Ten Theatre Issues We Talked About in 2011

Casting controversies, the role of reviewers and another Broadway great turning 80 were among the stories that fired up theatre chat boards and fueled cocktail conversations at Sardi's during the past twelve months.  Here are ten of the big issues theatre lovers talked about in 2011:

Artistic Differences: It started with a short note posted on BroadwayWorld's main message board complaining about a new production of Rent where the ending was changed.  Eventually it grew into a thread that specified the mounting as being done at Maryland's Towson University.  Music Theatre International, the company that licenses Rent, was alerted of the situation and immediately instructed their theatre department to use the text as written or have their performance rights revoked.  Jonathan Larson's work was restored but Diane Smith-Sadak, who directed the production, wrote a letter to the university's newspaper complaining that, "within two days of our opening, grumbling reached our department through online anonymous bloggers and in-person patrons, and a chain of fear-based, legalistic decisions was handed down to me."  She went on to defend her decision to change the text without permission with, "Like the characters in Rent who faced the ongoing struggle to create art in an increasingly corporate mindset and money-driven and fear-driven attitude we in tonight's production came in and reworked our ending into what you will see tonight. The 'traditional' ending of Rent. We complied only under duress."  And while theatre professionals left comments below her letter scolding her for her actions, there were also a significant number of readers wondering what all the fuss was about.

Sorry, We're Not Open:  The way I see it, if the producers of a show decide they're not going to give free tickets to critics, that's their business.  And if critics decide they're going to buy tickets to a show that's performing before paying audiences and submit reviews whenever they like, that's their business, too.  But caught in the middle of all this business are the creative artists trying to get their show into shape.  Unlike opera, ballet and other performing arts that traditionally open new productions with their first public performance, theatre, at least the way it's practiced in this country, prefers to work out the kinks in front of preview customers.  For decades, Broadway producers and reviewers have gotten along fine with a system that allows shows to determine when they get reviewed by offering press comps, but after Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark played well over 100 previews, a large majority of the Broadway press decided to hold them to their most recently postponed opening date of February 7^th and post/print reviews anyway.  Was it fair?  Did it matter?  The role, and the importance, of the theatre critic in the Internet age is something that is continually shifting.

The Page or The Stage:  War Horse was undoubtedly the biggest hit play of the year, but even its supporters questioned if Nick Stafford's text was deserving of the Best Play Tony; arguing that it was the captivating visuals and not the written words that gave the evening its dramatic power.  There have been several cases where a production has won Best Musical while another show took the prizes for book and score but rarely do straight plays bring up the issue of whether the votes are for the work on paper or the finished product on stage.

"I'd Really Be Enjoying This Show If I Had An Attention Span."  When work is completed on the Tateuchi Center in Bellevue, Washington, it promises to be a state of the art performance venue with a 2,000-seat concert hall, a 250-seat cabaret and a 12 to 14 foot tall antenna so audience members may text, send tweets or update their Facebook pages during performances.  Yes, the center will have a standing policy that allows "non-disruptive cell use" during performances.  Executive Director John Haynes says, "This is the wave of the future for the people we worry about attracting."  Quick, somebody book Patti LuPone to do a concert there (but don't tell her about their policy).

No Rapp, Please, I'm Isherwood:  After ten years of not being a fan, New York Times critic Charles Isherwood announced this year that he intends to no longer review plays by the prolific Adam Rapp.  "Contrary to popular myth, drama critics don't salivate at the chance to savage a playwright's work. It's still less appealing to continue doing so, year in and year out. Who wants to be cast as the playground bully who won't leave the poor kid alone?"  One reader, noting how he went to see Thom Pain (based on nothing) after reading Isherwood's rave, suggested he stop reviewing Will Eno.

