Threaded Order Chronological Order
| 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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