I'm baaack!!!!

It's Cara again, back where I belong. I want to give a ginormous public thank you to our guest columnist, who, in my opinion, did a great job. I actually loved reading the columns--appreciating the occasional channeling of me and admiring the obscure knowledge contained in the comments. I disagreed with some of the views put forth in the posts, but we have our own ways of looking at things and I'm all for everyone getting a say.

I've returned home at a good time--it's premiere week for My Network TV, the network that is doing everything telenovela style, so as I write this I am watching Bo Derek headline trash. (Does she sing? Because she could totally follow this series up with a stint in Mamma Mia.) Additionally, currently The Wedding Singer features a minimum of three principals that were not around for the show's opening. (Stephen Lynch is on vacation, Laura Benanti is on leave and American Idol playboy Constantine Maroulis has already stepped in.) So this is indeed a big week.

Anyway, people keep telling me I missed nothing while I was relaxing post-employment, but I did miss things. It's just they were all boring, so no one committed them to memory. (Though I am making a special public "yay" for the casting of Gaby Hoffman in subUrbia. Plus, thank you Andrew Gans for your exciting Little Mermaid premiere story--I'm all about The Little Mermaid and I never thought we'd see her float to the surface.) Thus I am not going to talk about anything that happened recently, I am going to talk now about the 1980s.

During the 1980s I was very young. I didn't have high hair like some others of my generation and, most importantly, I didn't see shows. But I know that in 1987 Les Miz, Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Fences all opened on Broadway and Talk Radio opened off-Broadway. And, now, this season, we'll likely see all of them again. (Then there are shows like A Chorus Line and The Fantasticks that were also playing during that time.) So, basically, we're partying like it's 1987. Why? What happened to reviving golden oldies? We could have a 1950s hop! Why not?! Well, there is a certain sense that shows that are too old and dated simply do not play to today's TV-influenced audience. Sure The Pajama Game was successful, but that had a big star to help propel it. Other moldy pieces have not fared as well in recent years; times have been especially hard on old-fashioned musicals such as Bells Are Ringing and Wonderful Town. Even Never Gonna Dance, which was technically a new musical, felt extremely stodgy. (OK, it was also bad, but moving on...) So I think that people looking for things to revive are going to increasingly go with newer shows. There will always be a Grease or West Side Story coming down the pike, but mostly we're going to see things revived that I was alive for the first time around. I've decided not to blame that on the fact that I'm simply getting older...