Sondheim Says Don't:  Broadway audiences have grown quite accustomed to seeing revivals of classic and not so classic musicals come to town with anything from minor book tweaks to major revisions, so when a New York Times article about the Diana Paulus-directed revival of Porgy and Bess quoted playwright Suzan-Lori Parks' plan to make changes that "flesh out the two main characters so they are not cardboard cut-out characters," because "I think that's what George Gershwin wanted, and if he had lived longer he would have gone back to the story of Porgy and Bess and made changes, including to the ending," it may not have been very surprising.  What was surprising was a follow-up letter to the editor from Stephen Sondheim, defending the original libretto by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin and criticizing remarks made by Parks, Paulus and star Audra MacDonald regarding the need to revise the material for a contemporary musical theatre audience.  Though Sondheim pointed out that he was not judging the production in advance, "only the attitude of its creators toward the piece and the audience," his words were the talk of the theatre community; some praising his views, others saying he's talking out of his hat.

If A Girl Isn't Famous:  While the role of Fanny Brice in Funny Girl is certainly a demanding one, it only becomes near impossible to cast when you limit your choices to performers who are nationally known.  In the world of fantasy casting, most of the favorites among musical theatre junkies would have zero box office appeal to the tourist trade that averages over 60% of Broadway's audience.  The selection of Lauren Ambrose to star in the Broadway bound production that would premiere at the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles struck many as an unexpected choice, but the real shocker came when producer Bob Boyett announced that the project had to be put on hold when four investors backed out.  While Ambrose's commercial value was never brought up, it's doubtful that the production would have any trouble finding backing if the name above the title was, say, Lady Gaga.  If anyone's listening, my suggestion has always been to find a handsome, matinee idol Hollywood star who might think it would be fun to be the toast of Broadway for a few months taking on the not very demanding role of Nick Arnstein.  Then you can cast a Fanny who may not be a national celebrity yet, but who you expect to be good enough to cause a sensation with reviews and word of mouth.

The Connecticut Yankee With The Hat: When playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis wasn't satisfied with the response he received from the Hartford company TheaterWorks regarding their casting of two white actors as characters specified as Puerto Rican in his The Motherfucker With The Hat, he took his grievance to Facebook, asking his followers to spread the word. The company's founder, Steve Campos, defended the move, saying there was a short period of time available to cast the play and director Tazewell Thompson went with the best actors available, both of whom he had worked with before. The concept of non-traditional casting, theatre's version of affirmative action, was originated to give more work to underrepresented groups, but some will argue that in a field as subjective as theatre, "the best person available for the role" should apply to everyone.

Where's The Squid?:  It's not unusual for the book and score of a quickly-closing Broadway show to get some re-tooling before being sent off to tour, but The Addams Family, which closes this weekend after 714 performances at the Lunt-Fontanne, has been touring in a revised version which is being praised for changes that shift the plot more firmly onto the relationship between Gomez and Morticia.  So the question is why couldn't this have been done some time during its 20-month Broadway run?  Surely, the answer must have something to do with money, but Moss Hart famously made major changes to Camelot after its opening, The Scarlett Pimpernel had three different Broadway versions and Bono says that even Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark isn't completely finished.

Alive and Well and Thriving:  One of the great scientific miracles to occur during the AIDS epidemic is that experimental drug therapies have kept the beloved Jerry Herman with us after being diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1985, only two years after La Cage aux Folles broke major ground by putting a serious gay romantic couple in the center of a Broadway musical.  But sadly, as the composer/lyricist explained in the documentary Words and Music by Jerry Herman, his illness has left him without the energy to tackle a new show, so he's been spending much of the past 25 years working on productions that try fixing his three least successful musicals; two of which – Dear World and Mack and Mabel – contain extraordinary scores.  Jerry Herman turned 80 in 2011 and if his octogenarian year wasn't celebrated as elaborately as Stephen Sondheim's was in 2010, it's probably because his contribution to musical theatre was abruptly halted just as his "catchy tune" style was reaching an interesting new level.  Who knows what fabulous new musicals he could have written during that time, but instead of lamenting what never was, let's just treasure the best of times Jerry Herman shared with us.

But That's Just Ten: What would you say were some of the other significant theatre topics of 2011?

Photo Credits:

Top: Jonathan Schwartz, Alice Lee, Gideon Glick and Matt Devine take their final curtain call before their roles were cut from Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark.  (Walter McBride/Corbis)

Center: Norm Lewis and Audra McDonald rehearsing The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess at American Repertory Theater.  (Anastasia Korotich)

Bottom:  Jerry Herman at the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors. (Walter McBride/Corbis)