which automatically should give me some non-Broadway cred. (And I have indeed enjoyed Fringe shows in the past, as I noted.) But even more than being a Broadway baby, I'm a musical girl. I like me some singing. That being said, I also enjoy straight plays and I believe it is important to keep a mix at all times. So I'm sad that there are no plays on the Great White Way currently.

Of course for years we've been hearing that long-running musicals are killing the business for plays. As costs increase, each show must rely heavily on tourists and most tourists seemingly prefer musicals. This makes is a tough road for any straight play. But, it's important to note, we can't blame the musicals totally this time around. We have to focus on the fact that many of last season's plays were mediocre. Plus, a lot of them were limited--Utopia could have run longer (though if it were in a commercial house, making money would have been a really, really difficult trick) and possibly others. But, actually, I still contend that a lot of it was them being mediocre. If Inheret The Wind was a huge smash, would there not have been an attempt to recast? Duh. But it wasn't. The new plays fared worse. Vertical Hour? Doesn't it seem like 4 seasons ago? And I really feel like Little Dog was at least two years ago. I know people are going to taught the failure of Journey's End, which critics loved, as evidence that it's not the show, it's the audience (or lack thereof). But I consider Journey's End, because of it's subject matter, a hard sell even if there were only plays running. That to me is an exception.

So are we getting less plays than we used to get? Yes. Are musicals taking a large portion of the audience? Yes. Those are points that undoubtedly contribute to the fact that we currently have no Broadway plays. Yet the quality and appealability (that's my new fake word--billy, i expect it in a play) of the plays that we do have, must be considered in this discussion.

OK, that's it for me. I had wanted to talk about why I think Annaleigh Ashford is going to make a good Glinda, based on her performance in Joe Iconis' The Black Suits (though I have trouble picturing her and the pirate queen in the same school class), but it doesn't seem to go with this discussion, so, eh, maybe Wednesday.

Follow Your Heart

2007-08-23T00:29:00.000-04:00

Does something really need to have "Osage" in its title? I mean, I don't even know how to pronounce that.

So, this week, my full force week, I had a debate with Don Summa, famous press agent of Rent and Hairspray, and I was right and he was wrong and he refused to believe it. Here was what the debate was about: I got a release about the Caesar and Cleopatra at Stratford and Christopher Plummer was in the headline and somewhere buried in the middle of the release was Anika Noni Rose. My opinion was that Anika should also be in the headline because more American publications, like ones that follow more than theater, would care about her than would care about Christopher Plummer (I was not arguing that this is how it should be, but, rather, just that this was in fact the case). Don disagreed. I feel my readers should back me up here. Again, I am not arguing that Anika is a bigger star or more talented or anything like that, I am just saying that, as she is in the middle of shooting a big movie and is also voicing The Princess in The Princess and the Frog, the fact that she is returning to the stage might garner more ink among mainstream publications than yet another Christopher Plummer performance. (I sense I am going to get hate mail for this... please stop yourself. I am willing to hear well-reasoned opinions, but I'll likely always think I'm correct.)

Ok, now that that is off my chest... Let's talk about what is wrong with the Fringe. Anyone? I don't get it. Why do people want to go to European Fringe festivals and yet dread going to ours? As years have past, the campy stuff is what gets progressively more attention at our Fringe. Is that the problem? Should Fringe be more for daring things and less the home of musicals about aliens taking over farms? Is there anyway to turn Fringe around? Do we care? Today I went to a Fringe show... and then I got home and I read the big Village Voice thing on how Fringe can be improved (as two Playwrights Horizons employees insisted to me it was genius). And I realized, I could just forget about the Fringe entirely and not be any the worse for it. Is that sad? Eh.

I personally am one of those that decides what Fringe shows she is going to by the art on the postcards. I choose like 6 postcards and then I end up going to like 3 things tops. Because nothing sounds that fascinating. So there has never been a Fringe show that I thought "Wow, I can't miss this." There have been ones I really enjoyed, but, nothing so amazingly special. You know, before I started in this business, I always thought things at the Fringe were things that were produced there because they were edgy and couldn't have a commercial life anywhere. Then, when I started working in this business, I realized that most of it is just marginal entertainment. And, I don't know, maybe it's all about giving little things a shot. I'm all for that. Is that what our Fringe stands for? Is that what all of them do? If there is a way to save this Fringe, I would think it would be to do less Urinetown-esque musicals. But is that what everyone wants to see? I mean, those 3 I see are generally musicals. So, in all, I think it's just fairly impossible to come up with a plan at this point. John Clancy suggested in The Voice doing away with the judging system and just letting anything be part of Fringe... That to me just smells trouble. I don't think downtown theater owners are more capable of judging works than the Fringe people--so I don't really think that will help and I also think a little pandemonium might ensue. Then the guy from Philly said something about having two festivals at the same time--PLEASE--NO MORE FESTIVALS. I want the proliferation of festivals to stop as much as I want Kimberly Grigsby's dance conducting to stop (which is to say a lot). So, yeah, I'm against both those plans. But I offer nothing in place of them... I genuinely don't know what could turn the Fringe around. And, also, the more I think about it, I also don't know whether it matters that much. I think that is something to think about.

Conventionality Belongs to Yesterday

2007-08-19T23:06:00.000-04:00

Of course, I want to offer a public thank you to my guest blogger, who clearly spent more time thinking on those posts than I have spent on my actual work all week. But there is something that really bothered me when I read the guest blogger Tony posts. No mention of Alli Mauzey. I don't know how she is in Wicked, but Alli Mauzey is GENIUS in Cry Baby. I think she has a very good shot at a Featured Actress nomination and, even if she is eventually sadly shut out by sucky people, I want her to be mentioned on this blog and so I have done it.

Now... The story of the night... Grease. All day I have been saying to people "Grease is the word." Now, if I only spoke to theater people, maybe I could get away with that, but, with regular people, the only result is a silence. Anyway... I so don't care.

I want to write about Grease, but not about its quality (they'll have quite enough of that tonight). I want to muse about what I believe is a common misconception--that the advance of this Grease is related to the following its stars developed via reality television.

Firstly, let me say something I believe I've said on here before--95% (and I'm being generous) of reports you read on a show's advance are crap. Lies, I tell you, lies. There is no way to verify them and yet reporters print them. And, as I have said many times before, it's one thing to print them and then attribute them to someone, but, mostly they are just printed as fact... and they so rarely are. (It's also important to note that large advances, if real, are a good sign for a show, but said show can still fail fairly easily. Remember Saturday Night Fever's big advance? Even Dance of the Vampires had money in the bank before opening.... That has nothing to do with this post, it's just good to keep in mind even if you believe with 100% certainty that an advance figure is real.)

