Quote of the Day

"Perhaps my optimism is delusional...I can't help it--I'm a Broadway producer."

-NEA Chair Rocco Landesman.

As tweeted by TCG from their annual Fall Forum. Complete feed here.

In Praise of New World Stages

David Cote hails the good fortunes of late over at New World Stages, one of our Off Broadway "megaplexes." While a more commercial outlet than other similar venues, it's gaining some high-cred tenants. I second the sentiment and offer some questions in his comments section.

Indeed, without New World, Theatre Row, and 59E59 I don't know where Off Broadway would be these days, in this economic and real estate climate. I mean those who don't already own their own spaces.

BTW, Village Voice named 59E59 "Best Theater for Cash-Strapped Producers" in their big 2009 Best of NY issue. Read why.

"Brighton Beach" Debriefing

One week later, here's a roundup of what we've learned about the surprise shuttering of "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and its aborted rep companion "Broadway Bound."

(Has anyone used the headline "Broadway Unbound" yet? Maybe that has the wrong connotations.)

First, we must remember that just because a show doesn't sell a lot of tickets doesn't necessarily mean people don't like it. Those who don't buy a ticket don't know if they like the show or not, right?

Unless the problem was word of mouth. Buzz about "Brighton Beach" was certainly very good among theatre folk. In addition to the generally enthusiastic critic reviews, Broadway fans (as represented on All That Chat, at least) seemed very pleased, as well. But--what about others, the "laymen" or "civilians." Well here's an interesting bit of reporting from LA Times' James Taylor:

Two women of a certain age at intermission.

First Woman: “The other thing he directed [Our Town???-ed.] was quite good, this is just boring.”

Second Woman: “I fell asleep.”

First Woman: “Ditto,” as she tosses her Playbill into the trash.

The two walk out into the rainy night.

This scene, which took place Saturday Night at the Nederlander Theatre, sums up the conventional wisdom regarding why Neil Simon’s “Brighton Beach Memoirs” closed the next day — after only nine performances. The audience wasn’t building. Even the older crowd was staying away — and those that did come were turned off by director David Cromer’s staging and not recommending the show to their friends.

Taylor soon juxtaposes this with another pair of women "of a certain age" having completely the opposite reaction and staying to enjoy Act II. But this first exchange brings up an important empirical fact about the production that has gone undermentioned: for a Neil Simon play, it was pretty dark and brooding. And slow. At least at first. Even I--who ended up quite satisfied--took a while to warm to an uncertainty in the beginning. Something about director David Cromer's serious dramatic approach made early jokes not "land" as you'd expect in a Simon play. And speaking of dark, you know that old rule of thumb about comedy=bright sunny lighting? Not here. (And it was beautiful. Kudos to designer Brian MacDevitt.)

There's been much handwringing--kvetching, if you will--this week over what happened to "the Neil Simon audience"? i.e. middle class Jews from NYC and its environs. Did they all die? Has theatre become too expensive for them?

What if they came...and didn't like what they saw? Maybe those who come to Neil Simon only for laughs were disappointed. Face it, laughs have historically been the reason Simon's plays were hits. Aside from the two older ladies Taylor recounts, what were Simon-ites to make of Ben Brantley's big New York Times review telling them, "When these young men [the play's two brothers] exchange Mr. Simon’s words, the jokes come second. They aren’t reciting polished zingers from a Broadway master." Not their father's Neil Simon, to coin a phrase. And maybe for these folks, that wasn't a good thing.

Here's also where the production's missing "star" factor becomes relevant. Celebrity casting not only attracts customers based on the actor's fame alone; it also sends a message about what kind of play this is going to be. Casting Jude Law as Hamlet, for instance, tells the prospective audience this is going to be a serious and British experience. Casting Jerry Springer in Chicago says: this isn't even a play!

If, say, Fran Drescher and Jason Biggs were cast as Kate and Eugene Jerome, "Brighton Beach" would clearly have been more commercially successful. Not just because they are more "famous" (I guess) than Cromer's cast. People would have expected (and those actors would have delivered) a more pleasing sitcom-style version of the play and, ironically, it probably would have been greeted better on Broadway than Cromer's attempt at artistry. Critics might have called that version the proof that Neil Simon is past his date and needs to be retired, but it would have run. (Run longer than a week, at least.) So by casting real actors and making the play dramatically viable, Cromer may have made it less successful commercially--thus leading to articles like this where NYT's theatre reporter Patrick Healy says Neil Simon is past his date and should be retired because he can't compete with Judd Apatow. And, perhaps by extension, Jason Biggs.

(And even with Charlie Sheen, Patrick? "Popular comedies like the traditionally plotted sitcom 'Two and a Half Men' and the character-driven 'Desperate Housewives' also share sharply written dialogue and recognizable modern characters like those found in 'God of Carnage.'" I know some people didn't think "God of Carnage" was all that, but...really?)

