Threaded Order Chronological Order
| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: Phaedrusnyc 01:33 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: This could well be the death of Encores. - ShowGoer 08:26 am EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| NOTE: Sorry if you already saw this--it was unintentionally deleted and I was told to repost. I haven't seen it but my tickets are already bought, so, c'est la vie. I think what a lot of people are missing is that Encores has been forced into new parameters not only by the new creative team but by City Center's own mission, which came in the wake of the We See You manifesto. I am NOT going to comment on whether the mission change (or the manifesto) were "right" or "wrong" (nope, let someone else open that can of worms)--but they HAPPENED nonetheless. It is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to square the original Encores mission with the Commitment to Anti-Racism statement prominently displayed on the City Center site, or the agreement the three major Broadway chains have made in terms of representation on creative teams, etc. Not sure why Sondheim seems to be the one person whose shows are grandfathered in, but that's another story. I absolutely agree that they should have retired the Encores name for this. But if anyone thinks that City Centers can just do "original flavor" Encores after making a bunch of promises, they are mistaken. The PR fallout would be a nightmare. |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 04:55 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 04:43 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Phaedrusnyc 01:33 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| I don't think they were forced. This is the new leadership's interpretation of the mission and of their responsibility. There is nothing inherently racist about producing a semi-staged concert of the score of The Life as it was written and with a very trimmed down book to connect the dots. It is not at all impossible to square the original Encores mission with the Commitment to Anti-Racism. This was not the only way. Not all things written before 2019, or all things written by white people, are racist or a reflection of racism. |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 04:31 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Phaedrusnyc 01:33 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| The commitment to anti-racism doesn’t necessarily mean tossing out everything that’s not Sondheim. Broadway is attempting to answer a very specific labor imbalance, in which creative teams are overwhelmingly White (and male). For example, in the 18/19 season, out of 153 possible design contracts, only 13 went to BIPOC designers. | |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: Phaedrusnyc 04:41 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Singapore/Fling 04:31 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| You seem to have gotten the impression that I'm anti- anti-racism which couldn't be further from the truth. Measures need to be taken. But it does, in fact, leave something like Encores in a bit of a bind considering that these trends have been ongoing for a hundred years and there just isn't a large volume of historical work to revive that doesn't have that labor balance built in. Hence, completely reworking things that did not feature the contributions of nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males when they were being created. | |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Last Edit: Singapore/Fling 05:25 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 05:23 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Phaedrusnyc 04:41 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| I said nothing of the kind. I simply pointed out that your statement that this treatment of past work was REQUIRED by anti-racism work is an extreme view when the commitment on behalf of Broadway producers is about diverse creative teams, which is much larger than just the writers of an old show. It’s a simple idea: hire more BIPOC creatives. |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: Phaedrusnyc 05:31 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Singapore/Fling 05:23 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| And again, I ask how you propose to do that on shows where the creative team made the thing thirty or more years ago, unless you bring in people to completely supplant their work? I can't be the only person wondering this, since Encores just DID this. Twice. In one season. You can't just hire a director or set designer on an old work and think that their creative contribution is somehow going to overwrite the actual text of a show. Hell, they tried to do this with the Fish "Oklahoma!" and many, many people felt his staging of it clashed with the words being said and the songs being sung. In that case, I BELIEVE he was intentionally setting out to disquiet, and he succeeded if that was his intent. But City Center isn't trying to jar its audience; it's trying to make new narratives out of old scraps. And so far the reviews don't suggest they've succeeded. |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 06:18 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 06:03 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Phaedrusnyc 05:31 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| Re: Fish's Oklahoma... many people thought his direction clashed with the text... and MANY did not, including a lot of ticket buyers, critics, and awards committees, like the Tony Awards. (i'm not weighing in either way, that's irrelevant... though if i were asked I'd say I loved some of it and also really didn't not love some of it) I don't think it's worth comparing that with Billy Porter's The Life. I think it's also fair to say that given Porter's very limited experience as a writer or director (outside of his off-bway musical he wrote about his life as a performer, and directing Sam Harris's