OK, so back to Grease. I believe Grease does have a nice size advance (not what they said, but, still). I just question that it is based on Max and Laura. Do I think some people bought tickets because they liked one or both of them on You're The One That I Want? Yes. Do I think we can say the majority of the advance is based on that? Nope. I think the thing to focus on is the other side--the fact that the reality show was all about advertising.

Remember how the stage Phantom was helped tremendously by the movie because that mask was everywhere? Same deal here. The show was publicity, the commercials advertising the show were publicity. What Broadway show has that many nationwide commercials? Umm... none. If Lone Star Love had that much network airtime to promote it, even without a reality show, I bet that show would have a big advance too. Though, of course, in this case, it didn't hurt that the title was Grease. That made this particular show an easy beneficiary of all that hype. After all, Grease is the word. Everyone knows that.

Luck Be a Lady, er, an Antionette, er... whatever

2007-08-16T00:16:00.000-04:00

I realized after I read back my Sunday night blog post that it was entirely too long. I'm sorry. Though as I figured, already there is a new new play on the horizon, something unpromisingly titled August: Osage County out of Chicago that is apparently quite promising indeed, or at least Charles Isherwood would have us think so. Now, he thought Thom Pain was promising and he thought Spelling Bee was comparable to A Chorus Line. But, it sounds like something and it's about a mean and crazy mother and those kinds of plays for some reason attract an audience. Remember Beauty Queen? That fat slob in her pink bathrobe on the sides of buses, I don't know why, but that sold tickets.

Anyway, I've decided to try and make this post shorter, because I know you have lives and I had my eyes checked today and my pupils are a little dilated still. I am going to try and name the five nominees for all the acting categories for next year's Tonys - featured, too. THIS can be especially fun to look back on, to see all the promising ideas that when realized - or not so realized - fizzled like those Pop Rocks that allegedly killed Mikey of Mikey Likes It fame when he mixed them with soda. Now THAT would make a good Fringe show, the story of Mikey from those Life cereal commercials, THAT would be a hit. I'm enjoying caps-for-emphasis tonight. Caps-for-emphasis, now THAT'S fun. Now that's FUN. NOW, that's fun. No, that last one doesn't work.

(*) Denotes predicted winners

BEST ACTOR - Play

*Morgan Freeman, The Country Girl

-Kevin Kline, Cyrano de Bergerac

-Jefferson Mays, Pygmalion - Kline and Mays do battle again!!!!! This is huge!!!!!

-Someone with an accent, Les Liaisons Dangereuses

-Rufus Sewell, Rock N Roll

No, I don't think Harry Potter's going to get the nod if Equus comes. And I don't think Richard Griffiths will either. He has a big belly though!

BEST ACTRESS - Play

-Annette Bening, The Female of the Species

-Laura Linney (?), Les Liaisons Dangereuses

*A Chicago Actress, August: Osage County

-Frances McDormand, The Country Girl

-S. Epatha Merkerson, Come Back, Little Sheba

at last, Best Actress in a Play will be a race again! I think it's between A Chicago Actress and Sepatha. I bet the Chicago actress beats all the Hollywood glamour pusses. Wait, I'm just picturing Frances McDormand accepting her Oscar for Fargo with no make-up on. Ah, the glamour. Poor Annette Bening, she can't even win a Tony! Maybe Rosie Perez will sneak in here. She's fun. And Rita Moreno won the Tony with that part. Featured, but she won.

BEST ACTOR - Musical

-Roger Bart, Young Frankenstein

-Daniel Evans, Sunday in the Park with George

*Brian Stokes Mitchell, South Pacific - Don't you think it's just gonna be him? I'm already asleep.

-Sky Masterson, Guys and Dolls

-Lin-Manuel Miranda, In the Heights

BEST ACTRESS - Musical

-Kelli O'Hara, South Pacific - And I mean, come on, it's gonna be her, let's just all face the boring facts.

-Boring English Girl whose name I refuse to remember because she's so boring and I'm not going anyway because this was the one time that Bernadette actually WAS amazing (more fun with caps lock), Sunday in the Park With George

-Miss Adelaide I'm assuming Jane Krakowski, Guys and Dolls

-Sutton Foster, Young Frankenstein - This gal's great, she's got a Tony nod every two years since 2002, and I love calling her a gal.

-Megan Mullally, Young Frankenstein

I think Kerry Butler might be remembered, but she's a long shot. This might actually be a competitive category, with the Sarah Brown from Guys and Dolls and The Little Mermaid though she won't be nominated and Faith Prince. Remember how good Faith Prince used to be? What happened? Does anyone know?

BEST FEATURED ACTOR - Play

-Raul Esparza, The Homecoming - I'm laughing just typing this!

-Schlubbola #5, Come Back, Little Sheba

-A Chicago actor, August: Osage County

-Someone from Stalag 17 which I can't imagine will happen but..., Stalag 17

*Jim Norton, The Seafarer - Is he in it? I think he is. He must be. God, that play is gonna zzzzzzzzzzz.

BEST FEATURED ACTRESS - Play

Some Frump, Top Girls

*Some Other Frump, Top Girls

Another Frump but this one is from Chicago, August: Osage County

Martha Plimpton, Cymbeline

Mary Louise Burke, Is He Dead?

Not sure where this category's going at all, but I took a stab at it. And I'm happy as always to promote Martha Plimpton. And Mary Louise Burke, for that matter. She's a genius.

BEST FEATURED ACTOR - Musical

-Some kid, 13

-Someone in In the Heights, In the Heights

*Harvey Fierstein, A Catered Affair - A Fifth Tony! In a Fifth Category! Watch out Tommy Tune, you're goin' down!

-Shuler Hensley, Young Frankenstein - not to get too serious, but I assume they'll juggle categories with these people and I feel like he might get bumped down. Or he might stay up above the title and someone like Christopher Fitzgerald will be in this spot, but someone will be in this spot from this show.

-Some cute boy with a pretty voice, South Pacific

BEST FEATURED ACTRESS - Musical

-Leslie Kritzer, A Catered Affair

-Priscilla Lopez, In the Heights

-Andrea Martin, Young Frankenstein

*Some girl kid, 13 - remember Daisy Eagan? OK, no jokes please.

-Sherie Rene Scott, The Little Mermaid

And I didn't even mention the Bloody Mary! You know SHE'S gonna find a way in here!

Final fun with caps lock, end of post. See you in May!

Sorry, this one was long too...

Having delusions of grandeur

2007-08-12T20:28:00.000-04:00

There's no Cara Joy here in Blogville this week, so it's me. IT'S MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! Random Wicked shout-out, I'm not really a fan but I enjoy some high powered belting every once in a while. Also, if you search Idina on youtube, you will find endless, endless bootlegs of her doing Defying Gravity, and people bitchslapping each other saying things like "Everyone knows that 7-12-04 was her best Defying, why did you even post this one?" There's also a very sad one where she did the show when she was clearly under the weather, and her last "Ah-ah-ah-ah-ahhhhhh" sounds like someone's letting the air out of an old balloon.

