Theatre Lover's Journal
Are Revivals Killing The Musical Theatre?
by John Kenrick
(This letter appeared in the New York Times Arts & Leisure Section on
September 13th – the text below includes some comments the Times omitted.)
In "A Crowd of Old
Musicals Squeezes the New," the lead article in the August 15th edition of
the Sunday New York Times Arts & leisure section, columnist Anthony Tommasini claimed
that successful revivals of old musicals on Broadway reduce the number of new musicals
coming in. Moreover, he stated that a preoccupation with established shows could lead to
the kind of obsession with the past that now dominates opera and other forms of classical
music.
To an extent, his arguments make sense. However, the real
reason why there are so few new musicals making it to Broadway is because few good ones
are being written. I can hear the righteous screams: "Not true! I know lots of great
talents out there writing shows that can’t get a hearing!" I always ask people
who claim there is great Broadway-quality stuff being written to give me names and
specifics, and they never can.
As someone who spent years reviewing the scripts and demos
submitted to Broadway producers, I can tell you that 99.99% of the new musicals being
written today are pretty damn awful. Of course, that’s nothing new. Even in the
1950’s, when every season brought a new set of hits, every season also brought a
dozen or more that failed, as well as hundreds of scripts that landed (usually with good
reason) in the trash bin.
Mr. Tommasini holds forth Rent as an example of
shows that can’t get a hearing. Well, anyone who works in the theatre can tell you
that Rent was one of a kind – there is no army of Jonathan Larsons out there
awaiting discovery, anymore than there were a dozen equals of Richard Rodgers who never
got recognition a half century ago.
The fact remains that good shows do get produced. When
Mr. Tommasini complains that Jonathan Larson turned out musicals for 15 years without
recognition, he neglects to mention (or probably doesn’t even know) that
Jonathan’s work during those years was not Broadway-caliber. I saw three of Mr.
Larson’s pre-Rent shows, and they were highly experimental works that would
have had little appeal to Broadway audiences. When Tommasini suggests that Floyd
Collins or Violet deserved but did not get Broadway runs, I would ask if these
shows had something that would draw 1,200 people a night willing to pay $75 a ticket.
More to the point, would Mr. Tommasini pay $75 for them?
We will never know. Critics like Mr. Tommasini don’t pay for theatre tickets –
they get complimentary admission to everything they see. Consequently, they forget that
when you add parking and dinner to the ticket price, two people seeing a Broadway show can
easily cost over $200. At those prices, who wants a so-so show?
Is the musical becoming an out-of-date art form like grand
opera? It’s possible. Cultural tastes have changed, and the musical may not fit the
trends of the new century. Whether or not this is so, blaming the dearth of new musicals
on the successful revivals of old shows is pointless. Good new projects are not being
edged out – there simply are not many of them.
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