one man show) .... he may have taken on WAY WAY too much with doing The Life at Encores with such short rehearsal time as a director let alone directing a musical that doesn't work, let alone a musical that doesn't work that's been heavily and haphazardly and massively rewritten ... let alone being rewritten BY the inexperienced director trying to mount and stage it. It's a lot for anyone just re-writing or just directing it, let alone with limited experience in either job, and very little time (including no time to see if the changes work really). That doesn't make him bad or bad for trying necessarily, but it is also presumably, nay, observably, an element at play that is clearly working against him being able to pull this off. And I would say it does make Lear "bad" for letting him/hiring him to do alllll of that with/to The Life for the Encores series. She should respect the mission but also respect the show, but also respect Billy and the performers, designers, and respect the AUDIENCE more and not put them all in the position of this playing out this way in this limited time. Encores is not a series for audience guinea pigs for new visions of old shows people wish were different shows than they are. But IF they were going to do this, it should have been in the Off-Center format, and it should have been properly workshop beforehand. (but I still say we, and musical, have the right to see the score celebrated and performed the way Encores has always done, without it being an experiment in condemning, apologizing and reinventing/repurposing the show) |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 06:25 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Chazwaza 06:03 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| I will be surprised if Lear survives this season. Her only hope is if ITW is a smash hit for them, and even that might not be enough. | |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 06:33 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Singapore/Fling 06:25 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| I can't wait to see what she decides was wrong with Into the Woods ... | |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: PlazaBoy 06:37 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Chazwaza 06:33 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| Ha! You got a true lol out of me on that one. : ) | |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 05:42 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Phaedrusnyc 05:31 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| Lear and her team are staking out an extreme view that these old shows aren’t fit for public consumption. That is a separate issue from the industry’s commitment to hire more BIPOC artists. How do we do the latter? Well, “Funny Girl” has two BIPOC choreographers. It would be nice if more creatives on that show were BIPOC, but it’s a start. Not everything has to be a bold explosion of a classic in order to be better serving anti-racism principles; BIPOC folk like the Golden Age musicals, too. |
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| work by any combo of "nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males" is valid also | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 05:01 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 04:48 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Phaedrusnyc 04:41 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| It's exhausting this idea that unless all voices of all "types" of peoples are involved then work is automatically tainted and rotten at its core, and the only solution is to throw it into a vault of theater history or to have someone(s) who are specifically nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males reinvent and repurpose and massively rewrite it. This is not the only way forward or only way to address the imbalance in Broadway creative and producing teams that has been so prevalent in the past and also the present. Musicals written and produced by white people don't need to be vilified, or even in most cases dismantled, to fix the balance. Acknowledging the intense imbalance, and lamenting the very lamentable fact of the whiteness and largely maleness of the people behind the majority of all of Broadway musical history (and I assume we are considering Jews to be "white", even though of course they aren't the same kind of "white" ethnically or culturally and were absolutely in a different position in society when the Broadway musical was born and raised, it's not as if Broadway musicals were the specific art form of white British Christians)... that doesn't mean that all the work done by those creators and producers is bad and wrong and toxic and violent etc, and any art created in a work where racism infected (and still infects) all aspects of our society is to be seen as racist. Some of it may be problematic, some of it may be racially ignorant or insensitive in its existence or some of the writing, and hey, even some may be racist and those shows don't need to be saved or need to be fixed if they're otherwise worth saving. But these blanket statements and applications of headlines to everything written before now or by white people or male people being bad ... isn't good. And the fact that for so long white people have been the vast majority writing and directing on broadway doesn't mean that what they wrote is automatically bad or racist, it means it was produced within a system that favored (knowing or unknowingly, respective to these creators of the past), whiteness (be it in the artist or the subject or the audience), and what is really bad is that we don't have more musicals written by people of all races, and directed and produced by people of all races. That is where the energy should be going to fixing. |