But enough about Kristin Chenoweth, It's August and while to some that means humidity, back to school supplies and the wimpering remains of Hollywood blockbusters (The Invasion, anyone? Anyone?), to me that means only one thing: who's gonna win the 2008 Tony Awards! Yes, it does seem like just yesterday that I watched Raul Esparza lose to David Hyde Pierce, probably because it was just yesterday that I watched Raul Esparaza lose to David Hyde Pierece. I try and watch it everyday, my DVR has had quite a work-out. But as the 2007-2008 season shapes up, so do next year's Tony races, so here's some early, half-informed, half-assed prognosticating, something I love to do this time of year.

BEST PLAY

As I predicted last August when I was predicting that The Coast of Utopia would win Best Play this year, Tom Stoppard's Rock N Roll is comin' our way, and it will most likely be comin' to that botched Best Play nominees clip montage come next June. Heralded in London and by the man himself, it's only liability is that it is apparently just a limited season, gone by Tony time. Probably means it can't win, but it should be remembered.

Oh, good. Another Conor McPherson play, The Seafarer, opening at the Booth Theatre this fall. It's not that I think zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz It's not that I think that Conor Mczzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Conor McPherson, he's not that bad. It's just that he really tends to put me to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. He's in.

I'm dubious about The Farnsworth Invention. I don't see it having a great run, and I don't really see it being nominated for Best Play. Aaron Sorkin is a big star now though, and even though he was not nominated for A Few Good Men, he will definitely be on Tony's radar this time. It's got a shot, but I somehow don't see it. But it is has a shot. But only if it runs.

I'm even more dubious about November. Nathan Lane as the President of the United States? Don't see it. I think November will do OK at the box office, but I'm not sure that it will get a nod for Best Play. The Old Neighborhood didn't, and that had Patti LuPone giving a very good, quiet and understated performance. Oh, note to Patti: quiet and understated, you can do that. Style and comedy, yeah, not so good.

Is He Dead?, the new Mark Twain play, will present a curious challenge for the already challenged enough Tony Administration Committee. It has never been done before, so it can't really be grandfathered in as a revival under the classics rule. But Mark Twain IS a classic, so they might try to. But I would push for it as Best Play, because I think it might actually have a shot, for a nod at least. It might be horrific though, this one could go either way. But I could see ticketbuyers being attracted to its Twain-ness, and perhaps the Tony nominators as well.

I think the third and fourth nominees are most likely to be plays that haven't been announced or rumored yet. I don't see The Female of the Species getting a Best Play nod. Best Actress for Annette Bening, yes, but not Best Play. There must be something a-brewin' in London or off-Broadway that's still to come. Stay tuned. Someone might be thinking, hey, you forgot about Theresa Rebeck's new play, Mauritius. Yeah, I didn't forget. Snap!

I'd like to say a word here for Blackbird, a play with endless stunt casting possibilities that should have moved to Broadway this fall. That play screamed commercial transfer, I don't know what all these rich lazy transferrers were thinking not transferring it. Instant Tony nod, instant recoupment. Alas, it's apparently not meant to be. But come on, Natalie Portman and Liam Neeson for six weeks? The Star Wars fans alone would sell it out.

BEST MUSICAL

The early chat from Seattle seems to say that Young Frankenstein is a contender. It was a contender even if it completely crapped up the crappy Hilton Center for the Ford Performing Arts, though perhaps I shouldn't hint at crap in Broadway theatres considering what is rumored to have happened in the orchestra section of the Broadhurst Theatre last week. And for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, no, Lea Salonga did not fly off the turntable. Anyway, Young Frankenstein is in.

In the Heights is clearly moving to Broadway hoping to be this year's Urinetown/Avenue Q/Spring Awakening, i.e., the quality show that should win. It's even doing the smart thing and not reopening until the spring, choosing to skip the surely-would-be-difficult winter. It will definitely be nominated for Best Musical, though I don't know if it will definitely win. That is because there are other shows vying for the quality show title: A Catered Affair and Jason Robert Brown's 13, which I think is going to come in this spring. I definitely have my eye on 13 as the third nominee. A Catered Affair, the jury's still out on that one. I can't annoint it now. But I have my hopes up.

The Little Mermaid? I smell disaster. I'm hearing rumors of roller-skates and boredom. I think this one's gonna make Mary Poppins seem like My Fair Lady. No Tony nod for you! Cry Baby? Definitely has a shot, it should be better than The Wedding Singer and that got invited to Radio City. But it should also be better than Legally Blonde, and that didn't. And then there's the darkhorse of all darkhorses, Xanadu, a show I dreaded seeing but had a very good time at. Tony nominators will probably feel the same way. But will they nominate it?

So, at this point, I'm seeing, in alphabetical order, A Catered Affair, In the Heights, 13, Young Frankenstein, with Catered Affair most vulnerable to Cry Baby or Xanadu.

We shall see, we shall see! But for now, cue up the DVR. Raul's got some losin' to do. And do. And do. And do!

Oh, well.

2007-08-09T00:14:00.001-04:00

I write now as a disappointed individual. I must admit---I hadn't heard about A Bronx Tale. Often I hear about shows before they are announced, but, for some reason, this news escaped me prior to its announcement. Now, when I saw the Bronx Tale headlines, I got very excited. "Finally," I thought, "this really is the season of things I thought I'd never see. What's next? Rosie's Find Me? That musical based on the songs of Chicago?" Why was I this jazzed by a production of one-person show? Well, because, I didn't think these stories were announcing the one-person show, I thought they were announcing the musical version.

Does no one else remember that? None of the stories I read mentioned it... Clear Channel was supposed to produce it--I think it was a full-fledged musical, though it may have been a "play with music" (I really don't remember). John Lloyd Young and Julia Murney were in the reading with Palminteri. Michael Greif directed. It disappeared. Today, for one bright moment, I thought it was resurrected, but, alas. I suppose every season needs some one-person shows.

Back by popular demand on Sunday/Wednesday--guest blogger Tony predictions! An annual tradition!

Measure in Love?

2007-08-05T21:25:00.001-04:00

I'm very confused about this new West End Rent. First of all--the Variety story says each song will be "individually re-orchestrated according to each character" and I'm simply not sure what that means. Seriously. Someone out there please post a comment and explain. But, more importantly I suppose, I'm not really sure why the producers of the New York production would allow this to happen. (I'm assuming, though I don't know there exact deal with the Larson estate, that it was their choice.)