By deferring to the box office on issues of taste and aesthetics, that article--typical of so much theatre journalism--looks to the box office as final arbiter, and never explores the phenomenon of the divide that often exists between artistic quality and ticket sales. Missing was the context of the fine "Journey's End" that opened on Broadway to rave reviews two years ago only to eek out a four-month run playing to crowds as small as 25% capacity. (And remember that was a pretty dark play, too--a tragic WWI story.) The problem is bigger than Neil Simon.

So that's one theory: the only chance a revival of "Brighton Beach Memoirs" would have in this climate is as a star-driven yuck-fest starring the Nanny and the American Pie Guy. Not as a sensitive and intimate Depression-era dramedy for an audience going through...a Depression. If it's got no stars, no singing, no dancing, not enough laughs, and costs $100, it's a hard, hard sell today.

But here's another interesting fact: most tickets did not cost $100, or even $75. As Healy reported in the Times:

Most tickets to “Brighton Beach Memoirs” were sold at discounts like the TKTS booths. (Producers release bulks of tickets at a discount when they fail to sell at full price.) The average ticket price for “Brighton Beach” was only $21.32 for the most recent week with available data. (The average ticket price for “Hamlet” was $104.01 for the comparable week.)

Hey, $21 is a great deal for the audience. But for Broadway producers, it's death. You might as well be giving away your product for free.

We've heard a lot about the 60% capacity problem. But that in itself wasn't life-threatening. Lots of shows hover in the 60s through previews and even after as word of mouth builds. (And remember, 60% of a 1200-seat house is still 720 people a night--just enough to sell out the smaller Helen Hayes Theatre, let alone any Off Broadway house. So don't go saying "no one came to see "Brighton Beach.")

The real key number may be that "21." Another one is "15":

The show cost $3 million to produce but never grossed more than $125,000 a week in ticket sales during preview performances — or 15 percent of the maximum possible — an amount that did not even cover running costs.

That's right, 60% of the seats was bringing in only 15% of the projected revenue. Pretty alarming math, huh. That's what the producers did not foresee and what sent them into panic mode.

So does this mean a fair amount of folks did want to see "Brighton Beach" but only at an affordable price? (And is that really unreasonable?) Or did someone mess up by dumping too many tickets at TKTS?

Another theory: not enough people even knew that "Brighton Beach" even existed. I've noticed some carping coming from the show's people this week about underexposure. This includes, believe it or not, the "curse" of the Nederlander Theatre. Apparently, aside from Rent it rarely houses a hit and some have attributed that to its off the beaten path location--one block south of 42nd Street and east of Broadway. Turns out one of the most successful forms of publicity for Broadway shows is the sheer foot-traffic of the theatre district: a captive audience of thousands, many on their way to or from a Broadway show (so they're more likely to like the theatre already) noticing your signs and marquees. Is it possible some theatre-loving folks who don't pore over the NY Times every day didn't even know it was playing yet?

Aha, but was another culprit the NY Times itself! Michael Riedel devoted his column Wednesday to a bunch of anonymous sources claiming an unusual deal the "Brighton Beach" team struck with the Grey Lady.

The Times offered the producers of "Brighton Beach" several weeks worth of splashy ads in the paper and on its Web site at steep discounts, production sources say. In exchange for what one source calls the "fire sale" price, the Times demanded exclusivity. "Brighton Beach" couldn't advertise anywhere else until after opening night. No radio spots, no e-mail blasts, no direct-mail campaign -- none of the things most shows do to generate advance sales.

First of all, bad call by NYT, eh? "Exclusive"-worthy? They seem to have really overestimated what an "event" The Neil Simon Plays would be. Also, while most people assume the Times is all that matters for NY theatre coverage, those other kinds of campaigns might have served this show particularly well, since Neil Simon is basically a popular not elite brand. Quoth Riedel:

Simon's audience is older and accustomed to getting ticket offers through the mail. "They like fliers, they like pictures, they like a description of the show, they like coupons," one person says. "You buy the mailing lists of Roundabout, Manhattan Theatre Club and Lincoln Center subscribers, and you send the stuff. That's how you reach the people who want to see a Neil Simon play."

Good advice. Riedel also questions the status of the once-mighty Times ad in the New Media age. I myself was wondering in the week after "Brighton Beach" opened, can they afford all those full page Times ads? To be fair, those ads--emblazoned with their rave reviews--must have seemed like a necessary attention-getting investment. But even with whatever bargain rate they got, given that the standard full page Times ad has been reported as hovering around $140,000 you can imagine how that strategy can dig you even deeper into a financial hole.

Ok, so we've got the "bad marketing" theory; the "people just didn't like it" theory; the "too dark for Broadway" theory; and the "people would have liked it if they didn't have to pay $100" theory. What else?

Let's get back to that $100 issue. I just heard the new Jujamcyn head Jordan Roth on Theatre Talk defend Broadway prices by maintaining there are still plenty of "entry points" as far as price is concerned--by which he meant not only TKTS, but internet coupons (e.g. Playbill.com and Theatermania), mass mailings, group sales, etc. In other words: it's like airlines and hotels. Almost no one pays the advertised full price.

