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| re: Brown's seventh Broadway outing | |
| Posted by: ryhog 07:33 pm EST 12/24/22 | |
| In reply to: re: Brown's seventh Broadway outing - Chazwaza 06:09 pm EST 12/24/22 | |
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| You say a lot of things. I'll react to a few. I don't think it is very productive to (a) make lists, (b) focus on whether people need to work or not, or (c) debate JRB's musicianship. So.... 1. At LCT, successful musicals generally run at the Beaumont. (The Public is not a comparable situation nor, really, is anything else.) 2. Parade's run was a respectable run of a non-profit show. It did not transfer because it had run its course. The question now is whether it can transform itself into a commercial show that will run for 32 weeks or more. I'm skeptical because I don't think it is commercial but I'm happy if they can make it work. 3. I also don't know why he has not had a hit other than the fact that none of his scores have been able to overcome whatever has prevented the shows from failing. 4. Actually, in this context, I'd say Best Score IS "nothing." 5. Your last paragraph maybe says a lot whether you realize it or not. Not everyone's work is successful commercially even though it is successful non-commercially. This is true in every art form that has a commercial component. I think you may also be speaking truth when you say he is interested in commercial because he needs to pay bills. Lots of writers are; most do not get anywhere near as close as Brown has. But maybe this is a part of the answer to my #3. |
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| re: Brown's seventh Broadway outing | |
| Posted by: Chazwaza 08:32 pm EST 12/25/22 | |
| In reply to: re: Brown's seventh Broadway outing - ryhog 07:33 pm EST 12/24/22 | |
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| Yes, I knew what i was saying. :) I think the fact that Brown became largely compelled by chasing potential financial success, rather than just what sang to him or that he felt passionately about has both impacted the work he can do for a show, and the shows he chose to do work on, and the time he has. I think being able to only take projects that you want to for the art of it is a different career than when you literally need to pay the bills, and the shows you already wrote don't bring you enough to do that consistently/forever without writing more that will. That being said, being independently wealthy or secure doesn't dictate talent or what one does with it -- some of our greatest artists and thinkers came from extraordinary privilege, and some of them came from extraordinary adversity, and the inverse too. In #1, i assume you mean that if a musical opens in the Beaumont and is a success, it will keep running rather than close at its schedule end date? Yes, that's true, and it's an incredibly unique situation to LCT and their set-up and their finances. Many good musicals have run at LCT, either in the Beaumont or the Mitzi that have not had life longer than a few months. But very few shows that opened at the Mitzi transfer to the Beaumont or to a Broadway house. And I think even insofar as they are reviewed and received has a lot to do with the way they are presented, as if to say "we decided this one wasn't for broadway", and the energy, the marketing, the reviews, the audiences, I think in many ways receive them that way more often than not. So we can never know if A New Brain or Dessa Rose or Bernarda Alba or A Man of No Importance or Sarafina or whatever would have been a hit or had a longer run/bigger response had they been put in the Beaumont and treated like a Broadway production. (this is true of plays too, but it's more common for a play to start there and move). Parade also didn't transfer, I thought, because of Garth's business issues... no? I don't think it was a clear cut "it ran its course, so no transfer". I think Parade will manage at least a 3 month run with Ben Platt. More than that I think depends on a lot of things, including the climate at the time, and if the reviews make it a "must-see" event. |
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| re: Brown's seventh Broadway outing | |
| Posted by: ryhog 10:35 pm EST 12/25/22 | |
| In reply to: re: Brown's seventh Broadway outing - Chazwaza 08:32 pm EST 12/25/22 | |
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| It could be that Brown's fatal flaw was that he was "largely compelled by chasing potential financial success" [and was a poor handicapper]. I don't buy, however, either that one cannot pursue passions without family money [because the opposite is easily demonstrated] or that he made his choices because he "literally need[ed] to pay the bills." [He possesses a strong skill set as a musician that, like many others, provides a fairly easy means of paying the bills. And he has done a lot of that work.] And nowadays he actually has a pretty decent revenue flow, driven of course by L5Y. So I can agree that these forces may well have brought him to the disappointing track record he has on Broadway but I can't agree that this result inexorably flows from the condition you identify. (And you don't suggest it does.) Offhand I cannot think of a show at the Beaumont that had commercial legs and was shut down. And Parade actually fits that category and not some Garth-related explanation. If you look at the attendance for Parade, you'll see that it (1) had only 4 frames with attendance over 90% and they were all pre-opening, (2) had only 2 frames over 80% post opening, and hobbled along in the 60's and 70's for the other frames (with a large majority of them in the 60's). That's not a foundation for an extension much less a transfer. I think you are right that a lot of the Mitzi shows (quite properly) are deemed to not be Broadway material and what has moved has been both an exception and a surprise. I also think you are right that this version will manage at least 3 months (and probably more) but I'm not suggesting it will get close to recouping. I also think it already has the thrust of the reviews it's getting. |
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