Rock of Ages: Surprise!

Isherwood gives it a rave.

And suddenly, this is the little show that could.

Keep in mind that Broadway was kind of a Hail Mary pass for this show.  It wasn’t a huge hit Off-Bway, although it did well in LA and booked a movie deal.  Now it’s got a good notice from the Times — even if it were to close tomorrow, which it won’t, this thing will make a fortune on the road.  Playhouse Square in Cleveland (and all the equivalent houses across the country) should be negotiating for the tour right now.

And you know what?  In this season of star-effing play after star-effing play, a silly little musical with an American Idol and a Jack Black wannabe could just be a hit.

HAIR = Hit.

The hits keep on coming on Broadway, folks (at least critically).

I saw the cast’s performance at the Thanksgiving Day parade, and it’s colored my idea of this revival: much like when Broadway tries to do Grease or even West Side Story these days, it’s hard to get past the fact that the folks onstage are musical theater actors, and therefore lack a rawness and urgency and sex appeal that these shows require. The Times review seems to state otherwise, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

The Daily Beast has an interesting take on the show today, although I have a huge bone to pick with this paragraph:

n other words, the 1968 Broadway production of Hair is being revived on Broadway in 2009 at a time when every issue that animated the play has been—in the musical’s own perspective—happily resolved. There is almost universal opposition to the war in Iraq, the “Generation Gap” has been replaced by parents jostling with their children for space on Facebook, our president is black, and just about everybody is “green.” As for sex and drugs… well, go refill your prescription and I’ll get mine, let’s email each other some pictures of ourselves naked, and if we both like what we see, why don’t we meet for a drink later tonight.

I’m a positive guy generally, but…really? The issues of the play are “resolved?” There’s no generation gap anymore? There’s no racism anymore? And what does environmentalism really have to do with anything? Sex may be more mainstream (to an extent) but drugs — of the hippie variety — are just as, if not more taboo now then at the time, in certain circles at least. Glib overstatements like this hurt the integrity of the article to come, for me, at least.

An Interesting Take on the Fare Hike.

From East Village Idiot:

Today, the MTA will vote to raise fares again… this time to the tune of 23%. Your monthly Metrocard that cost you $81 this month will cost you $103 in June.

Yes, it’s outrageous. Yes, it’s unfair. But no, it’s not entirely the MTA’s fault. In fact, this fare hike could have been easily prevented by Albany in the past and present, but everyone finds it easy to blame the MTA for this. Stop blaming the MTA, and blame the people who deserve to be blamed.

There’s a whole lot more in the article.   New York is in trouble, folks.   I was in a meeting the other day in which a city employee said, in so many words, “New York doesn’t have any money.”  Budgets are being cut left and right, folks are being laid off, and now the subway’s going to cost more.  It’s scary.

And this, my friends, is the stuff that’s going to eventually impact Broadway and the rest of the theater industry.

Broadway’s Not Struggling…Yet.

So says Backstage:

There was much gnashing of teeth in January when a record number of productions closed and left the Rialto looking barren indeed. But since then, some strange things have happened even as the economy continues to struggle to find a foothold.

Broadway grosses are holding their own, with fairly minimal boxoffice dropoffs, and some shows — notably the revival of “West Side Story” — are doing $1 million a week even in previews.

This all fits in line with what I’ve been saying (click on the Broadway tag over on the side of the page and you can track all my posts on the topic): it’s been hard to imagine that this season would be a box office disaster, recession or not. And not surprisingly, plays are what’s filling the theaters right now, since they’re so much cheaper to produce than musicals:

Probably for financial reasons, new musicals are, however, in relatively short supply. “9 to 5,” the adaptation of the 1980 film featuring new songs written by Dolly Parton, is the most lavish, while two others relatively more modest — “Next to Normal,” about a family dealing with a mother’s emotional breakdown, and “Rock of Ages,” featuring a score of songs by 1980s rock bands — are transfers from off-Broadway.

Another transfer, this time from Central Park, is last year’s revival of “Hair,” which may or may not manage to hold on to its outdoor charms sufficiently to guarantee a healthy run at a conventional Broadway theater.

The question, of course, is 2010. What happens when all the limited runs close? More plays? Smaller musicals? Dark theaters? That’s all hard to predict, but I feel decently confident saying this (until New York City really suffers a monstrous financial collapse…which I’m certainly not ruling out): there will always be audiences for the big stuff on Broadway. The stuff that’s going to have a hard time of it is the stuff that maybe shouldn’t be there in the first place.

Spider-man.

I’m watching this very cautiously.

It seems like there is an easier, more obvious way to do this.

Taymor and them are even going to come up with something way more genius than we can imagine, or…this is going to effing suck.

In The Heights is Better Than You.

It’s an oldish video apparently, but I’m just seeing it.

People.

The world is completely different now.

I cannot express to you how beautiful this is to me.

Shrek. Yikes.