Well try telling that to the producers of "Brighton Beach Memoirs", where the lower "entry points" were the only doors being opened. (It's like some old Business School problem of what you do when everyone brings in the limited coupon.) Maybe this philosophy should be reexamined.

The problem is: theatre (and, I suppose, by extension, opera and dance) remains the only performing art today that does not routinely offer any low-cost alternative platform. Don't want to pay $12 now to see a movie? Rent it! Can't afford scalped Springstein tix? Get the CD or download from ITunes! In theatre your choice is either pay $100 to see Jude Law play Hamlet or $20 to see some recent drama school grads in a blackbox. (Not saying the latter can't be as good as the former, but it's just not the same "product.")

Yes, we love theatre because it's live, ephemeral, and in the moment. But, alas, we pay for that privilege.

Unfortunately if you can't pay--you miss it. Movie fans who rent sacrifice the big screen, but they still get the movie as shot. Music fans miss out on the rush of the concert experience, but at least they're still hearing Bruce. Theatre fans...well there's always the archives at the Lincoln Center Library where you can see what the show looked like from the perspective of a video camera in the back of the house.

You get my point. Not that there's an easy solution, given the expenses of producing, at least in this town. We can't get around the fact ticket price poses a barrier to the public enjoyment of the artform. I really can't say I blame folks for thinking twice before shelling out a lot of dough on a Neil Simon revival these days. For $20 or $30 they clearly were willing to take a chance. But if you expect people to pay more--on a routine basis, that is--then you're limiting the audience only to the affluent and one-time "splurgers."

Speaking of splurgers, we haven't mentioned tourists. Where were the tourists? Surely Neil Simon is still popular out in the heartland, where he must still be done in schools and community theatres, no? Problem right now is most Broadway tourists at the moment are going to splurge either on Hugh Jackman, Jude Law, or, as ever, Wicked. But even so, maybe "Brighton Beach" in particular was not a tourist draw. "Barefoot in the Park" & "Odd Couple," maybe--as evidenced by underperforming but still longer-running recent revivals of those titles that didn't get good reviews either. Watching "Brighton Beach" again I was reminded of just how much in it may even turn off upstanding Red-State American citizens. There's lots of talk, for instance, about masturbation, remember. In explicit language. So what normally should be a "family play for the whole family" might just turn out an awkward experience for some.

Shall we even suggest the Jewish angle? Simon is considered an emblematic Jewish comedy writer, but none of his early hits explicitly foregrounded his or the characters' ethnicity. One of the things that made "Brighton Beach" new at the time was not just its seriousness but its author's very culturally specific depiction of a Brooklyn Jewish family. (One of its best features is also the unsanitized ethnic rivalry and even hatred that often spews forth from Kate Jerome's mouth.) While the appeal of the play is--or at least can be--universal, there's no getting around the fact this is a Jewish play.

And also a New York play. Once upon a time I imagine people loved the idea of coming to New York to see a really "New York play." No longer. Just as tourists can't wait to eat at the Olive Garden here and compare it to the one back home, they want to see on Broadway similar entertainment they always enjoy.

This is where a comparison/contrast to "August: Osage County" is instructive. I actually found myself thinking of "August" a lot during "Brighton Beach": both essentially old fashioned plays, both about bickering families struggling through tough times, both alternately comic and tragic. Yet one was a massive hit (at least by nonmusical standards) and one an instant flop. And both equally well acted and produced, for my money.

Fact is, "August" portrays an America that most of the tourist audience can identify as similar to their own. "Brighton Beach"--being a period piece, to boot--might seem increasingly foreign and distant. Especially in a production that highlights the particulars of 1930s Brooklyn life, especially accents. (I concur with those who found the accent work a tad bit forced at times by some actors. But I hardly second John Simon--himself not frequently seen at Temple--for calling the production not Jewish enough!)

I'm not saying all tourists are anti-Semites. Please. But is it possible that without the beloved shtick of a Fran Drescher or Joan Rivers (who actually was a late replacement in the original run of the play!), "Brighton Beach" seemed a little "ethnic" to be their top ticket buying choice this season?

I'm out of theories. We still have only questions, no answers. At least until someone gets a look at the accounting books. I'm still convinced something went terribly, terribly wrong in the financial planning of this show for the producers to be caught so off guard. The fact they were planning not just one play but two, in rep, was a key factor. "Brighton Beach" alone they may have toughed out for a while. But not while also rehearsing and rolling out a whole other opening for "Broadway Bound." In retrospect the whole idea of "The Neil Simon Plays" seems awfully misguided and even presumptuous, however valuable it might have been artistically. First, it was premised on the belief that Simon was already an American Classic like O'Neill--not the washed-up joke writer the Times postmortem depicted him as. Selling a British-accented Tom Stoppard trilogy about 19th Century Russia kinda makes sense in the current snob-appeal market; a two-play commitment about some schmucks cracking jokes in Brooklyn, not so much. I can see how Simon's longtime producer Manny Azenberg thought it was time to pay his friend such a tribute--but the rest of Broadway was not there yet.