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| re: work by any combo of "nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males" is valid also | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 07:56 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 07:53 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: work by any combo of "nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males" is valid also - Chazwaza 04:48 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| In re-reading my own post, I want to be clear when i said: "lamenting the very lamentable fact of the whiteness and largely maleness of the people behind the majority of all of Broadway musical history" i do not mean to lament their race or gender, but just that it was the vast majority. It's the majority aspect I find lamentable. Any given writer(s) being white or being male or being both is not inherently lamentable nor should it be seen that way... I mean the way "white and male" so vastly outnumbers "not white" and/or "not male" ... I don't want to be seen as reinforcing the idea i'm arguing against! Breaking down our identity as points or ammo is not good. It is, instead, lamentable that there were so few creators and producers who were female or people of non-white races. And I also want to clarify when I say "it's not as if Broadway musicals were the specific art form of white British Christians" I mean that Broadway musicals did start mainly out with Jewish immigrants and children of Jewish immigrants in New York. That's not good or bad it's just true. It doesn't mean non-Jewish people haven't contributed massively to the form and that it hasn't changed and grown and expanded etc. But I think when we discuss "white people" and "whiteness" in the context only of society today, we leave out how differently Jews and "white" immigrants were treated than WASPS and that kind of white people. (I think now people would think of Mother and Father's family in Ragtime, but they'd include Tateh and the Jewish immigrants in that as well when they say "white" as a blanket term, and it's just not accurate to the time.) We are also leaving out class structure and class discrimination etc, which is very real too. I find this to be the narrow understanding more of younger people today than all people but i hate to generalize ;) Anyway. ... |
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| re: work by any combo of "nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males" is valid also | |
| Last Edit: Delvino 07:28 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| Posted by: Delvino 07:25 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: work by any combo of "nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males" is valid also - Chazwaza 04:48 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| I read this thoughtful post twice before returning to comment and suspect that you’ve clearly articulated a point of view many share - including artists of color - but are trepidatious about voicing. A female African - American playwright friend frames this strained effort at retroactive revision as misapplied white guilt tinged with virtue signaling: watching savvy theater professionals become apologists for the white privilege-determined canon. She argues that we learn far more through productions that hold a prism up to the era of the text creation. This is obviously not about inclusive casting or interpretive creatives but about honoring the originals’ integrity; as a result audiences witness both theater and cultural history, what prior generations got wrong, but without issuing externally - and subjectively - applied corrections. No rigid rules for these new interpretations will solve the conundrum in creating theatrical revival that satisfies everyone (the last Porgy and Bess comes to mind; remember that heated debate?) but collaborative artists may find that only new work ideally serves a singular artistic vision representing the moment. Yet we need revivals as much as we need to re-experience texts that would not be written today. Hopefully, we’ll find a balance. Your post is a keeper, Chazwaza. |
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| re: work by any combo of "nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males" IS VALID ALSO | |
| Posted by: JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 05:06 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: work by any combo of "nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males" is valid also - Chazwaza 04:48 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| Encores! would not be the place for it, but I would very much be interested if someone wanted to bankroll Billy Porter spearheading a new theatre piece, inspired by THE LIFE, about prostitutes and pimps in the Times Square of the late 70's/early 80's. Have him assemble a team and create something entirely new that, ultimately, may or may not bear much resemblance to THE LIFE. Have him acknowledge THE LIFE and its creators in a program note while talking about how he was inspired by them to tell this story in a different way that speaks more and better to him. I came up in a theatre tradition that said that the director and actors were there to serve the writer(s)' vision and serve the play. And I've always felt that, if you don't like the play, do another play that you do like. Or write you own play and say exactly what you want to say in it. This whole idea of "We're going to rewrite the play and make it say what WE want it to say" just strikes me as wrong. If red happens to be your favorite color, would you repaint the Mona Lisa's dress to be red...or might you instead look for another piece of art that already features red? Or paint your own painting and use as much red as you so desire? |
