Everything I Know I Learned from Musicals

Another Strike? Probably Not

A lot of us are still smarting from the contentious and prolonged Broadway stagehands' strike during the recent holiday season, so it's only natural that the prospect of another work stoppage on the Rialto would cause apprehension.

Not to worry, says Campbell Robertson of The New York Times. Upcoming negotiations between the Broadway League (them's the producers) the Actors' Equity Association (them's the actors) are likely to go a lot more smoothly than those between the League and the stagehands' union. Spokespersons for both parties have made public statements to the effect that they anticipate relatively smooth sailing when negotiations start this Friday.

The reason for this optimism: the issues at hand are far less controversial than those that were at issue in the stagehand negotiations. All the really dicey stuff got ironed out in 2004, when Equity came oh-so-close to authorizing a strike. This time, they'll just be working out some relatively minor details about touring productions.

But, as Robertson relates, we're not totally out of the woods yet strike-wise. Equity will begin negotiations with the League of Resident Theaters later this year. Those include the Broadway nonprofits such as Lincoln Center and the Roundabout. As you may recall, those theaters were able to remain up and running during the strike because they have separate union agreements. Might there be another strike looming on the distant horizon? Or was Robertson just looking for a dramatic kicker to his NYT piece? Time will tell.

February is the Cruelest Month

You know business is slow on Broadway in general when even Jersey Boys and Wicked aren't selling out. Take a gander at these attendance numbers from last week. The average was 63.39%, which is pretty darned weak overall.

Admittedly Jersey Boys and Wicked weren't exactly hurting, with 97.5% and 98.6%, respectively, but for most musicals last week was kinda slow. February is truly the cruelest month, at least when it comes to the Broadway box office.

Among the musicals that actually did reasonably well in the attendance department were:

Sunday in the Park with George...86.4%
The Lion King...80.7%
The Little Mermaid...79.7%
Spring Awakening...69.9%
Mamma Mia...69.6%
Grease...67.9%

A number of the usual suspects, but it's great to see Sunday and Spring Awakening holding their own. It's also interesting to see that The Little Mermaid couldn't even outperform its fellow Disney show, even though The Lion King has been playing for more than ten years.

At the bottom were:

Chicago...42.8%
Curtains...47.3%
Xanadu...51%
A Chorus Line...51%
The Color Purple...53.4%
Rent...53.7%

Rent and The Color Purple have already announced their shuttering dates. Might we see some additional closing announcements, or will the rest of these worthy but under-attended shows find legs enough to last until the spring thaw?

Legally Blonde Reality Show on MTV

The Hollywood writers' strike seems to be affecting Broadway in some indirect ways. Faced with a lack of scribes for its scripted shows, MTV has announced a reality show  to help the producers of the Broadway musical Legally Blonde choose a successor for Laura Bell Bundy in the lead role of Elle Woods. (Reality shows employ "content producers," who are cheaper and don't belong to the writers' union.) The network recently announced national auditions in anticipation of taping the show in February and March.

It's a questionable tactic, at least from a ratings perspective. By all accounts, the reality show "Grease: You're the One That I Want" wasn't much of a Nielsen bonanza, although the Grease revival that it helped to cast seems to be holding its own at the box office. On the other hand, ticket sales for Legally Blonde got a shot in the arm from its recent airings on MTV, despite predictions from many people that running the show on TV would prove disastrous.

Many people will also likely decry this reality-show move as a publicity stunt. Well, I say, what's wrong with a publicity stunt, if it keeps a decent show running? I've long defended stunt-casting as an effective way to keep good shows up and good people employed. And Legally Blonde, while certainly not a masterpiece, is a fun bit of fluff, if a bit on the shrill side. (See my review here.) The show is an intentionally populist Broadway offering, and thus is in no danger of compromising its "artistic integrity" by relegating its central casting to a populist voting process. Plus, the show will bring increased visibility to Broadway in general beyond Broadway's typical demographic (i.e. from old, rich, white people to young, rich, white people).