And don't forget the crucial difference between commercial and nonprofit theatre. And just how hard it is to open anything on Broadway "cold" today, especially a nonmusical. The benefit of succeeding somewhere else first--preferably on nearby Off Broadway or else in London--is not just generating buzz, but actual ticket sales--an "advance." What killed "Brighton Beach" ultimately was there were practically no advance sales. On Broadway an advance is not only, literally, money in the bank, it's the promise of a future. Even "August: Osage County" could build an advance off of Charles Isherwood's NYT review of the Chicago Steppenwolf premiere. But when you open cold on Broadway, the audience tends to stay away longer until someone they trust can vouch for it being any good.

The other problem of opening cold on Broadway is the capitalization, raising all the money at once to mount a huge (in this case $3 million) production from scratch. Much easier to import an existing product from elsewhere, or even to invest "enhancement" money in some nonprofit regional theatre's production, where they build the set and costumes and you just buy an "option."

By going it alone (along with the requisite team of a dozen "partners", that is) Manny Azenberg proved himself the last man on Broadway who still believes in the old system.

To prove my point, I defy anyone to cite a successful dramatic play on Broadway in the last five years that was either a) not from London, b) did not star a major movie star, and/or c) was not premiered or directly produced by a nonprofit company. Notice that back in 2006 Odets's "Awake and Sing" (in many ways the template for "Brighton Beach") did ok--only ok. But only because it was backed by the nonprofit Lincoln Center Theatre.

Finally I leave you with this scary thought. What has shocked me about the "Brighton Beach" case more than all the other "when bad business happens to good plays" stories of late was just how suddenly it folded. In the past, we would see a show with such good reviews hang in there at least a month to build word of mouth. No, this time they pulled the plug immediately. Maybe investors were not as patient in the current economic climate--more pessimistic and more eager to cut their losses and put what money they have left in safer bets.

The decision to pull the plug was explicitly linked to a failure to increase sales significantly in the few days after opening. In other words, in order to survive it needed a blockbuster "opening weekend," so to speak. And just as American cinema as been reportedly damaged by the "opening weekend" mentality--wherein the studio evaluates the movie's success solely based the first few days' box office and then promptly pulls it from theaters if it disappoints--you gotta worry now about the same thing happening in the commercial theatre. Nonprofits, at least, commit to a three or four week run. But if business practices get this ruthless on Broadway, don't expect to see any non star-driven drama there for the foreseeable future.

Which, of course, leads me to ask: Is that necessarily a bad thing?

Memo to serious drama: Abandon Broadway before it abandons you.

Don't Take the Art out of Arts Education

Jonah Lehrer says stop resorting to bean-counting Excel spreadsheets to argue for arts in education.

The current obsession with measuring learning certainly has some benefits (accountability is good), but it also comes with some serious drawbacks, since it diminishes all the forms of learning, like arts education, that can't be translated into a score on a multiple choice exam. That's why the research cited above is so important: it helps us appreciate the "soft" skills that we tend to neglect.

But I think that even this clinical evaluation of arts education misses an important benefit: self-expression. I shudder to think that second graders, at least in most schools, are never taught the value of putting their mind on the page. They are drilled in spelling, phonetics and arithmetic (the NCLB school day must be so tedious), and yet nobody ever shows them how to take their thoughts and feelings and translate them into a paragraph or a painting. We assume that creativity will take care of itself, that the imagination doesn't need to be nurtured. But that's false. Creativity, like every cognitive skill, takes practice; expressing oneself well is never easy.

I say anything that gets kids to work, and actually enjoy their work, in school pays for itself.

To Mic or Not to Mic, cont.

Great comments from readers following up on my post and link to an article about the state of voice amplification on Broadway.

In case you've missed them, I want to feature a couple of insightful missives from some sound designers on the topic.

"CLJ" says:

A microphone bumped you out of the illusion? Not the fact that every single piece of scenery is unreal? That it was performed under artificial lighting? In a climate controlled room full of people?

"The willing suspension of disbelief." It's mandatory for theatre patrons, and should extend to artifacts such as microphones, too. It's not reality, and it's not supposed to be reality. It's a play, for gods' sake.

The issue isn't "mics" versus "no mics." The real issue is "competent sound design" versus "incompetent sound design." There are very few competent sound designers, and a lot of pretenders who like to play with sound gear.

If the sound design is properly executed, you should not be aware of speaker placement; it should sound like it's coming from the person speaking. And if it doesn't, it's not because microphones and a sound system were used, it's because microphones and a sound system were used very poorly.

I say this as a classically trained actor who sneered at microphones until moving over to the production end, and seeing just what they can do, properly utilized.