I guess the argument for it would be that any West End Rent is a good Rent. Plus, there is the quick money aspect to it.

But my argument against it is as follows--if that production gets rave reviews, isn't the New York production going to look the worse in comparison? And does this Rent need another hit? Also, purely on the direct financial side, I assume if there is, let's say, a Tokyo production of this new Rent, then the NY producers would get less money than if there was a Tokyo production of original Rent. Now, again, under the 'any Rent is a good Rent' umbrella, it could be argued that without a new well-received Rent, there wouldn't be any Tokyo production so that is an upside to this new production. However, I am of the belief that international productions of Rent have still not wained, so there would be a Tokyo production regardless. Thus this new version just has the potential to cost the NY people cash. This is all not to mention that having a new production of such prominence basically will amount to a bunch of articles alleging there is a need for a new Rent--that the old Rent isn't good enough anymore...

So, yeah, I don't get it. Why did no one get a quote from the NY producers about it? That would be something at least.

Wednesdays and Fridays Always Get Me Down

2007-08-01T23:26:00.000-04:00

Have I ever discussed here how, when I was a theater newswriter, I dreaded Wednesday and Friday? Both days had Riedel columns and, for most of my tenure, Fridays also included a Times column. Those were my least favorite days because, if there was news in those columns, that was generally news I didn't uncover/couldn't confirm. And I hate coming up short (I use the word "short" in keeping with the fact that when I was younger and people asked me what I wanted to be, I always said "tall").

Of course that is generally no longer a problem for me. But, well, today Riedel had what I was going to write about, which was Kevin Kline in Cyrano. I mean, that was going to be my genius post, but, alas, scoop gone.... I will talk about this aspect of it--the fact that I assume this means Roundabout won't be doing its planned production of Cyrano, adaptation by David Grimm. I remember one other time in recent memory something similar happened to the theater company--it was planning to mount Our Town before the Paul Newman production announced it would be coming in. This is a similar situation--a big star wants to do it with commercial producers and no more Roundabout. Personally I don't know why Cyrano is so hot all of a sudden... but... okay. Also, personally, I'd like to see Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah do it.

Who knew the details of that Mark Twain play weren't announced yet? I had no idea. I thought it was all announced! I think I wrote John Cullum here before, Jenn Gambatese and Marylouise Burke were have also been mentioned to me.

Can someone explain to me why Joe Mantello for 9 to 5? I've been thinking about it more and more and I don't get it. Does he seem like a musical comedy genius? I mean, I think he's done a great job on a lot of things, but I'm not sure I'd think "Wow, this is the guy we need to direct a Dolly Parton musical." I guess we'll see... If all goes as planned and 9 to 5 hits the Ahmanson next fall, I'm totally going to book a trip. I like the Ahmanson. And I can completely picture Dolly standing outside holding court.

I leave you with a conversation my friend Al told me of... (It reminded me how when I went to see the tour of Saturday Night Fever it was totally without curses and with just a vague reference to Annette's drama.)

One guy: "It's like Grease-lite."
Other guy: "It's Grease! What's not light about Grease to start with?"

I suck. I admit it.

2007-07-30T00:02:00.000-04:00

You know how I wrote maybe there would be a better post today? Well, it's lucky I put a qualification on it, because I'm too busy to write a real post right now. Alas.

In my absence, I want everyone to look at the genius fake art in this Variety story:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117969311.html?categoryid=15&cs=1

And this youtube.com video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e25bIHJ8a8

Oh, and, if you haven't read Joan Collins' blaming Legends on Linda Evans, it's a must:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=468303&in_page_id=1879

Putting It Together

2007-07-26T00:55:00.000-04:00

So, as I write this, I’m not in my apartment. (For those of you who don’t know me, you can conjure up the mental image that I usually write to you in a t-shirt and pajama pants with cows on them from within my studio apartment, which has bright yellow walls, a Tassimo machine and a sad little wall kitchen.) I therefore can’t really write a lot. Alas. There will be a better post on Sunday… Maybe.

Anyway, I will say that I just finished watching Damages and it got me thinking… What happened to A Little Night Music? For that matter—what happened to Glenn Close in general? If you painted her green and stuck silver dots on her neck, she could totally play Frankenstein. This all led me to revive in my mind the oft-debated question of whether non-singers should really be picked to headline musicals. Certain show queens I know feel VERY strongly about this subject, but I actually go back and forth. Jennifer Jason Leigh was one of my favorite Sally Bowles and she may have sung worse than any of the others. So does singing matter? It seems a ridiculous question—this is a musical after all—but it is one to be asked in certain cases. Of course I mean this question to be relevant in only very limited instances—I don’t want to see Jennifer Jason Leigh in Sunday in the Park With George. And, also, the question itself has to be phrased in terms of degree: certainly you don’t want to go see a musical and have someone tone deaf sing 7 songs. You might lose your pre-theater meal. But, with average singing, people win Tonys for starring in musicals (and I’m not talking Harvey Fierstein). Is that reasonable? Hmm…

OK, I have to go watch a movie and return a phone call I just received asking me what I knew about a possible Broadway production of Stormy Weather. I love how people ridiculously can’t wait until the off-Broadway production opens and gets reviewed (or is even announced) before calling and asking things like that. That’s how we get stories with a Broadway theater for Radiant Baby.

Gonna Party Like It's 2002!

2007-07-22T22:57:00.000-04:00

You know those movies/tv series/comic books/novels where people go back in time? I feel like I'm relieving the summer of 2002. In that summer, on my schedule for the 2002-2003 Broadway season, were a revival of Pal Joey and a Broadway mounting of Lone Star Love. And they were actually on my schedule for years after that. Somewhere along the line, beaten-down by many false-starts, I crossed them off. That's why, when I heard casting rumors and theaters for each of them, I refused to believe the hype. Now the casting rumors have been reported as firm news and a theater and dates have been announced for one of the shows, so it's looking more and more like they are both going to happen, yet I feel myself still in doubt, though I know I shouldn't be.

For a couple of years there was talk of a Pal Joey revival, but it wasn't until January 2003 when it looked like it was coming together. That was when the Weisslers had a big reading of Pal Joey. Does anyone remember that? John Stamos was Joey. He wasn't their first choice, but that's who they got. Donna Murphy, Laura Benanti and Faith Prince were also in it. (Additionally, I have a recollection that Jessica Stone--who I always thought should have received rave reviews for Chris Ashley's last show at the Helen Hayes--was in it, though I have zero idea what she played. I only bring this up because she is a big Joe Mantello favorite, so maybe we'll see her in this one.) Then nothing, until we heard the Weisslers started talking to Robert Altman in the fall of 2003. Then, for a few years, after, casting rumors abounded. I think my favorite one was Antonio Banderas, but there were loads more. But, again, nothing concrete. Then the news that the Weisslers were out and Marc Platt was in and so was Joe Mantello. And nothing for a while after that... So it is any surprise I doubted we'd ever see it? But, of course, just when I give up...