From The Post:

Last week, “Shrek” took in just $500,000, nearly $300,000 below the weekly overhead, sources say. The previous week the take was $600,000. Production sources are hoping for a pop during Presidents Day weekend, but nobody expects the grosses to climb back up to last month’s $1 million-a-week mark anytime soon, if ever.

This was what I feared: it’s a huge show, big overhead, not great reviews, and a cartoon icon a little past its freshness point.  I like the creatives, so I wanted (and want) it to do well, but at a time like this, the writing was always pretty clearly on the wall.

The Truth About The Shows That Closed, Part Two.

Here’s part two. Go back and read part one. I’m not linking it.

‘HAIRSPRAY,’ closed Sunday — Monster hit, and deservedly so. Spawned a far less successful retread (I mean Crybaby – and retread is unnecessarily harsh, sorry) and a not-nearly-as-good movie (although Amanda Bynes was super adorable, as always). Made $265 million on Broadway alone, not to mention the tours and everything else. Ran for six and a half years. You can certainly say that this show could have run longer in more ideal conditions (especially since they could bring in any number of stars {I saw George Wendt, Naturi Naughton, and Tevin Effing Campell} to keep it going), and you might be tempted to call it a victim, but it’s not the kind of victim you spend much time crying over. Tracy had a great run.

‘IRVING BERLIN’S WHITE CHRISTMAS,’ closed Sunday — Limited run, huge hit, possible future life. Exceeded expectations. No victim.

‘LIZA’S AT THE PALACE,’ closed Sunday — Limited run, big hit, extended twice. Could have run as long as the theater stayed available and her body could hold out, I’m sure. Still, I might call this one a slight victim; some weeks they only sold about 80% capacity when you might have expected this to be completely sold out. It’s a moneymaker though, and not a surprise closing — if anything, those two extensions buck the trend.

‘THE NEW MEL BROOKS MUSICAL YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN,’ closed Sunday — You can call this a victim, and it was, on some level. If the economy was better, it might not have closed. The writing had been on the since the Times review came out. The show’s troubled history has been well-documented, and the closing notice really came as no surprise. If this show is a victim of anything, it’s the success The Producers: all anyone wanted (and would accept) from it was to be as good or better as the biggest hit in recent Broadway history. It wasn’t. Still, they held on for over a year, and although they probably lost a ton of money (the show was astoundingly expensive to run each week), they’ve got a national tour announced for the fall. Closing was inevitable. Not a victim.

‘SLAVA’S SNOWSHOW,’ closed Sunday — This show didn’t sell all that well, from what I can tell, staying between 60-80% for much of its run. I’d say that they could have done better with more stability in the economy, but you definitely can’t say that the closing is a result of the economy: it was a limited run. This show had been successful Off-Broadway for years (and internationally for more than a decade), and the Broadway run probably didn’t break any financial backs. We can call it a moderate victim, and assume it won’t be back next year.

‘SPAMALOT,’ closes on Jan. 11. — $175 million dollars grossed. Recouped in six months. Ran for almost four years. Ongoing national tour with the kind of show that can pop in another name (Richard Chamberlain! Gary Beech! Clay Aiken!) and sell tickets in Cleveland and beyond. Certainly a victim — there’s no reason to believe that this show couldn’t have wrung out a few more years under ideal economic conditions — but not a particularly sad one.

‘SPRING AWAKENING,’ closes on Jan. 18. — I really should see this before it closes — I won’t get to, but I should. Somehow, this one flew entirely under the radar for me, even when it was the hottest show in town. You can imagine this show running longer, but then again, most folks wouldn’t have imagined it lasting this long in the first place, not to mention the national and international tours. It made its money back over a year ago, and was probably (speculation here) hurt somewhat by In The Heights and Passing Strange (although it’s hard to believe that the latter’s ticket sales put a dent in anybody’s profits). This is a victim, yes, but one that had already outperformed original expectations.

Let me take a second to explain why I think the outperformed expectations label is relevant. There’s this expectation in the United States that things can always grow, that business can always be better. It’s part of what got us into this whole economic mess in the first place. You can’t expect that every Broadway show is going to run forever. Shows close all the time — there are only so many ticket buyers to go around. So while it’s easy to say that all these shows would have stuck around without the economic downturn, it’s not realistic. Many, if not most, had long runs and were running their course. It’s impossible to say what would have happened otherwise, but it’s worth noting the shows that were financial successes when forced to shut down.

‘13,’ closed Sunday — If there’s a real victim in all this, I’d say it’s this show. In an ideal world, this show could have done exactly what it hoped to: capitalize on High School Musical and Hannah Montana and the entire tween culture of singing and dancing and precocious yet entirely chaste “rocking.” In an ideal world, they would have been the only such show in town (Wicked sort of fits that bill and Shrek might have bitten into that market, but Grease and Hairspray were a little too risque to really count), and they’d have tapped into the kind of repeat business that turns unassuming properties into monster megahits. But these aren’t ideal times, and the reviews weren’t great, and the buzz never got going. Tickets weren’t moving (around 50% capacity when they announced the closing date), and the kids just never started loving it the way they would have had to for the show to have legs. It’s hard to say that 13 would have been a huge hit (again, the reviews weren’t great, or to be more specific, the Times review wasn’t great), but it’s not at all difficult to imagine that it could.

