Welcome to today’s edition of ShentonSTAGE Daily.
BROADWAY: A THEME PARK AND NOW A MUSEUM (LITERALLY)
Broadway, from where I returned just yesterday, increasingly resembles a theme park, with various “experiences” on offer, from Harry Potter and Michael Jackson brought to 3D stage life to the history of the founding fathers of America in the breakthrough Hamilton.
Some of them are now virtually museum pieces themselves, like The Phantom of the Opera (Broadway’s longest running musical to date, which ends its 34 year run in April) and Chicago (which is already the longest-running American musical of all time, and will take over from Phantom as the current longest running show on the boards after Phantom closes).
Now Broadway has its own Museum of Broadway; but with the real Times Square just meters away, where you can see an actual show, seeing some installations designed to summon the spirit of a handful of iconic productions over the ages unfortunately comes nowhere near to successfully remembering or honouring any of them.
A field of overflowing corn stalks may be meant to say “Oklahoma!”, but just takes up valuable real estate. An interior of Doc’s drug store from West Side Story fails to even suggest the show, which would be more easily recognisable from tenement fire escapes. A huge jukebox spilling out song titles signals the age of the jukebox show, but doesn’t reference a particular show, just a (regrettably ever-expanding) multitude of them.
Other shows to get their own displays include modern classics like The Phantom of the Opera, Rent, The Lion King (pictured above), The Producers (pictured below) and of course Hamilton, with varying degrees of success. Wicked is well served by a giant model of the Gershwin Theatre, where it has been playing since opening in 2003, with the internal layers on offer, from behind the stage and dressing rooms to the auditorium.
There’s also more behind-the-scenes coverage of the roles of producers and services like marketing that the general public may be less familiar with. But in trying to encompass such a comprehensive survey of Broadway past and present, the content is not very deep.
But some of the authentic memorabilia, like original set models for Rent (pictured above) and In the Heights are a delight (though the Civilian Hotel on west 48th has even more in its second floor public lounge) and there’s a moving display of panels from the AIDS memorial quilt and a names board of some of the talents lost to that pandemic.
Panels have been left blank for the four seasons up to 2025 (pictured above). This strikes me as ambitious, as I seriously wonder whether the museum will actually survive that long. I said as much aloud, and a staff member overheard me — and agreed. Half the staff had just been laid off, and he was working his last day the next day.
I prefer my nostalgia in the first person, from people who were actually there, telling their own stories, on the page or stage.
Anthony Rapp, who played the videographer Mark in the original production of RENT, has now done both. In 2006, he published WITHOUT YOU, a memoir of his time in the show that also sadly coincided with the loss of his beloved mother; he also subsequently adapted it into a one-man show of the same title.
When I first saw it at the 2012 Edinburgh fringe, before he brought it to London’s Menier Chocolate Factory, I’d not yet lost my own mother; seeing it again on Sunday at New World Stages, the Off-Broadway venue where he is currently performing it, now it means more. Rapp has a deeply personal connection to the themes of love and loss exemplified by RENT, and he makes it heartfelt here.
I sometimes enjoy my nostalgia second hand — I wasn’t around for the golden age of film noir, and neither was Melissa Errico, but the golden-voiced and lavishly curled Broadway diva brings it back to life in a gorgeous programme she has been presenting at New York’s Birdland jazz club, where I caught it last Saturday.
SHOWS AHEAD IN LONDON, SELECTED REGIONAL THEATRES AND ON BROADWAY
My regularly updated feature on shows in London, selected regional theatres and on Broadway is here: https://shentonstage.com/theatre-openings-from-w-c-february-13/
See you here on Friday
I will be back on Friday. If you can’t wait that long, I may also be found on Twitter (for the moment) here: https://twitter.com/ShentonStage/ (though not as regularly on weekends)