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| re: work by any combo of "nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males" IS VALID ALSO | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 05:20 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 05:13 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: work by any combo of "nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males" IS VALID ALSO - JereNYC 05:06 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| What you described in your first paragraphs sounds very much like what people who've seen it say he did at Encores this week. I'm not sure why he has to acknowledge THE LIFE at all, or use any part of it. He should absolutely make a new show of some kind that endeavors to tell stories and portray people who were sex workers and in that community in Times Sq in the early 80s. He can even do it as a response to having been asked about doing The Life (a show he has a history with as an actor, he says it was the first show he auditioned for, and was part of the development readings... so surely he's had opinions about it for decades now). It is also a show with some very big roles for lots of poc performers, and won two of them Tonys, and has a score that is quite sensational at least in places... so I can see why any black broadway performer would be aware of this show and have opinions and dreams about what it was or should have been or could possibly be if revised... But also he doesn't need The Life to do a show about this subject. The Life is not some famous musical that is seen as, previous to this reworking, THE historical document or THE piece of theater that gives us that place and time. It is not looked to (or looked at, cause no one produces it) or deferred to in any way in theater world or larger entertainment world... So why even bring it up? If you like the score but hate the show, do a concert of the score... or just do a new show that hopefully CAN be a produceable and authentic expression of that time and those people. And I'm sure several theaters would have given him some space and money to spearhead that, especially given the height of his fame (and therefor his power as a household name artist and someone with a big platform on tv and social media) is from starring in and winning awards in a show that takes place in nyc in the early 80s, and with many sex workers, especially queer poc sex workers. He's having and has been having a big moment, he should seize that to do an original show he'd like to see out there. I'd love to see him do that. |
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| re: work by any combo of "nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males" IS VALID ALSO | |
| Posted by: Phaedrusnyc 05:00 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: work by any combo of "nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males" is valid also - Chazwaza 04:48 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| I don't recall ever saying any of that. It's pretty amazing that my comments are, on the one hand, being considered evidence that I am anti black and anti gay by Singapore while at the same time they're being considered anti white and anti straight by you. What does that tell us about how much people seem to project their own willingness to be pissed off onto strangers on the Internet? |
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| re: work by any combo of "nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males" IS VALID ALSO | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 05:05 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 05:04 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: work by any combo of "nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males" IS VALID ALSO - Phaedrusnyc 05:00 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| I didn't call you anti-white or anti-straight. And I'm sorry if it came off as that. I'm just going off your sentence " Hence, completely reworking things that did not feature the contributions of nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males when they were being created." I'm sorry if I misread the intention there as agreeing with Encores that shows that fit into that description (aka maybe 85%+ of broadway musicals) need to be reworked if they're to be produced (even in concert format). |
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| re: work by any combo of "nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males" IS VALID ALSO | |
| Posted by: Phaedrusnyc 05:08 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: work by any combo of "nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males" IS VALID ALSO - Chazwaza 05:04 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| I'm speaking to how Encores is specifically dealing with the conundrum, which, this season has been to A. resurrect one unbeloved show about a Black family and have creators of color rework it to the point where they didn't even provide bios of the original creative team in the Playbill and B. Resurrect another show with no creators of color involved and ask a creator of color to redo THAT. I have been pretty careful to neither condemn nor endorse the action that they took. But it's obvious that that is their current tact. Whether you think it's correct or not is your opinion and you have a right to it . But simply acknowledging facts that are prima facie evident is not an expression of an opinion. |
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| re: work by any combo of "nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males" IS VALID ALSO | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 05:16 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: work by any combo of "nonwhite, nonstraight, non cisgender males" IS VALID ALSO - Phaedrusnyc 05:08 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| I'm with you there. Though I am a bit, at this point, more willing to sprinkle in some condemnation, if not at the intention or spirit of the intention... then at the execution, or what the execution retroactively tells us about the limits of or holes in their plan/intention/mission, and the misguided nature of this being the new mission of Encores specifically. |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 02:18 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Phaedrusnyc 01:33 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| Could