I don't know if it's complacent creatives or inertia, but it seems many out-of-town tryouts make few substantive changes.
One of the few exceptions that I actually witnessed was ''Memphis,'' which had 4 out-of-town tryouts before it got to New York.
I first saw it at TheatreWorks in Mountain View, Calif., in 2004. I enjoyed the show for the most part, but Act II was problematic and much too dark to complement the more entertaining Act I. Even so, I could tell from the audience's enthusiastic response that ''Memphis'' was a crowd-pleaser.
It would reappear in 2008 at the La Jolla Playhouse and then in 2009 at the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle.
I finally saw it again that fall of 2009 on Broadway, and there had been a lotta work done, especially in Act II. Old songs were thrown out. New ones added. And now they had found the right tone and found their audiences in New York … and went on to win the Tony for Best Musical. |