Let's just hope the whole reality-show thing doesn't go too far. I mean, we certainly wouldn't want this casting-by- popular-vote thing to become a habit or anything. In a larger sense, art is not a democratic process, nor should it be.

Young Frankenstein: Abridged and Imperiled

OK, so you've read my pan of Mel Brooks' horribly cynical and lazy Young Frankenstein. Perhaps you've even read the reviews, which were less than stellar, to say the least. But if you really want to know what's wrong with the show, read Gil Varod's very funny and painfully spot-on parody: Young Frankenstein Abridged: Or Gene Wilder How We Miss You to Pieces.

I've long been a fan of Gil's Broadway Abridged blog, and his savage skewering of Young Frankenstein only makes me a bigger fan. For the uninitiated, Varod parodies Broadway plays and musicals by condensing them in a very snarky and disrespectful fashion. I don't always agree with him. (I actually really enjoyed the revival of 110 in the Shade.) But I always look forward to reading his take on the latest over-hyped mega-musical or highfalutin artsy-fartsy play.

Oh, BTW, according to Michael Riedel of the New York Post, all those $450 seats aren't exactly selling like hotcakes, and can be had for around $100 from outlets in the Times Square area. I can't help thinking about one of my favorite foreign words:

Schadenfreude: [Origin: 1890–95; < G, equiv. to Schaden harm + Freude joy] Happiness at the misfortune of others. ("Happiness at the misfortune of others? That is German..." Gary Coleman, Avenue Q)

Eat it, Mel.

Broadway Strike Marks First Week

It is with decidedly mixed emotions that I head down to New York City this weekend for one of my regular theater weekends. Two of the shows I have tickets for are still running: The Ritz and The Glorious Ones. The third show, The Little Mermaid, has been canceled, and I understand that Ticketmaster will be issuing an automatic refund to my credit card, although I will not be getting back my $3.10 "processing fee," whatever that means.

My mixed emotions emanate not from missing a show, but rather from the prospect of witnessing the strike first-hand as I traverse the mostly moribund theater district. The sight of so many venues lying fallow will certainly be either depressing or infuriating, possibly both. I think it's probably best if I try to keep my distance, lest I attempt to engage with a stagehand or two, accidentally let fly a few choice Anglo-Saxon words, and end up in a fist fight with someone who will undoubtedly be able to kick my sorry ass.

On the bright side, I decided to fill my now-open Saturday night slot by purchasing a ticket to the newly opened William Finn revue, Make Me a Song. I'm a huge Finn fan, and I've been looking forward to seeing this show, and wasn't sure it was going to run long enough for me to be able to catch it on one of my future NYC jaunts. What's more, the show plays at 5PM and 9PM on Saturday nights, so I'll be catching the early show, which will allow me to hit the road and arrive home in Boston at a decent hour.

The stagehands union and the producers will be meeting tomorrow (with a little help from one of the big guns at Disney) to try to restart the negotiation process. Let's hope that for all involved everybody keeps a level head and finds a way to, if not make everyone happy, at least get everyone back to work.

Broadway Strike Could Last Weeks

Well, it looks like I'm not going to be seeing The Little Mermaid on Saturday.

According to Michael Riedel of The New York Post, both sides in the ongoing Broadway stagehands strike appear to be digging their heels in, and the strike may end up dragging on over the next few weeks. The stagehands are hoping that the producers will crack faced with the prospect of losing the highly profitable Thanksgiving weekend, typically Broadway's busiest time. And the producers are counting on the stagehands' receiving pressure from the currently inactive Broadway actors, faced with what is looking increasingly like numerous missed paychecks.