I don't actually know if it took me longer to give up on Pal Joey or Lone Star Love. The history of Lone Star Love is so long, I could write for hours on just what I remember and there would still be much more to tell (because I have a life and don't have room in my head for every detail, contrary to what you might think). Lone Star Love premiered before I hit my teens. Under the name The Merry Wives of Windsor, Texas it debuted regionally in 1988. It happened a few more times regionally, but still needed more development. In the mid-90s, the new Lone Star Love had a workshop in New York and people said it was coming to Broadway. Nope. For years after, the rumors said it would appear. Nope. In the fall of 2001, it opened some festival somewhere. Keith Carradine was supposed to star. That didn't happen and, again, the show failed to transfer. Then, in late 2004, it had an off-Broadway run. I don't know if any of my readers attended the off-Broadway run, but they served free food onstage before the show. It was a cute gimmick, but they had the actors serve it in character and I found it embarrassing for Clarke Thorell to be on a stage offering me a mini-weeny (I don't know how else to put it). But, regardless, after that run, I continued to hear it for Broadway and every season it was always the Belasco that was to be its home. Now it's officially announced for there and has Randy Quaid, which I guess puts more weight on it. Of course, years ago I announced Randy Quaid to make his Broadway debut in a play opposite Timothy Hutton and that didn't happen, but I guess this is more concrete.

So maybe I'll just have to get over my reservations and embrace the long-delayed musicals. I do love a song and dance.

Like Sands Through The Hourglass...

2007-07-19T01:04:00.000-04:00

I promised to answer questions today. And I keep my promises... But I have a two-part problem. Firstly, I'm speechless after seeing the genius of Lisa Rinna in living color in Chicago. Secondly, no one asked me good questions this time. Usually, I get casting questions. This time, I went to read the questions, and they were odd. My most commonly asked question (paraphrased) was "How is Ken Mandelbaum?" Well, it's not really my place to answer that. But I will say that Ken is alive and well and keeping busy and actually offered me invaluable support on one of my recent stories. There you go--there is your answer. The other questions sort of weren't coherent. Alas.

I leave you pointing you to the site of the musical Frankenstein, premiering at New World Stage this fall. Listen/see for yourself. I truly don't have the words.

http://www.frankensteinthemusical.com/

Some People Aint Me

2007-07-15T23:38:00.000-04:00

The ABC Family commercials promoting a re-airing of Beautiful Girl showed Marissa Jaret Winokur and said "Before she hit it big in Hairspray, she was a Beautiful Girl." I believe there is something wrong with that rendering of history. I feel like the error probably was the result of someone telling an ad-copy guy "She is from Hairspray" and the ad-copy guy taking that to mean the movie Hairspray. Just a guess.

Anyway, last week was sort of a slow week in theater. Boring rumors about Grey Gardens. Claire Danes was finally announced. Xanadu is more successful than anyone thought it would be. I read two stories on Seussical (a show I support in my heart). Variety also put up a few stories about advances, but I didn't read those because I never believe them.

I had tons of work to do between the time I last posted and now, so I didn't really chat with my insiders and I'm not up on any gossip. I did take a break from my stacks of notes yesterday and watch The Notorious Bettie Page. I share this with you because there are theater elements to it. It reminded me that John Cullum never stops working--a Tony nomination this year and he'll again be on Broadway in the fall in that Mark Twain play. It features Dallas Roberts and Sarah Paulson, who were supposed to be Glass Menagerie costars. Many of the other actors in it are theater people, also. But really I just bring it up just to tell you all that Gretchen Mol (who I frequently call "The IT girl that never was") was a great, great Roxie in Chicago. She was one of my favorites, if not my very favorite. I don't think I've ever said that here before.

So, I really have to go back to work, but I promise on Wednesday to answer some questions that have been emailed to me. For an end note, I need to say something about Gypsy. Those of you who know me, know that I almost always take my mother to musicals with me. (People have asked me why this is and there are many reasons, that I don't think any of you care about.) So she saw Gypsy with me. And I just spoke to her on the phone. The conversation included this line: "Cara, do you think he was drunk?" The "he" in that sentence is Ben Brantley. Now, often my mother and I disagree, but I share her puzzlement at the Gypsy review. Here is why: I often disagree with critics about whether shows/performances work, but I don't think I've ever read a review where I so thoroughly thought the critic was describing a different performance. I thought LuPone gave an earthy, grounded performance, which Brantley seems to say. But I thought her whole characterization created a Rose that was angry and not likable (which I personally thought was a valid take, that I wholeheartedly applaud, but that is a side point). He basically says the opposite about her take on the role. So both my mother and I will be confused for the night. She did offer a theory that "maybe Patti gives a different performance every night," which is something I often say about Jessica Boevers, not really about Patti LuPone, but I guess it's possible. Otherwise, I think we can just chalk it up to the fact that there is no objective standard on which to judge a performance. We all see different things in the same thing.

Let Me Entertain You

2007-07-12T01:00:00.000-04:00

Have I ever discussed on this blog how working in a small industry is a double-edge sword? On the one hand, you know everyone and it's pretty easy to develop relationships. On the other hand, if you point out something to another industry person that person then goes and tells multiple other people that you know. So everything minor gets blown out of proportion. I hate that.

OK, I just had to get that off my chest. Moving on... This blog post was inspired by a Team Cara member (it's an elite group so they get to inspire blog posts). And the topic is... drum roll... Could the Encores! Gypsy be Tony eligible (without a transfer)?

Well... I have not heard that they are going to try for that, but let's break it down.

The production is a "legitimate theatrical production" (which is wording in the rulebook that I've never understood) and it is officially opening.

City Center is not currently on the list of Tony eligible theaters. However things at the theater used to be eligible. Doesn't everyone remember Bob Fosse playing Joey in Pal Joey at City Center in 1963? No? Maybe you, like me, weren't born yet... But it happened. I'm sure Ken Mandelbaum was there. And, most importantly for this discussion, Fosse was nominated for a Tony Award for that production. There are more examples as well, but I thought this one was fun. It would seem that what was once Tony eligible can be Tony eligible again. There is one sticking point--technically to be an eligible theater, the theater must "be used principally for the presentation of legitimate theatrical productions." City Center is home to a lot of dance--I'm not sure that dance events would be counted as "legitimate theatrical productions," but it's arguable. There is a discussion to be had there.