Encores! commitment to anti-racism happen strictly with hiring creatives and cast? I mean, what if they did some forgotten Cole Porter or Rodgers and Hart musical with a fully integrated cast and non-white representation on the creative team? | |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: 37Rubydog 03:16 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - JereNYC 02:18 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| It strikes me that they've already achieved the casting aspect. I recall seeing the re-revival of "Call Me Madam" and my misguided friend how Nikki James could be Mark Evan's sister. | |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Last Edit: Phaedrusnyc 03:12 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| Posted by: Phaedrusnyc 02:59 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - JereNYC 02:18 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| Possibly? Probably? But could you do just "THAT" without it being considered tokenism? Hard to say. The relevant part seems to be, "By working alongside and compensating BIPOC artists, curators, advisors, and consultants to participate in the decision-making process, we will broaden the thinking behind our public-facing activity by engaging professionals who bring a wide range of perspectives and experiences to the discussion." To me, it's the "perspectives and experiences" part that matters, not the "Compensating." The whole explanation behind Billy Porter being called in on this show and the new mandate of "productions where artists reclaim work for our time through their own personal lens" requires that BIPOC artists be allowed to "engage" with the material (which, for all intents and purposes, requires altering it). |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Last Edit: ShowGoer 02:11 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| Posted by: ShowGoer 02:07 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Phaedrusnyc 01:33 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| Well, then they need to decide which is more of a nightmare: a) the PR fallout from breaking supposed promises about anti-racism, or b) the PR fallout from audiences mostly hating the shows and not buying tickets, the latter of which will almost certainly result in c) the demise of Encores, which is where this thread started. I think you make good points, and am sure all you say is true to a degree – but that said, everyone seems to be under the impression that there was also a commitment, as well as pressure being brought to bear, regarding having more success with ticket sales... and much as you say in your own post, I'd argue it's even more impossible to square the mission of getting more butts in the seats with alienating your core constituency of theater lovers and not luring in many new ones by doing shows few have heard of, which didn't have large followings to begin with, in revisions that bare scant resemblance to the original versions and are by all accounts nearly unanimously worse. I also don't see why they can't have it both ways; perhaps, do 2 out of 3 shows the way they were written originally, and maybe do 1 show with a less drastic but still somewhat new angle (Encores "Off Center" already tried something like this with a rewritten version of Lippa's Wild Party – not one of their finer efforts, but sandwiched inbetween the worthy "Runaways" and the rapturously received revival of "Little Shop of Horrors" – the latter a true event precisely because, in addition to Jake Gyllenhaal, it recreated an original star performance from a quarter-century earlier, from Ellen Green.). If next season represents largely a return to form and format, perhaps they can retain some of their subscribers and the series can yet be saved; but if in the name of representation next season is announced as consisting of, say, a downbeat production of "Raisin" that removes any comedy, a version of "Bring in 'da Noise" that de-emphasizes the tap dancing, and a production of "Man of La Mancha" featuring public school children, I think it's safe to say that no one need bother showing up to work since there'll be hardly any people showing up to watch. The competing impulses must be dizzying, but they're clearly going to have to make some tough decisions, because whatever they were hoping to achieve, this clearly isn't working for them, and was never the way to go about it. |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: Phaedrusnyc 02:53 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - ShowGoer 02:07 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| Agree with all your points; just trying to add some context. It goes back to my original question, though, of "why 'The Life'?" Why pick someone no one was hotly anticipating just to do a tear down on it? Why revive it at all if you think it's THAT problematic? Here's my GUESS: they decided to do "The Life" for the usual Encores reasons; they thought, "Billy Porter is a name, we should ask him!"; Billy Porter said, "Yeah, I'll do it, but ONLY if I can change it." Then they had the choice between saying, "Yes, that would be great!" or "No, absolutely not." And the second choice would then have left them with a very outspoken person who was just told "No" and would likely share that news with his public. If anything this may be a learning experience about making sure the person you're asking to work on something is someone who actually likes the thing he's being asked to work on. I think what the braintrust on this board has concluded (and I agree), is that threading this needle with something that has a long history and well-known name like Encores is going to be a major task, if not an unsolvable one. You want ticket sales for moribund properties AND you want to pretend that the people most likely to buy those tickets are not the ones who care about the unsung musicals of musical history and are going to be unhappy with the changes. Seems insane from a marketing perspective and it seems like, in hindsight, they should