There's been a lot of coverage about the economic impact of the strike, and the fact that it may cause a number of shows to delay their opening nights. (For an ongoing tally of the nitty-gritty details of the strike, check out the blog of my inestimable colleague, Steve on Broadway. Geez, Steve, do you, like, have a day job?) But the strike may also force certain shows to close up shop entirely. The Drowsy Chaperone, which according to Riedel will be closing in January anyway, may need to check out of the Marquis a bit sooner than that. And Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll has the added expense of housing for all the Brits in the cast, which may force that critically acclaimed show to shutter prematurely. 

But the show that's really getting the worst end of this situation is Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas, which may wind up not reopening at all after the strike, depending on how long in drags on. That means that the show will have played only one regular performance and 13 previews. Ouchy-wa-wa.

Let's hope that EVERYONE involved stops acting like a bunch of frickin' babies, returns to the bargaining table, and hammers out a compromise agreement that gets everyone back to doing what they do best: creating quality theater.

Broadway Stagehand Strike Looming

I haven't been posting much about the threatened strike by the Broadway stagehands, mostly because I didn't want to tempt fate. I had a few recent theater weekends in New York, and I have another one coming up next weekend, and I was hoping that the matter would just resolve itself and I wouldn't have to worry about missing any of my shows. But the union rep for the stagehands recently authorized a strike, which may occur within the next few weeks.

From a purely selfish perspective, even if the strike occurs, there's a decent chance that I'll still get to see all my shows. Friday night I'm seeing The Glorious Ones, which is technically Off Broadway, but even if it were on Broadway, it still wouldn't be affected because the Lincoln Center Theater is a non-profit organization, and thus has separate agreements with the unions. The same is true for my Saturday matinée show, The Ritz, which is on Broadway, but under the auspices of the non-profit  Roundabout Theater.

My main concern is my Saturday night show, The Little Mermaid, which is playing at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater, a Nederlander house. The Nederlanders are technically "silent observers" at the contract negotiations, but a spokesperson for the Nederlanders has stated that, in the case of a strike, that organization would likely engage in a "lockout" of its stagehands, in the interest of presenting a united front in the negotiation process.

From what I can glean, one of the main sticking points in the negotiations is whether during the "load-in" process for shows producers should continue to employ a certain minimum number of stagehands, irrespective of whether there's any work for all those people to do. The producers don't want to continue to pay people to sit around and do nothing. And the union wants to preserve a certain standard of living for its members, whether they actually earn that money or not.

I try to take a balanced view of the issues, but from where I sit, the unions are out of line. It's no wonder the average top ticket price on Broadway is creeping perilously close to $125. There's no question that it's a complicated calculation as to where all of money goes. But the union seems content to extract as much money from each production as possible, rather than allowing for the possibility of a greater number of financially successful productions, and thus spreading the wealth around to more people.

My hope is that the various parties will understand that there are other people's livelihoods at stake here, and that they'll come to a compromise, certainly in time for me to see my shows. But, in a broader sense, it's in everyone's best interest to craft an agreement that benefits the long-term viability of Broadway shows in general, not just lines the pockets of a select group, and either side of the negotiation table.

What to Do When You Miss Curtain Time

How annoying is this?

Last weekend, I was heading down to New York City for one of my regular theater weekends. I don't usually see shows on Friday night, mostly because I don't want to contend with Friday-night traffic. But I was using a discount code to see The Color Purple, and it wasn't good for Saturdays. So I figured I'd break with tradition and get a ticket for Friday night. I mean, how bad could the traffic be?

Bad. Really really bad. I left Boston 1:30 PM, and I didn't make it to New Rochelle until 6:30 PM, which is bad enough. But then it took me TWO AND A HALF HOURS to get from New Rochelle to the George Washington Bridge (which should only really take about 20 minutes), only to find out that the GWB doesn't go into Manhattan from route 95, it goes to New Jersey.

Grrrr...

Needless to say, I missed my Friday night show, which was actually to be my first visit to The Color Purple. I had heard great things about Fantasia Barrino, so I was kinda looking forward to it. It was also to be my first time ever in the Broadway Theater, which I was actually a bit more excited about than seeing the show. There are only four Broadway theaters that I've never been in -- the Lyceum, the Longacre, the Winter Garden, and the Broadway -- and I was looking forward to crossing that last one off my list.