And here's "Nick":

C.L.J. is right about good sound design vs. incompetent sound design - as a sound engineer and designer myself, I am caught up in this discussion on a daily basis. On the one side is CLJ's "good" or transparent sound - sound that is properly delayed and sourced to the actor using the principle known as the Haas effect - (look it up). It is truly convincing, so much so that we as engineers often get asked why we're not amplifying the actors - when we are. On the other hand is over-amplified sound that makes actors sound like they're breathing like walruses hanging from the giant center cluster in the grid. That's not helping anyone push the art forward. And there are gradients in between, and times when over-amplification is the aesthetic goal.

The biggest question for me is sustainability. Both transparent and non-transparent sound have a problem - it's horrendously expensive to body mic people, and I'm worried that the format of the 1,000 seat theatre is getting less popular. I've seen shows easily spend around a half-million to a million dollars to get that sound right - and they need to hire one of the probably a couple dozen sound designers who can effectively design on that scale in a transparent way. I'm talking in the united states. How is that ever going to work?

I wonder if the solution here isn't an embracing of theatricality. The audience often thinks they want loudness when they actually want clarity. I'm coming from an environment (Chicago) where our best selling theatre is in an increasing number of smaller and smaller houses. The intimacy helps clarity of both sound and performance, and not at a great expense. The quality of the experience improves.

It's very true - the old methods of vocal projection were born out of necessity, required skill and craft, and we miss those things, and we shouldn't forget them. Nor should we mistake them for better days. Large houses and big voices engendered a style of acting that clearly communicated to the audience - but became outmoded as technology changed. Look at the difference in acting styles between the silent movie era and the talkies - huge differences brought on by a slight shift in technology. We're seeing that shift again as the technology has lept forward in the last ten years, but I think our response isn't as creative - we're somehow still pursuing the naturalistic realism of what - Miller? nah, that'd be fooling ourselves- when we could be using sound in the theater to further illuminate the human condition. And again, louder does not necessarily equal more illuminating.

The question isn't how to hang on to old methodologies - it's how to embrace new capabilities in pursuit of a human truth.

Yes, a performance conditions change, new techniques are required from actors. And new aesthetic tastes are formed.

Lin-Manuel in da (White) House

This is old (from May) but I hadn't seen it.

In the Heights' Lin-Manuel Miranda takes his Hip Hop Hamilton show to Pennsylvania Avenue and performs before The Man.

Dare we hope for a double bill with Les Freres' Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson?

Rocco Goes on the Offensive

Well, if the Wall Street Journal is admonishing NEA chair Rocco Landesman...he must be doing something right.

Culture Grrl blogger Lee Rosenbaum's critical interview with Rocco just made me like him more!

Unruffled by the kerfuffles, Mr. Landesman, near the beginning of his Brooklyn speech, baited congressional critics by invoking what he called a "litany" of recent criticism of federal arts support: "The NEA is funding porn in California, the agency has become a propagandist for the Obama administration programs, and to truly add insult to injury, we've been told, vis-à-vis our share of the [federal] stimulus money, that we in the arts don't even work. One congressman summed up this view perfectly when he stated, 'How can we spend $50 million on the National Endowment for the Arts, when we could spend that money creating real jobs like building roads?' . . . Discouraging? Just a little."

A more politically savvy bureaucrat might have let bygones be bygones.

Sorry, but I don't see the Endowment's opponents letting bygones be bygones. It's not Rocco who's restarting the "Culture Wars." Leave that to Glenn Beck.

Also notable is the implication that Rocco will not necessarily be a friend to NYC's larger nonprofit theatres, whom he has accused in the past of running commercial enterprises at public expense. Of course, as head of the Broadway Jujamcyn empire, he also saw them as rivals.

What he may himself be best known for, aside from bringing important plays to Broadway, is picking a public fight with nonprofit competitors, especially the Roundabout Theatre. In a June 4, 2000, New York Times op-ed piece, he asserted that certain nonprofits didn't deserve public subsidy because, instead of taking artistic risks, they had adopted a "template of success . . . from the commercial arena, which, in the end, is not dedicated to the art so much as to the audience."

When I asked if his vendetta against such institutions might influence NEA's future grantmaking, he replied, "Let me put it this way: For those theaters, when I was nominated by the president, it was not their lucky day!"

In 2008 and 2009, the Roundabout, which he named in his op-ed, received NEA grants of $45,000 and $40,000, respectively.

I wonder what Rocco thought of Bye, Bye, Birdie....

Spoken Drama in the Age of the Body Mic

Good fat meaty article in WSJ about just how much mic-ing is going on in the theatre--to the point it's becoming de rigeur even in plays.

"Area mics"--discreet microphones placed around the set or stage apron have been common for decades. (Though even that started as a shortcut for musicals only.) But even though it may not surprise us, it's worth pondering for a second the implications of the banishment of the unamplified spoken voice (arguably the stage actor's chief instrument since Greek times) from our "auditoriums."