Tony eligible shows must perform on a "reasonably conventional playing schedule." This is very vague and there is some petitioning that can be done here. (Actually, I have always believed Patti's solo show at LCT may have been deemed eligible if LCT had petitioned, though my friend who worked at LCT at the time insisted they would have lost the fight due to the "Sunday and Monday only" playing schedule. I just felt at the time that the administration committee wouldn't have wanted to snub Patti, but, that's a whole different subject.) In the case of Gypsy, the show is playing eight performances a week, which is perfectly normal. The run is limited, but that shouldn't be a big problem.

Now, here is the key, they have to invite all Tony voters in a "timely manner." They haven't. And I doubt they could fit in all the Tony voters now. However, if a little time was added, I suppose it would be possible. (There is some sub-rule about the production having to give voters like eight performances to choose from or something, but I'm not an expert on that one.)

That's all the main points, I think. If you are a Tony expert out there and I'm missing something in my analysis, let me know. I like corrections/additions!

2007-07-09T00:11:00.000-04:00

This weekend was very 1980s for me. Yesterday I had a story about Xanadu published and I went to see the show Xanadu. I also watched a lot of Live Earth footage of bands most popular in the 1980s. AND, to top it off, I got into a discussion about how musicals have changed since the 1980s. Have I ever said on this blog that I believe Jane Eyre might have run if it opened in the 1980s? I do not believe the same is not true of Pirate Queen. (Oh--also--for those blog readers who know me personally, please know that today I gave my roller-sneakers a test run and I am all in one piece as I write this.)

Moving on… Often I don't notice blog comments, so there were some comments below that I did not respond to in a timely manner. I tried to remedy that by responding to the two most recent comments. Let me say, I also got a lot of emails about both of those posts. Esteemed Time Out theater guy David Cote posted a comment in response to my Old Acquaintance post and his sentiments were pretty much echoed in the emails I received. I still contend, as you see in my response below, that theater companies should not need to explain their choices. I believe this even though I do not agree with many of their choices. Also, I received an anonymous three-page email defending Philip Boroff. Draw your own conclusions from that, but note that I did not mean my post about that piece to be a personal attack on Boroff. I have said here multiple times that it is hard to know what the writer intended by looking at a finished piece. (That being said, I do not believe writers can be consistently absolved of all guilt, but that is a matter for another time.)

Anyway, since Wednesday basically no one in theater was around and not much happened. Lance Bass was announced. While it doesn’t make sense to me that he would want to play Corny Collins, it does make sense that Hairspray would grab him. However I am having a hard time grasping the hiring of Ashley Spencer to play Amber. Now, if she is going to be just announcer random Amber, ok, fine. But if they are going to try to promote her as “from Grease: You’re the One that I Want” or whatever, I think they are sort of crazy. I mean, this is a show no one watched. It’s also a show that had two Ashleys that no one could keep straight. I’m just saying…

And now I’m out of interesting things to say. I could have written a big stagehands union thing, but that seems to serious for the end of the holiday time.

Those You've Known

2007-07-04T23:27:00.000-04:00

I have a guest now and we're just about to watch Notes on a Scandal, so there will be no long post today. I do want to comment on a random story I read today by Philip Boroff of Bloomberg. You know I have said before (maybe not here but verbally) that I often don't get certain aspects of his stories, but, this one, really puzzled me overall.

It's a story about last season. OK. Fine. He starts by talking about Grey Gardens. He calls it "a season that was great for art but brutal for investors." Well, ok... but then he goes right on to talk about Pirate Queen, The Times They Are A-Changin' and High Fidelity. Umm... Are those shows part of his season of great art?

Then--this is my favorite passage--"While overall Broadway attendance was up 2.6 percent from a year ago, the season was especially hard on musicals, which account for $4 out of every $5 spent on Broadway. Moreoever, attendance for plays fell 23 percent to 1.48 million, the lowest since at least 1984-85. "

Well... follow my reasoning here... If Broadway attendance is up and play attendance is down, musical attendance must be up. But he said it was a hard season for musicals. Is anyone else confused by that reasoning? Did he mean to say "new" musicals? Well, he didn't. And, actually, that wouldn't have gone with his "$4 out of every $5" fun fact. So I just don't know.

Then there is a whole subsection within the story about "Advertising Costs" that doesn't mention how much any show is actually paying for advertising. It does contain one small thing about Curtains spending a lot on advertising, but that's pretty much it. Nothing else related to advertising costs.

So, yeah, I'm not getting this story. We all have errors in stories (I certainly have), but this story overall is just like "huh?" There are a lot of facts, but...

OK, time to watch Blanchett and Dench get campy.

I Ate The Cake I Had

2007-07-01T21:47:00.000-04:00

Well, since I left you, a lot of odd things have happened. I'll talk about just a couple.

So this premium vs. premier seats thing. I was trying to convey this week to a fellow journalist why I thought these names, and the way they are being applied, dumb and I didn't quite make my point, so I am going to try to here. They sound too much alike. That's the first point. But, even if you wanted to use those names, "premium" should be the more expensive ones. And here is why: I have friends that work at ticketing agencies and rich people call and just say, "Give me the premium seats for..." They do this because they don't care about money and they think, from past experience, the premium seats are the best. Except, in the case of Young Frankenstein, the premium ones aren't the best. So you are going to have people calling asking for "premium" seats and getting what they think are the best seats in the house and then later on maybe finding out that they could have actually gotten even better seats because "premium" is no longer where it is at. And, let me tell you, I'm not sure the ticketing people are really going to be great about explaining this whole thing.

Of course, most industry folks were all up in arms about the high ticket price and the arrogance it showed (not to mention the fact that they are barely reserving any seats for groups, ticket-buyers who are usually in-demand), but I am never shocked by greed. That is to be expected, it's a business--I know because Debra Monk sings a song about it in Curtains. I'm just surprised that it's not being done in a more clever way. Instead of "premier" they so could have used "realm of genius" and those tickets could have been the cheaper of the outrageously expensive tickets. I'm just saying.

Moving on... So Grey Gardens announces that Mary Louise Wilson is leaving on July 29. OK. I'm with them so far. Then, a few days later the press office sends out a release (which I did not personally receive, but read online), using the term "open-ended run," essentially just to say (though not in the following words): "We're not closing, we're replacing Mary Louise Wilson. That's right, Christine Ebersole will continue with a new Edith. Really." Now, alone that was a tiny bit bizarre, but, not unheard of, so I'll give them that. What pushes this over the edge of weirdness is right as that release was going out, the producers took tickets off-sale past July 29. So, in other words, "I am telling you, we're not going" turned immediately into "We're not living without you, Mary Louise."