have made "Hey, Look Me Over" the swan song for "Encores" and announced a new theater series and called it whatever they wanted to. |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 04:34 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Phaedrusnyc 02:53 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| That’s a terrible guess and does not mirror how Porter has talked about the process. How’s this for a guess: Encores decided to produce this for some reason other than they were afraid of a loud Black gay man? | |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: Phaedrusnyc 04:57 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Singapore/Fling 04:34 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| Porter has repeatedly said that he would only have accepted the job if he were allowed to change the show. That's from his own statements. i didn't even imply "Encores decided to produce this because they were afraid of a loud Black gay man." My first sentence says that Encores likely decided to the show before he was even approached. Not sure why you're trying to turn this into "guy on the Internet is a racist homophobe," but enjoy yourself. | |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 05:31 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Phaedrusnyc 04:57 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| Please read your words again and let me know how they don’t imply Encores! did this out of fear of Porter: they decided to do "The Life" for the usual Encores reasons; they thought, "Billy Porter is a name, we should ask him!"; Billy Porter said, "Yeah, I'll do it, but ONLY if I can change it." Then they had the choice between saying, "Yes, that would be great!" or "No, absolutely not." And the second choice would then have left them with a very outspoken person who was just told "No" and would likely share that news with his public. See? You put Encores! in the imaginary position of having to do the show out of some kind of publicity blackmail from Porter. His status as gay and Black, and how this correlates to the stereotypes of “loud Black people”, are all wrapped up in his identity. Perhaps you might choose your words more carefully in the future. |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: Phaedrusnyc 05:39 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Singapore/Fling 05:31 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| Your own quote starts with "They decided to do "The Life" for the usual Encores reasons" so I am not apologizing for the fact that you're inventing strawmen, sorry. You could have substituted any of a number of names for Billy Porter who are neither gay nor black but are outspoken (never said "loud" either, but the villain you've created in your head did, I guess) and it would have meant the same exact thing. If you don't think it would be incredibly bad publicity to make an offer to someone and then retract it when they say they want to contribute creatively, then I don't know what to tell you. You just decided that since Billy Porter is gay and Black that clearly my issue is that I am afraid of or disturbed by gay, Black men. Good for you. You demolished an argument by making it about something that was not said. And that is completely untrue. As I said to the other person in this thread it's very interesting that the two of you are both angry about two entirely contradictory things you've each decided I am. Which to me says that I'm on the right track as far as presenting a neutral argument, here. |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 06:26 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 06:24 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Phaedrusnyc 05:39 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| As the other person, again, I haven't decided you are anything. (and my post that you're referring to, which, again, was a response to the words you said, was more a response to producers or people who think the thing you said they think ... it wasn't an attack on you for neutrally presenting what they think or have said about producing theater or at this theater or this show. Consider that I'm telling "them" that the work of white and/or male people is also valid, not you specifically). I was about to agree with you here, but what's the point. |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 05:50 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Phaedrusnyc 05:39 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| Dude, you are spinning yourself into a torment of your own making. As for your quote, you’re saying that you think Encores committed to this vision because of their fear of being burned by - call him outspoken, call him loud - Billy Porter. The rest of your waddabouts are just window dressing to your fantasy that they folded the moment Porter came back to them with the goal of radically changing the show. |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 06:48 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 06:42 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Singapore/Fling 05:50 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| While I don't personally think at all that this is how it played out, if for no other reason than because Lear has made it CLEAR that Billy's designs for the show and his demand of rewriting it are very much in line with what she sees for producing at Encores... But I also do not think it's out of the line or out of the realm of reality that IF they had wanted Billy to direct The Life (assuming it would be clear they meant the show written in 1997, or even the version revised by the authors after that -- since that is the normal way of it at Encores) and he said yes but only if he can massively change it *because* he thinks it's the big magic P word, problematic, that they would feel worried that to then take their offer back (because they weren't intending to or prepared to be producing a huge reimagining of the show, which is quite a reasonable issue) would risk