As reporter Ellen Gamerman rightly points out, the problem is not just actors' ability to project, but the difficulty of maintaining the silence necessary anymore to let actors be heard. Not to mention the reduced hearing capability of an audience conditioned on amplification every second of the day.

Many theatergoers have come to expect the miking effect. Microphones on stage allow actors to speak more naturally, emulating the more realistic performance style that audiences are used to from movies and television. Audiences also expect entertainment to be louder generally, after years of surround-sound in movie theaters. Sound designers say it's necessary to turn up the volume on actors as Broadway theaters themselves get louder, with automated lighting and set-moving equipment making a continual background noise. "There's very little true quiet in the theater anymore," says Tom Clark of Acme Sound Partners, which is designing the sound for "Bye Bye Birdie" and other shows this season.

Playwright David Mamet is known for refusing to use any mics at all in his plays. It may be a losing battle. At a recent performance of "Oleanna," his play about sexual harassment now on Broadway, an audience member complained at a "talk back" for theatergoers after the show. Dennis Sandman, a 56-year-old financial planner from East Brunswick, N.J., said he couldn't hear the play from the balcony.

Good for Mamet. But in that case, it probably is Julia Styles' fault!

Consider also the problem "straight" plays have on the road. Considering the discussion linked to last week about how hard it is for musicals to play 4,000-seat arenas, what about when you're not singing?

The Pulitzer-winning Broadway play "August: Osage County," which last played in a 1,000-seat Broadway theater, is now on tour around the country in theaters that have housed musicals such as "Wicked." Plays, which are less expensive to produce than musicals, have become popular choices on the touring circuit. To make the family drama work in spaces such as the 4,000-seat Fabulous Fox Theatre in St. Louis, the show's crew has hidden body mics in the cast's costumes.

Actress Shannon Cochran, who plays the oldest daughter in "August: Osage County," says she doesn't have to make big gestures to indicate whom she's talking to anymore. There is one complication: A sound mixer needs to keep tight control over cast members' levels during fight scenes, when the characters are screaming at each other. "He's definitely riding it to make sure you don't blow out a speaker," she says.

Can anything spoil spoken realist drama more fake than the sound of disembodied voices coming at you from speakers at all the wrong levels? No wonder younger folk think all plays are "fake."

Finally get this snapshot from the recent Desire Under the Elms:

Stage sound isn't always invisible. Actor Pablo Schreiber was half-naked for much of "Desire Under the Elms," a fraught drama by Eugene O'Neill on Broadway earlier this year. Audiences seated at the front of the 1,623-seat St. James Theatre could see a battery pack in his long johns with his microphone wire running down his bare back.

So much for rural New England circa 1900.

(Though I guess director Bob Falls' use of Bob Dylan already shattered that illusion.)

Also check out Gamerman's exposing of the secret practice in musicals of "sweetening," or as its known in the music industry....lip synching! Gotta admire the honesty at least--once the voice is that amplified, does it matter if it's live or not?

Memo to Deaf-Actor Advocates

The reason a deaf actress wasn't cast instead of Abigail ("Little Miss Sunshine") Breslin in The Miracle Worker on Broadway was not because no deaf actress isn't talented enough.

It's because no deaf actress is famous enough.

Forget about that "right actor for the role" stuff. This is Broadway.

Two Reax to BB

"Brighton Beach," that is. (Not Bert Brecht...)

Well it's nice it made the front page of the Times. But too bad Patrick Healy turns in only a facile "culture section" rundown, just attributing the failure to "Neil Simon Ain't Funny Anymore" syndrome. Personally I think it's a lot more complex than that. More on that tomorrow.

I liked Howard Kissel's take better--on the changing Broadway audience. Out with the old Jews, in with the headbanging tourists?

The Broadway audience, which highbrows condescended to, especially when it was at its height, in the decades after World War II, was certainly centered in New York. It was middle class (with significant exceptions both higher and lower on the social ladder.) It had a higher percentage of Jews than the population at large.

It also went way beyond the Hudson. In the decades after the war Broadway was a significant factor in middle class life all across the country. It was not only New Yorkers who knew Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams (not to mention all the major figures of our musical theater.) Those names counted for something in every major city across the country, in part because their plays toured immediately after they finished their Broadway run. That was how a little boy in Milwaukee (moi) became entranced with the theater.

The tourists who come to New York have, I'm afraid, are not really an audience. Their idea of entertainment is more likely a rock concert than an evening of theater. Seeing a Broadway show is one of the things they're supposed to do while they're here, like visiting the Statue of Liberty or riding the subway.

[...]

When I think of the friends with whom I used to go often to the theater, they now tend to go more frequently to the opera and the ballet, where they find the emotional rewards the theater, Broadway or otherwise, seldom gives them.

The New Theater Audience consists of Trendies, people who have to be up on The Latest Thing, people who derive status from being able to say they saw a play The Paper of Record praised highly. It's not really an audience. But I'm afraid that's what we have.

Good question: what is a true "audience"?