It strikes me as a little ridiculous. A huge sign of mismanagement. Now, I truly love the Grey Gardens press agent (who has done an amazing, amazing job, a fact no one should or could ever doubt) and I have not discussed this with him at all, but I'm fairly sure, just based on my knowledge of press agents in general, he wouldn't have asked to send out the release mentioned above. So the production must have wanted it, which pretty much means they weren't thinking. Because, you see, if they had waited and announced "Hey, we don't think we can go on without both of the ladies," many people would have thought they were spewing bullshit, but there would have been those that believed it. By doing what they did, it essentially says plainly "Well, we don't care about how good our Tony winners are, it's actually just that we're not selling any tickets." Which is of course basically the truth (minus some inside details), but, you know, producers don't usually do things that lay it out there. In this case, it's just embarrassing.

I have more oddities, but I'll save them for Wednesday. This is enough for today.

They Don't Know

2007-06-28T00:38:00.000-04:00

I'm tired tonight. The Spike Lee phone calls of the last two days truly exhausted me. But I want to take this post to defend the Roundabout's selection of Old Acquaintance for their season.

A bunch of industry people have told me that they believe Roundabout should be doing edgier, riskier work, revivals that stand for something or whatever. I don't personally agree with this argument. I often disagree with Roundabout's particular selections in a major way, but I support a theater company's right to do whatever types of things they want. I don't believe that just because they get government money means they need to do plays that comment on the public welfare. I see the other side of this argument. I know that we need theater companies that take real risks. I just don't think we need every theater company to do that. (Plus, Roundabout has done risky things in the past, but, even if they hadn't, I'd still stand behind the choice to just do old chestnuts.)

I would rather see Old Acquaintance five more times than sit through even just the first act of MTC's acclaimed production of Translations again. Same for Constant Wife or Prelude to a Kiss (though I might have to kill Annie Parisse after time two of that one). I realize that Translations is a more "important" work and I'm happy MTC did it, but I didn't like it and I don't think every theater company needs to do complete seasons of Translations-like productions.

I JUST realized that I previously defended Roundabout's selection of Cabaret on this blog and I don't want it to come off that I'm really pro-Roundabout (because I'm not particularly). I just think there are things that should be attacked and things that it's stupid to criticize. I mean, I heard someone coming out of the American Airlines saying: "Well, it was enjoyable, but it's really not the type of thing that they should be doing." What does that even mean? Who sets those guidelines? I just don't get it. There are a lot of things I think are idiotic to revive, but that is because of the individual selection based on its own merits, not because I have some kind of over-arching belief about what should be done by a particular theater.

You'll Be In My Heart

2007-06-24T23:13:00.000-04:00

Weisslers = Barklays of Broadway... Someone asked if I knew who was producing and that is what I know.

Meanwhile, I am very sad about the state of daily theater journalism. In the last few weeks, things have changed closing dates, said they were limited runs when that was never said before... yet the news sites are silent. No one even got a quote about the Les Miz firings. I mean, I'm very fond of saying only 100 people care about 99% of this stuff, but, if those 100 people are the core of your loyal readership, you should give them the complete story to the best of your ability. I totally understand not breaking casting stories, but, this is not that... Anyway, I'm saying that as a reader. That's it.

I am extremely tired tonight and have so much more to do, so I won't go on really. I did want to comment about Tarzan closing--you always know how bad a show is doing by the time of year it closes. I know that sounds idiotic--I don't want emails saying "of course you know it's doing bad if it closes!" What I mean is, unless family-friendly shows are doing HORRIBLY they don't close before September (unless there is something that NEEDS the theater in August and absolutely cannot open later). Summer is their prime time. Summer is a time when Hairspray has that extra bounce. The Lion King rules. It is a sad sad statement about Tarzan's appeal that it is closing now... Because, you have to think generally, Disney + Summer = Gold. But, not always.

Man, I've lost my train of thought. Work time. Because I'm clearly in the shape for work.

Let Me Hear Ya

2007-06-21T02:27:00.000-04:00

Any sound designers out there excited about your Tony Award? I'm not, no offense. Here is why I think these things are a bad idea--93% of Tony voters will not be able to judge sound design (and I am being generous). This is going to be another one of those awards that goes with the sweep. Like, things usually don't win Lighting Design and then no other Tonys. This is because people aren't really voting for lighting design--they are voting for shows they loved. It's unclear what lighting design is to a lot of people--I once yelled at a producer who told me he voted for The Producers for lighting design and then defended the choice by saying, "Well, The Producers is funny."

And lighting design is more obvious than sound design, if you ask me.... Certain shows sound horrible, it's true--my poor beloved Chitty Chitty Bang Bang suffered from this--but, in general, not many people can judge the distinctions in sound design. (My friend Billy just promoted to me the LoveMusik sound design, which was apparently, as per him, amazing. I didn't notice.) It's like there used to be Tony Awards for Stage Technician and Conductor/Musical Director. How many voters can judge conductors? I know I wouldn't be able to... (Though--for those of you who know Don Summa--one of my favorite Summa lines about a conductor is "He could make anything sound like a dirge." So clearly he'd be one of the few wise conductor voters.)

So, sorry sound designers, but, even if you win in 2008, I just don't think you are winning on your merits.

On another note, I rarely read comments if they are written more than a day or two later. But, recently, someone pointed out this one to me:

Anonymous said...
Susann Brinkley never stolefrom anybody in her life....How fucking dare you say somethingnonchalant...Get the facts "first" before bloggingPeace out Biatch
Tom Brinkley

Now, I don't know if this person is named Tom Brinkley or if the comment is a fake or whatever, but, I will address it because I like randomness.

Let me draw your attention to this News Release from the NY DA's office, dated May 24, 2005.

Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau announced today that a former off-Broadway theatre producer pleaded guilty to stealing $48,000 from the non-profit theatre company where she had been employed as executive director.

SUSANN BRINKLEY, 48, pleaded guilty today to Grand Larceny in the Third Degree.
BRINKLEY has produced and directed numerous theatrical productions including Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which played Off-Broadway at the Jane Street Theatre in Manhattan and at the Broadway Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. The investigation leading to today's plea revealed that, during 2001, BRINKLEY contracted with playwright Annie Reiner and accepted $48,000 from three investors - Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, and George Shapiro - to produce Ms. Reiner's play, The New Living Room. BRINKLEY never produced that play; instead, she misappropriated the money for Reiner's play to use on her own production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which was failing in Chicago.

So... yeah... that's it for me. I am very tired and I still have some writing to do tonight.... (If I wasn't afraid of upsetting my 12 loyal readers I would so have taken the night off.) Plus, on top of that, I think it is wise to end on grand larceny. That happens so rarely.

Shall We Dance

2007-06-18T01:09:00.000-04:00

Since we last were in touch, half of the Les Miz leads got fired and Thommie Walsh died. I could talk about either of those things, but I believe I said I'd post news and all the news about those two things is known. So those are non-topics and I shall report new news, as pledged. (Speaking of which, my Charles Mee news was finally confirmed... And I was a little weirded out that one of his shows was named Queens Boulevard--is it only me that naturally thinks of Entourage when that name comes up?)