Billy saying publicly on his enormous platform that Encores wants to do show with many black sex worker characters, and offered for him to direct it, but when he said he'd need to make it un-problematic and his new better vision, that they rescinded their offer ... yes, that would look very bad to the woke social media warriors and probably even non-warriors. That doesn't mean Billy wouldn't be in his rights to say that, or that Encores wouldn't be in their rights to take back their offer (since he didn't want the job they were actually offering) and to hire a director interested in doing the score as written ... and it doesn't mean that "wokeness" is bad. But all those things combined, in that situation... could certainly scare a producer who wishes they'd never offered it to someone with that platform who now is unhappy with their revival happening and sees it as problematic. I don't think acknowledging this potential reality is the same as a racist bemoaning a black gay person using their voice (as a black person or as a gay person or both). Also, in the age of social media, if you have a lot of eyes on you and what you say there, anything you said is said, for all intents and purposes, "loudly"... it's like whispering into a megaphone. It doesn't matter if you "whispered" or yelled... it will echo far and wide and have a lot of eyes on it... eyes who often (not always or exclusively but often) love headlines. Lots of things, good and bad things, get taken out of context or misunderstood this way as well. It's the reality of social media, and media in general, regardless of racism issues or wokeness etc. That being said, you're certainly within your rights to address how the poster's post read to you, and why. And I am not the poster nor do I know them, so I can't speak to their real intentions, but the post didn't read quite the same way to me. |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 09:43 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Chazwaza 06:42 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| I think that's fair. I also think that the other poster was unaware of the words they were using and how they played into certain stereotypes, and I take them at their word that they meant no harm. It is though, as you say, a rather far fetched scenario, but I guess no crazier than a lot of what gets tossed around on this board. |
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| re: This could well be the death of Encores. | |
| Posted by: Phaedrusnyc 05:52 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Singapore/Fling 05:50 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| No, I'm responding to someone who decided I "implied" something that is nowhere in the text and is going to continue arguing it. So, I'm going to take the advice my mother once gave me. "If someone is clearly looking for a fight, don't give them the satisfaction of getting one." No more comment from me--you enjoy your day. | |
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| Agreed. | |
| Last Edit: ShowGoer 03:43 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| Posted by: ShowGoer 03:38 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: re: This could well be the death of Encores. - Phaedrusnyc 02:53 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| All well said, though again, given the ticket sales for even a few of the better-known titles in the now-paused off-Broadway Encores summer series, I don't know that the audiences are there for the kind of new renamed series you suggest... at least not for weeklong runs at the 2750-seat City Center. I just don't think there are 25,000 theater fans of any stripe in any given week who'll be eager to see revisions of problematic or dated musicals being essentially workshopped at Broadway ticket prices. Not to mention that the short rehearsal period would make these kinds of revisions tough to pull off even if the material enters in great shape on day one... and as we've seen last month and this week, if there are any issues with the new concepts or dramaturgy that aren't solved by the time they get to an audience, then having only one run-through before opening to critics and crowds makes it impossible to course-correct. So this mission, at this venue, regardless of what the series is called, seems impractical at best and, as you say, likely unsolvable. (By the way, Billy Porter has always wanted to be a director, going back to his all-black Sondheim revue of 15 years ago or so, initially called "Black Sondheim", then in various incarnations, "Mixed Company", and finally "Being Alive". MY suspicion is that he loved the score and, after not having been cast in it, always remembered it – but always felt that there was a way to square a darker take on the subject matter with Coleman's generally sunny tunes. That conceit sounded risky and uncertain from the get-go to me, and there may be people out there who yet get more out of this than I and many others apparently have... but my guess is that germ of an idea has been simmering under the surface with him for years now, even if it only became reality when City Center approached him. AND rather than feeling like they were obligated to go along with him for political reasons, the people at Encores were probably excited about it; why wouldn't they have been, if they were also receptive and eager for Lydia Diamond and Kenny Leon to move The Tap Dance Kid from the 1980s to the 1950s, lose most of the comedy, and completely make a mess of the most memorable character from the original production of that one?) But either way, you're certainly right that they're definitely having a very public and painful learning experience, even if I would say it's less about specific personalities, and more about best intentions & ambitions bumping up against the cold hard reality of mounting a significantly new major production in New York City with this budget and in this timeframe. It was never bound to serve anyone well, least of all the musical scores that are ostensibly the reason for conceiving the whole series 30 years ago in the first place. |