So what have we learned? Some of these shows would have closed anyway. Some of these shows had long fruitful runs. Some of these shows were always planning to close, and some closed just a bit earlier than expected.

And what does that mean?  The hell if I know.

The Truth About The Shows That Closed.

The Times has a couple of articles about Sunday’s big Broadway closing day. Nine shows shut down (with more shutting down later this month). This is a bad thing, of course; you never want to see all those folks out-of-work, all those writers losing out on royalty checks. And yes, it’s a sign of the economic times; in the past, you’d never get nine shows closing in one day, not even in January. All that said, what did Broadway really lose this week, and what will it lose for the rest of the month?

For the purposes of this discussion, we’ll be avoiding the big financial impacts: the loss of jobs, the loss of rental income, and all the business related stuff which, truly, is unavoidable and the real sadness of this all. I’m interested purely in the shows right now. My list (and the links) come straight from the Isherwood article.

The Broadway shows closing this month:

‘ALL MY SONS,’ closes on Jan. 11. — Limited run from the start, which means it’s not closing early. Been playing to packed houses (96% in the last week of 2008), made back its investment, affirmed Katie Holmes as a bankable star (sort of), an unquestionable hit. Not a victim of the economy. Could have run a lot longer if the stars were available.

‘BOEING-BOEING,’ closed Sunday. — Made its money back. Outperformed expectations, in my opinion, making it to a partial replacement cast (including The Noxzema Girl, who was pretty good and very pretty {prettier than Natalie Portman [I've given it a lot of thought, and Ms. Portman just isn't pretty like people say she is, folks], I think} ). It’ll do well on tour. Mark Rylance reached the end of his contract,  and while they surely could have renegotiated, without him, the show would have run its course. An unqualified success. Maybe a bit of a victim, but certainly not a tragedy.

‘DIVIDING THE ESTATE,’ closed Sunday. I wasn’t a fan of this show personally, but it played to pretty full houses most (if not all) of its run. It was a Lincoln Center/Primary Stages production, which means (a) it was a not-for-profit venture, which changes the rules a bit, and (b) it was a limited run. It will move on to a run at Hartford Stage with the same cast (for the most part — Elizabeth Ashley moves on to August: Osage County). I’d call this one a success, and I’d say it’s not really a victim.

‘GREASE,’ closed Sunday — Let’s be honest about this Grease. It was all conceived as a reality show prize. It was tame, innocent, nothing like the overtly sexual and faux dangerous film (and full disclosure, I didn’t see this production, but saw enough performances at parades and other places to feel confident in my judgement), and still, it was Grease, which means it could make money in its sleep. I don’t think the Broadway production recouped (I could easily be wrong on that), but there’s a national tour with Taylor Hicks that should make a fortune. I won’t call this a hit, but it’s certainly not a disaster, and should make money. Probably a victim, but with an almost two-year run and the tour in progress, I wouldn’t cry for this one.

‘GYPSY,’ closes on Jan. 11. — Okay…here’s a victim. Sort of. This wasn’t a limited run show, but Patti Lupone’s contract was scheduled to end in March, and if she didn’t re-up, the show would have closed then. The only thing that matters with this show is the lead performance; it’s not a show you can recast. The decision to close in January was clearly a product of the economy, and proof that even the best reviews ever couldn’t necessarily save a show in times like these. I’m sure it didn’t make a ton of money, and it’s not likely to tour, but this certainly has to be considered an artistic success (I didn’t love it, but I saw it early). Still a clear victim — the first one so far.

And that seems like a good place to take a break. Part Two will follow…soon.

Old Small Plays.

(I thought I published this way back when, but it doesn’t look like I did.)

That’s what Terry Teachout is suggesting as a cure for what ails Broadway:

Nothing wrong with Noël Coward or Frank Loesser, but if producers are longing to stroll down memory lane, why not play it smarter — and cheaper? Like most theater buffs, I know plenty of high-quality small-cast plays that never made it to Broadway or haven’t been seen there for decades.

I think there’s an erroneous and really problematic assumption at the heart of this: that producers and audiences are somehow calling for revivals over new plays. When you remount a new show, it’s not the fact that it’s a revival that sells — it’s the name recognition of the show and/or the creators. Guys and Dolls is safe because it’s famous and beloved, not because it’s old.

If you’re a producer and you want to do a cheap play, do a cheap NEW play. Create stars. Market in new ways. Find your audience, give them something they haven’t seen before, and have them on your side for the future.

If you don’t know where to find those plays, e-mail me. I’m serious.