Threaded Order Chronological Order
| 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 | |
|
|
|
| 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. |
|
| reply to this message |
| 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 | |
|
|
|
| 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? | |
| reply to this message |
| 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 | |
|
|
|
| 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. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| 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 | |
|
|
|
| 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. |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| 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 | |
|
|
|
| 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. |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| 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 | |
|
|
|
| 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. |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| 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 | |
|
|
|
| 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. |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| 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 | |
|
|
|
| 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. |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| 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 | |
|
|
|
| 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. |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| 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 | |
|
|
|
| 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. | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| 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 | |
|
|
|
| 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. |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| re: Agreed. | |
| Posted by: Phaedrusnyc 04:08 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
| In reply to: Agreed. - ShowGoer 03:38 pm EDT 03/17/22 | |
|
|
|
| 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. |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
| 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 | |
|
|
|
| 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. |
|
| reply to this message | reply to first message |
Time to render: 0.035606 seconds.