So, those of you who watched the Tony pre-show may have heard Tommy Tune say he was working on two projects, but he couldn't say what either of them were. I've known one for a while... I have heard about it from more than one source and I don't know who the press agent is, so, I feel I'm pretty safe in sharing it here....

It is a stage version of The Barkleys of Broadway, which was the last Fred and Ginger movie. It was written by Comden and Green and Sidney Sheldon and centers on a musical comedy team. There was a whole drama behind the filming--it was supposed to star Astaire and Judy Garland and have a totally different name, but, allegedly, Gardland's drug and alcohol problems got to be too much, so she was replaced with Rogers (who hadn't done a film with Astaire for about a decade at this point).

As most of you know, Tune hasn't had a Broadway project since 1994. He had that dismal White Tie and Tails off-Broadway in 2002 and recently humiliated himself in the Dr. Doolittle tour, but he's been absent from the Great White Way in this century.

So, that's that. Are any of you fans of the movie? If so, comment. I saw it a long time ago, but I'm no expert.

Do You Know What Side My Corn Is Buttered On?

2007-06-13T23:29:00.000-04:00

Well... so.... this was an active week. How long can Xanadu delay opening? How can a headline say "Tony Takes its Casualties" and lead the story with Company, which won the Best Revival of a Musical Tony? What did the League President mean when, in referencing the broadcast's horrible ratings, she told The Times "We suspect our loyal viewers were there"? (Was that supposed to be like "Have no fear--1000 freaks are going to be tuning in no matter how crappy we make it"?)

Anyway, I am sorry when calling-out Donna Karger below I accidentally wrote her name totally wrong. Donna Carter is a model. Dixie Carter is a shining star. And, then, well, Donna Karger of NY-1 was the one I was referencing. All apologies for making my own mistake while pointing out hers.

So--the Tonys... It's too painful to discuss the broadcast, but I did say I'd talk briefly about some parties. At my old job, I had to work through the parties, but, not so this year. Though parties are not like things you can share, really, so, this is going to be lame. Plus, these aren't press events, so I don't want to cross the line in reporting happenings. That would not be appropriate... even for a blogger... So, again, these highlights will be lame.

I started my night at Carmines, celebrating the spectacular win of David Hyde Pierce with the Curtains folks. (Sadly I left before David Hyde Pierce got there.) I ended my night at the Spring Awakening bash at Spotlight Live, along with almost every print theater journalist.

Here are some highlights of the evening for me:

There are some people in this industry that I consider part of my family and two of them happen to be involved in Grey Gardens, so it was nice to go celebrate with them. But they weren't really the highlight there. The highlight of the Grey Gardens party at Tony DiNapoli's was that there were plant centerpieces in Grey Gardens wrapping... And, walking out, they gave us stress balls with plastic corn kernels all over it and a card that says "Jerry liked Edie's corn and we love Grey Gardens. Thanks for celebrating with us." (There was also a popcorn version, but I have the kernels, which I believe is far superior in its weirdness.)

On the street outside of Spotlight Live, Liev Schreiber said to his friends, "Yeah, we're going into Spring Awakening, they won something." (I should note that this was said in jest. Hear me: in jest.)

Taye Diggs helping out a drunk-seeming Zach Braff and saying: "Yeah, it's all about you tonight, man, it's all about you." (Or something basically like that.... I have only told one person that and I was not going to tell it here, because I am so not New York's Intelligencer, but it's just randomness to give you a chuckle.)

Also, I was looking for my friend Brad all over the Spring Awakening party--because he moves around a lot--and I'm walking up the stairs and I hear: "You're Cara, right?" And of course I answer in the affirmative because, even though I wasn't wearing my typical shiny sneakers, I felt there was no point in trying to hide. So this girl says "Why don't you write news? Isn't that what you are supposed to do?" I was so confused! This was a blog reader, so I'm sure she is reading this now and is upset I'm not mentioning her name, but, to be honest, I don't remember it. I dissed her accidentally, but I will answer now. Sometimes I write news, but I don't if I know the press agent and I know that press agent will be upset. When it was my job to break stories, I didn't care who was upset, I was semi-ruthless. Now though... there is sort of no point to stealing another journalist's thunder or upsetting a press person. (That said, I might write some news Sunday relating to a show I don't know the press agent for...)

Ummm... every other story involves drunk/high people and I don't want hate mail, so, there we go. Adios. Enjoy your corn.

Jerry Likes My Corn

2007-06-11T03:43:00.000-04:00

I ended up not going to Boston this weekend---I had tons to do and I was going to an outdoor event and there was an 80% chance of rain for both days there, so I got talked out of it---and thus I actually got to watch the awards. While I was procrastinating my real work yesterday, I also read all the pundit reports. What was Elysa Gardner thinking when she picked Talk Radio?

Anyway, I'm now back from a slew of parties, which maybe I'll report on on Wednesday.

For now, as promised, my biggest surprise of the night. And it was... Carla Gugino's hair. Seriously. What was she thinking? I hope it is for a role... because, if it isn't, it's clear not living up to her normal standard with her performance on Entourage has traumatized her.

I mean, there were no real surprises. I was THRILLED with David Hyde Pierce. So happy. I picked him here, but I believe the only journalist to pick him in a major outlet was Campbell Robertson. So we rock. (If some of you other people out there predicted David Hyde Pierce, you rock too, have no fear.)

I was also very happy with Julie White, who, I picked on this blog, but I was a little afraid would not triumph because of those pesky out-of-towners.

Also, I just want you all to know, even though this is not my party report... I walked up to Mary Louise Wilson and I said to her: "Hey, you don't know who I am and it's not important, but I just want to say I think you're a genius." I mean, I was really thrilled when she won. I knew she would, there wasn't a question, but it still made me happy to see her up there. I'm sure "Jerry" was happy as well.

Yeah, I can't think of anything else. It was so boring I could barely get through it. I actually didn't get through the whole thing... I thought those commercial intros were dreadful--not as bad when they said who they were, but, then, like the 110 in the Shade intro... that just an 'oy.' AND THERE IS NOT A LITTLE BIT OF BROADWAY IN EVERYONE. I KNOW THAT FOR A FACT.

Oh--I was also taken with the fact that the Tony announcer didn't know what category Liev Schreiber got his Tony in. They said "leading actor for Glengarry" and, well, that's wrong. Of course that is not as big a screw-up as when Donna Carter on the red carpet said to John Mahoney "nominated for his performance in Prelude to a Kiss..." and he had to correct her. That was a real low-point.

I have to sleep. I have to be up at 8am.