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| re: Agreed. | |
| Posted by: Phaedrusnyc 04:08 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: Agreed. - ShowGoer 03:38 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| It's funny, because it puts me in mind of a similar difficulty the world of comic books and "genre" movie franchises faces on these issues. (And I acknowledge the overlap in the Venn diagram between comics geeks and theater geeks is probably rather small so feel free to ignore my bloviating here.) But in both cases you're talking about a medium facing the reality of an audience that is increasingly niche, increasingly aging, and like it or not, in a historically narrow demographic. And, in both cases, they are attempting to broaden the audience by appealing to diverse people and experiences (which is worthy) and playing with the format of the medium (which is also worthy), but in both cases they are also dealing with a core audience that often rejects even the most minor changes being made in service of that goal. In comic books, the constant catch-22 is that it is believed that no one will buy a comic with a "new" character in the title, so they use the old titles and swap in new, more representative characters in the lead role. And then the core audience (specifically the core audience that is highly resistant to change) freaks out, very few new customers are captured, and they end up replacing the replacement characters with the original characters--the same characters that were narrowly representative of the country to begin with. The cycle always goes, "Why are you making this character who was always a white guy something other than a white guy; just create a new character!" then "nobody wants to buy that book because it's a new character," and on and on. And the prices keep going up because the consumer base is shrinking. Musical theater, in its lesser reliance on established intellectual property, has navigated this better on the main stage--regardless of how you feel about them, shows like "Hamilton," "Evan Hansen," "Six," etc., are bringing in younger people (though not necessarily super-diverse younger people, given the cost of a ticket). But it's still a reality that revivals and shows based on known IP are a good bet. No one wants to give up revivals as a source of revenue, but they also want to broaden the audience at the same time they are actively alienating part of the core audience. Encores is nothing BUT revivals, and specifically, very short-term and (until recently) obscure revivals. My usual argument is "We don't need to do another 'Carousel' if 'Carousel' is going to upset so many people." Or ANYTHING we consider, at best, old-fashioned and, at worst, actively offensive. But producers can't seem to navigate a world where shows are ever retired, and certainly the estates who are still trying to make money decades after the actual creators died (thanks, Sonny Bono) aren't going to hear of that, either. I wish I were smart enough to solve the issue for either of these media but I'm just stuck on message boards commenting on how difficult it seems to be to expand audiences while A. not losing an equal number of audiences and B. not making a total artistic mess of things. |
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| re: Agreed. | |
| Last Edit: Chazwaza 03:01 am EDT 03/18/22 | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 02:59 am EDT 03/18/22 | |
| In reply to: re: Agreed. - Phaedrusnyc 04:08 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
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| But consider, about revivals, that there is a LOUD minority who don't want anything old fashioned or that they see as offensive, or even more strictly, written or for a time before wokeness... they are not the majority of ticket buyers. Lots of ticket buyers still want to see those shows, lots of ticket buyers love beautifully restored and staged classic gems, and reinvented new visions (that don't massively rewrite and overhaul the text/score). Also, Encores hasn't only been obscure shows for awhile. I mean even when they did Chicago... Encores began in 1994, and Chicago was done in 1996. The musical itself had only closed on Broadway 19 years prior, after a run of over 2 years. So it's not as if it were some obscure show no one had ever heard of. It definitely fit the bill of an under-appreciated gem that many audiences of the day would never have had a chance to see, with a score very worthy of an "Encores treatment". I mean, their first production was Fiorello... which VERY much fit the bill of being tragically unknown to most modern audiences, rarely performed etc... and at least it was from the 50s (36 years old in 1994)... but it also had won the Pulitzer and Tony for Best Musical. So even then some might have said they were pushing the concept of under-appreciated by picking a show which at the time was 1 of 6 musicals to ever win a Pulitzer. There's next production, Allegro, was even more THE perfect choice for Encores. And that "perfect for Encores" streak continued until their 9th production with Chicago. But they did Wonderful Town in 2000, Hair in 2001, The Pajama Game in 2002, Bye Bye Birdie in 2004, Follies in 2007, the revised Merrily in 2012 (the fact that they didn't do the original, to me, flies completely in the face of the reason to do it at Encores, but hey)... So that aspect of their mission, or how it's interpreted, has been malleable since the beginning. And let's not forget, they have to make money too. But what has always been true is that they do not reinvent and rewrite the shows -- they do basically the original score, with original orchestrations if possible, and a paired down version of the book. Only in rare cases like Merrily where the show has been rewritten by the living author prior to Encores selection did they do actual rewrites. |
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