Of course, as for missing curtain time, I was pissed, and I cursed the theater gods repeatedly from the front seat of my Jetta. But then I remembered an article that I read on Playbill.com: a recent Ask Playbill column focused on the issue of what you can do when you miss a show that you have tickets for. It's called "past dating," it's not really an official policy, and it varies from theater to theater. For some shows, you can call the theater on the day of the performance and see if the show is sold out. If not, you might be able to snag a ticket.

I called Ticketmaster and told them my tale of whoa, and they mentioned a similar policy. I told them I come from out of town and that I'd really rather have a set date. So they told me to write a letter and explain my situation, and to give a number of alternate dates when I could see the show, as long as those dates are on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Given that the official policy is "no refunds or exchanges," I think that such courtesy arrangements are more than fair. They don't have to replace my ticket, so the fact that I will need to see the show on a weekday seems a minor inconvenience at best.

So, if you should ever get caught in traffic on a rainy Friday afternoon, or if your dog starts barfing his brains out on a show night, don't despair. Depending on the show that you have tickets for, you might still be able to see the show at a later date. If it's a big hit like Jersey Boys or Wicked, it might be much much later. But it's better than eating a $120 loss.

Young Frankenstein: Arrogance and Obscenity

The producers of Young Frankenstein certainly aren't looking to make any friends. First they announce that they'll be charging an obscene amount of money for premium tickets. (The top price on Saturday nights will be $450.) Then they say that they will break with seventy years of tradition and not report their weekly grosses to the League of American Theaters & Producers.

Why? Because they're embarrassed by the sheer obscenity of the numbers they're pulling? Or is it that word is getting around that the show isn't all that hot and they want to be able to hide their disappointment beneath a shroud of secrecy? Yeah, the producers are under no obligation to report their numbers publicly. But every other Broadway show since the Depression has reported its numbers, for the edification of all. Why should Young Frankenstein be any different?

Either way, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I have my ticket to see the show, but the more I read about the show and its business machinations, the more I'm rooting against it.

Legally Blonde to air on MTV

Negotiations are currently underway to allow cable network MTV to broadcast a performance of the new Broadway musical Legally Blonde, according to the New York Post. MTV will film a performance of the musical at the Palace Theater this month for broadcast sometime in October.

Such a broadcast would represent an unprecedented move. I can't think of another example of a show broadcast in the middle of a healthy run. (Anyone?) Shows are often taped to run on TV after they close, including Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, Smokey Joe's Cafe and [shudder] Jekyll & Hyde. The recent revival of Company was also filmed for an upcoming broadcast. And the "Live at Lincoln Center" series, although it certainly lives up to its "live" moniker, usually broadcasts one of the very final performances of the shows in question, including Contact and The Light in the Piazza.

But Legally Blonde, despite lukewarm reviews and zero Tony Awards, has been playing to very healthy houses of 80-plus percent, and has been enjoying weekly grosses of around $900,000, in some weeks raking in more than $1,000,000. So the show's got legs. However, the audience base for this show -- tweens and teens of the female persuasion -- will likely run dry in the New York City area sometime soon, and the show will then start to rely more on tourists to keep it going.

Will tourists pay $100 to see the show live when they could TiVo it free off MTV? How will this affect the prospects for a national tour of the show? Perhaps the producers don't trust that Legally Blonde will stick around much longer on Broadway. And perhaps MTV, which is struggling to stay relevant to its dwindling audience base, is willing to make some major financial commitment on a unique event to attract more viewers.

On the other hand, the movie versions of some major long-running Broadway shows (Chicago, Hairspray, Rent, The Phantom of the Opera) have actually helped these shows at the box-office. Could airing Legally Blonde on TV actually be a shrewd marketing ploy?