Reverend Billy for Mayor!

photo: Michael Rubottom

Playgoer is not usually in the business of political endorsements.

But for those of you in New York City, you may be aware there's an election for Mayor this Tuesday. I wouldn't blame you if you weren't aware, since Mayor Mike Bloomberg seems to be running unopposed.

The Democratic "candidate" William Thompson is nowhere to be seen. Just this weekend he decided (three days before the election) to finally lay out an "agenda" for the NY Times, which has already reported what a shocking casual mess his "campaign" operation is.

Some may say it's wrong to blame the candidate for his bad staff. Or the fact that his opponent is able in this case to obscenely outspend him due to his own personal fortune. And therefore it's not his fault, some say, that he can't afford television ads or the millions of mass mailings we have been getting in our mailboxes from "Mayor Mike" since the spring.

But what the hell as Bill Thompson done about it? Nothing. The guy has been the certain Democratic nominee for months. He could have been on every street corner, beg for "free media," show up on every local news show, make big bold speeches in public forums that call out Bloomberg for what he's been--the city's real estate broker in chief and no more.

Therefore, this usually loyal Democrat refuses to reflexively vote for whatever party hack they put on the ticket without funding him. Not this time.

No, this time I'm voting for a man of the theatre: one William Talen, a.k.a. Reverend Billy.

Reverend Billy has been a guerrilla performance artist, disrupting many a day at Starbucks, Disney Store and other megachain outposts in the city that have displaced local businesses, sterilized our landscape, and turned us all into full-time consumers. What better figure to challenge our strictly business CEO of a mayor in such anti-Wall Street times than the deacon of the "Church of Stop Shopping." His "act" has been to appropriate the trappings and format of the gospel preacher, co-opted for a crusade against corporatism and consumerism. It's both satirically funny (teasing televangelists) but also a genuine spiritual calling.

Is it a protest vote? Of course! But, hey, so is the Democrat at this point, no? So might as well make a real statement. If Thompson gets 40% of the vote (pretty optimistic at this point) the story the next day will be "Bloomberg landslide!" If Reverend Billy can get anything over 10%, perhaps some will note the fomenting discontent and outcry for radical change beyond the two-party system.

If Thompson had a shot, I'd vote for him even with misgivings. But since he doesn't, I say vote your conscience when you can afford to.

As for what this has to do with the theatre? the arts?

1) Real Estate: granting the wishes of the city's top real estate developers has been Bloomberg's raison d'etre as mayor, and these are the same interests that are kicking artists of all kinds out of their affordable spaces and making new spaces too expensive to rent.

2) Liveability. Getting by as an artist (or arts critic!) in this expensive town has never been easy. But in our Great Recession, will Mike Bloomberg be there with a WPA? With Public Works, or subsidized housing? When has he ever showed an inclination to take care of the lower income brackets first? Let alone, the unemployed. And as the national unemployment rate soon hits 10%, you know it will be double that in NYC.

3) Philanthropists don't necessarily make the best Mayors. Yes, the highbrow nonprofits and arts bigwigs will tell us Mike Bloomberg is a "friend of the arts" and gladly hand over their endorsements in the desperate hope for more crumbs from the table. But just because he likes to "patronize" in his private life, don't mistake that for an arts policy. Especially an arts policy for lean times. Bloomberg may be a friend of the Metropolitan Museum and Lincoln Center. But what's he going to do for the Ohio Theatre, huh? And will he ever do it with public funds? Not if it means raising funds from the wealthier tenants of his new high-rises, or from the rich commuters that use our city resources for free.

So there's my case. Whatever you think, whoever you support...just please do vote your conscience.

More on the Reverend Billy campaign here. (If you doubt his seriousness, read the platform.)
And here's the trailer from his documentary, "What Would Jesus Buy."



PS. I now see that the Google Ad space in my margin automatically runs a Mike Bloomberg reelection ad now. Unfortunately I can't control the content there. (Can I?) So aside from embarrassment, my other emotion is yet more anger at Bill Thompson! NYC Dems couldn't even afford some cheap Google ads???

Best American Play on Broadway to Close After One Week

I thought nothing could shock me about the state of Broadway anymore.

We all know the Rialto is not a safe space for dramatic plays--at least those lacking celebrities.

But not only did the current Brighton Beach Memoirs revival get very strong reviews...but I can attest personally that the production is also a wonderful, wonderful thing to behold. A beautifully acted and masterly directed (by David Cromer) mounting of, yes, what would normally be a so-so play but here is delivered as a very satisfying confection of tasteful and tearful family drama. (Notice I'm not saying "laugh riot." The laughs are there, but they're not the selling point. And it says a lot that the role of the wisecracking teenage narrator, Eugene--made so central by Matthew Broderick's original performance--now fades into the sepia-toned woodwork, giving way to much more satisfying characters.)

So, no masterpiece. But I left feeling there will always be a market on Broadway for a really well done middlebrow bourgeois family drama. In short, I thought it would be a hit.

