The Issues in Theatre Today

Danny LaRue stars as the title character in Hello Dolly

The Matter of Gender in Theatre

Although rare, people can be played by the opposite sex than original indicated. A more well known incident was when British Female Impersonator Danny La Rue played Dolly Levi in the musical Hello Dolly. He holds the distinction of being the first man to play the female lead in a major musical. This production played for a few months in London's Prince of Wales Theatre in 1982. He received many negative reviews for his foray into musical theatre, but he stood by what he did saying, “I think it's a very good performance.” Danny LaRue also has the distinction of being the only man to take over a woman's role in the West End Theatre when he replaced Avis Bunnage in Oh, What a Lovely War!

Whoopi Goldberg replaced Nathan Lane in '97 revival of A
Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum

Another instance where gender bending was used to great success was in the 1997 revival of Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum. Playing a role originated by Zero Mostel and replaced Nathan Lane. “What am I going to do with an old white man?” Goldberg ad-libs, then follows with the punch line, “I got one at home.” She ad-libed and sang with her limited range which critics noted, but forgave. The casting of Goldberg — as a slave who procures her freedom by procuring a prostitute for her master — has transformed this farce about dirty old men and leggy courtesans into something hip and hilarious.

Orchestra in the Theatre

Modern day technology may have been a blessing and a curse all in one. The audience can hear the orchestra but that orchestra itself is diminishing. The Golden Age of theatre where there was a sweeping sound usually had about 26 players. Notably, the original pit of Gypsy had 29 players. The minimum size of the Broadway orchestra is governed by an agreement with the musicians union and the Broadway League. For example, the agreement specifies the minimum size of the orchestra at the Minskoff Theatre to be 18, at the Music Box Theatre to be 9.  After a quick google research, this is what we are seeing now on Broadway right now:

2003 Musician's strike

Aida : 13 members, Urinetown: 5 members, Jekyll and Hyde: 14 members, Kiss of the Spiderwoman: 19 members, Blood Brothers: 9 members, Wicked: 16 members, Wonderland: 14 members, Spider Man Musical: 17 members, The Addam's Family: 12 members, Bonnie and Clyde: 8 members, Rocky Musical: 18 members, Les Miserables 2006: 14 members, Pippin: 12 members, Kinky Boots: 13 members, Matilda: 14 members, Dracula Musical: 8 members, Chicago Musical: 13 members

Most notably, In 2010, producers of Leonard Bernstein’s classic 2009 revival of West Side Story slashed five musicians after 500 performances, and replaced them with synthesizers. In 2003 during the musician’s strike the largest theatres that designated 24 or 26 musicians to create the fuller sound. Producers sought to reduce the minimum size of orchestras by more than two-thirds across all theaters. The producers were prepared to pump karaoke tracks through the sound system. Both the actors and stagehands famously went on strike as well. Eventually the producers gave in but not without silencing Broadway for four days. After all-night negotiations, parties agreed to reduce minimum requirements for musicians from 24-26 to 18-19, which would stay in effect for the next 10 years.

   

The Star in the Room: Stunt Casting

Molly Ringwald as Sweet Charity

Nowadays it doesn't seem to matter if you are a thespian of the theatre to grace the boards of Broadway anymore. If you have sold enough movie tickets then full steam ahead, you can star in a Broadway musical show! People will still go see you even if you aren't exactly what the role calls for. Take Molly Ringwald in Sweet Charity. What seems like ideal casting for the good-hearted taxi-dancer who gets dumped by life and every boyfriend. Ringwald received good reviews for her 2001 stint in Cabaret, she's even from a musical family and the go to actress of the 80s, Ringwald seemed like the perfect fit for the 2007 touring show. Critics commented on her tenancy to sing off key, harshly with little inflection. Everything down to Ringwald's choreography was under the burner, one critic noting that her dancing looked like “ the remedial version of the bold Fosse-esque moves.” Everyone noted that she did have the charm it took to play the role, but not the dance moves nor the voice to carry a production. She was later replaced by Paige Davis for the last two months of the tour.

We are seeing this so often nowadays with such famous names as Brooke Shields, Alan Rickman, Daniel Radcliff, Nick Jonas, Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, Jennifer Garner, Katie Holmes, Susan Sarandon, Julia Roberts, Orlando Bloom, Ashley Judd, Rupert Everett, and Jane Fonda. It seems that producers, desperate for ticket sales, will throw just about any known screen actor into a significant role in a play, despite their lack of any discernible chops.

Madonna and Joe Mantegna star in Speed the Plow

Something of note is Madonna's appearance as temp. secretary to Hollywood executive, Karen, in David Mamet's Seed the Plow. At this time Madonna was fresh off her “Who’s That Girl?” tour and a year before the release of her hit single, “Express Yourself,” and three years afte her film debut in "Suddenly Susan" she was cast in the play’s sole female role. Originally intended to be played by Elizabeth Perkins, although she withdrew a few weeks before rehearsals began. Madonna then asked to audition. Producers noted, "you can't take your eyes off her when she's onstage." Receiving mainly negative reviews, Frank Rich from the New York Times critiqued that she approached her role "with intelligent, scrupulously disciplined comic acting. She delivers the shocking transitions essential to the action and needs only more confidence to relax a bit and fully command her speaking voice." With worldwide interest in Madonna's theatre debut reaching fever pitch and the Lincoln Center facing overwhelming box office demand for tickets, the show began previews in April 1988 at the Royale Theatre on Broadway. Madonna had her last performance on August 28th 1988. The show received three Tony nominations, including Best Play. 

Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane in The Producers

Movies on Broadway vs Original Musical

Rocky, Matilda, Once, Kinky Boots, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Legally Blonde, Beauty and the Beast, Tarzan, Hairspray, The Lion King, Ghost, Big Fish, Bullets Over Broadway, Mary Poppins,Little Shop of Horrors, Newsies, The Wizard of Oz, Sister Act, and 9 to 5. All musicals that have originated as movies that have graced the boards of Broadway in the past few years. Why not? It isn't as much of a gamble, the audience is already familiar with the subject matter. But occasionally a film just clicks on the stage, music and dance giving it a little something more than celluloid ever did. A few of them were so successful they earned Broadway's greatest honor: being adapted into a motion picture.

One of honor to mention is The Producers which opened in movie theatres in 1967 and opened at the St. James Theatre in 2001. The winner of 12 out of its total 15 Tony Nominations this was hailed as a hit! It become one of the few musicals to win in every category for which it was nominated — it received two nominations for leading actor and three for featured actor. In 2009, the Broadway production of Billy Elliot the Musical received 15 nominations, tying with The Producers for the most nominations received by a show. Producers also broke the record held for 37 years by Hello, Dolly! which had won 10. After the opening The Producers broke the record for the largest single day box-office ticket sales in theatre history, taking in more than $3 million. It was announced that Lane and Broderick would return for a limited run in December 2003 to April 2004. Sales for the show then broke its own record with over $3.5 million in single day ticket sales. The musical version out-shown the movie version, that only got two Oscar nominations, with only one win with Mel Brooks' script.

The Book of Mormon was written by the creators of South Park

On the other hand, an original musical to mention is one written by the writers of popular TV show "South Park." The Book of Mormon Parker and Stone co-created the music with Lopez, a co-composer/co-lyricist of Avenue Q. The Book of Mormon has garnered overwhelmingly positive critical response and numerous theatre awards including nine of its 14 Tony Award nominations, one of which was for Best Musical, and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. An original Broadway cast recording was released in May 2011 and became the highest-charting Broadway cast album in over four decades, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard charts. The producers have been able to charge as much as $477 for the best seats for performances with particularly high demand. High attendance coupled with aggressive pricing allowed the financial backers to recoup their investment of $11.4 million after just nine months of performances. The Wall Street Journal's Terry Teachout called the show "slick and smutty: The Book of Mormon is the first musical to open on Broadway since La Cage aux Folles that has the smell of a send-in-the-tourists hit." A film adaptation has been rumored but not confirmed. 

Musical Sequels Do Not Work

Although rare, there are a few musical sequels out there that should have been left alone. We all know and love the 1977 musical mega splash hit, Annie. But do you know anything of it's musical sequel Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge? What about the doomed sequel to Bye Bye Birde which is in turn called, Bring Back Birdie. Also did you know that even Broadway's longest running musical has a sequel that nobody seems to mention all that much either, Love Never Dies.

Annie 2 received terrible reviews and never
made it past its out of town production

Annie Warbucks was the second attempt at an Annie sequel. The first, entitled Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge, opened on December 22, 1989 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. to universally dismal reviews. After that opening performance, the show was constantly changing and evolving from day to day as the creative team experimented to find out what worked best. Extensive efforts to get it into shape for a Broadway opening failed, and the project was abandoned. In 1993, a second attempt entitled Annie Warbucks opened at the Off Broadway Variety Arts Theatre, where it ran for 200 performances. Annie Warbucks received a strongly positive review from The New York Times, with Ben Brantley giving nods to the score and the strong voices of the leads. He notes that “Annie Warbucks provides enough of the familiar fun to qualify as more than a postscript. The predisposed shouldn't be disappointed, while the wary may well be won over." 

Love Never Dies is the flop sequel to
  The Phantom of the Opera

Love Never Dies is the sequel to Lloyd Webber's long-running musical The Phantom of the Opera. Following a conversation with Maria Björnson, the designer of The Phantom of the Opera, Lloyd Webber decided that, if and when a sequel would take place it would be set in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. One of his ideas was to have Phantom live above ground in Manhattan's first penthouse, but he rejected this when he saw a TV documentary about the Coney Island fairground. After having the musical on the back burner for several years, Lloyd Webber began working on the production in 2007, finally opening in in 2010. The original London production received mostly negative reviews, however, the subsequent Australian production featuring an entirely new design team and heavy revisions was generally better received. The planned Broadway production, which was to have opened simultaneously with the West End run, was delayed and then indefinitely postponed. The Times, critic Benedict Nightingale gave the show two out of five stars. The London Evening Standard, where critic Henry Hitchings wrote that "while Lloyd Webber's music is at times lavishly operatic, the tone is uneven." Hitchings also commented that the story "is largely predictable – and flimsy. The chief problem is the book." The London production closed on 27 August 2011 after a disappointing run of fewer than eighteen months.