Not so, apparently. The producing team just announced it's closing tomorrow. Just one week after opening.

Yesterday, Playbill was reporting the notice was "provisional," leaving open the possibility that the move was an attempt to suddenly boost sales. According to the initial release:"The notice can be taken down at any time and no final decision on closing will be made until Monday, Nov. 2, when a statement will be issued."

But this morning, NY Times' ArtsBeat reports it as a done deal.

Ok, ok, you're saying. Don't get so worked up about the closing of an old Neil Simon play.

I wish I could have gotten together some kind of review sooner to make my case for the show in more detail. However, with it closing tomorrow, I say if you had any interest in seeing this--or any interest in seeing Cromer's work--definitely go.

Meanwhile, if nothing else, this certainly provides a tantalizing case, from a producing standpoint, of what went wrong? And it forces the question: is the state of serious drama on Broadway much, much worse on Broadway than we even thought?

That there were problems behind the scenes was clear back on October 20, when lead veteran producer (and Neil Simon's perennial producer) Manny Azenberg was frank with the Times, in an article about how much indeed the Broadway biz is relying on marquee names this season:

Ticket sales have been so slow for “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” a Neil Simon play that originally ran for more than three years on Broadway, that some theater insiders are skeptical that its producers will have the financial means to open its companion piece — Mr. Simon’s follow-up play “Broadway Bound” — as scheduled in December, unless grosses improve for “Brighton Beach.” Emanuel Azenberg, the lead producer of both “Brighton Beach” and “Broadway Bound,” said on Tuesday that since the two revivals lack major stars to help sell tickets, “honestly, we need a blessing from the critics.” He added, “With a blessing from the critics, we can go forward full steam.”

Despite this obvious wink/plea to the Times' Ben Brantley--the one critic whose "blessing" seems to matter--Brantley only like it, not loved it (Critic-O-Meter sums up his notice as a "B+") but most of the other major dailies gave it outright A's.

But of course it's ticket sales that matter, not reviews in newspapers that no one reads anymore. And after slogging through a preview period averaging only 60% capacity (in a 1200-seat house), Azenberg & co. staked everything on a huge jump in advance sales the moment the reviews came out. Apparently that did not happen. (Box Office figures since October 26 not yet publicly available.)

The advance was, literally, doubly important in this case because Brighton Beach was only one of the plays in Azenberg's project. His whole idea was to pair it with Simon's later sequel, Broadway Bound. I guess he figured--same set, most of the same characters, why not. Two for one! And after all, folks just couldn't get enough of those three Tom Stoppard plays about frickin' Russia, for crying out loud. So a Neil Simon play about Brooklyn should be a synch. (Maybe he thought it would attract Brighton Beach's more recent Russian immigrants?) The fact that the also-British Norman Conquests trilogy struggled to lure three-peat ticket buyers this summer seemed not to deter him.

Fatal flaw number one--both Coast of Utopia and Norman were not only British (and hence front-loaded with snob appeal for the affluent, i.e. those who can afford tickets) but were also produced by nonprofits: respectively, Lincoln Center Theatre and London's Old Vic, who created Norman before its commercial tour to NYC.

So here's Manny Azenberg thinking he can create a rep-production from scratch in a commercial venue in 2009, and actually make money. The last time such a thing was tried I believe was the Broadway Angels in America back in 1993 But I'm not sure how that did overall, and the second part, Perestroika opened six months (and one Tony Award sweep) after Millenium Approaches. Plenty of time to build an advance. Plus, it benefited from the buzz (in the still-influential print media of the time) of being the hottest new American play in a long while.

Broadway Bound, on the other hand, was set to begin previews in just three weeks, November 18. (I assume they were already in rehearsal?)

So Azenberg was looking at a massive, massive bill, huge weekly operating expenses, and very little income. And he was surprised???

Of course, the whole plan was premised on the belief that Neil Simon's name alone would attract the sales. But even that hasn't been true in a long time.

The postmortems on this one will be interesting, to say the least. Many will undoubtedly ask if Brighton Beach would have survived ok if it had not been yoked to this crazy rep idea. It seems that the financial burden of Broadway Bound is what really sunk the first play.

I must say, leaving the Nederlander Theatre that night, I was so satisfied with what I had seen that, rather than whetting my appetite for more, I really didn't need to see a sequel. I had seen just enough of those characters and it was perfect for what it was. Simon's convoluted plotting was not the highlight, and that's all that would change in the next play.

It's all a terrible shame, because the work on stage in Brighton Beach is so fine. Laurie Metcalf gives a brave, scary performance as the matriarch, Jessica Hecht is unrecognizable as the wallflower aunt (you can hear her talk about the role in a nice NYT "slideshow"). The two of them engage in some naked emotion and outright ugliness you're not used to seeing in a Neil Simon play. Young Noah Robbins as Eugene is actually the weak link in the cast; he's probably too young as an actor to carry the play. (Broderick was 21 at the time. Robbins is 19 but seems genuinely on the brink of puberty.) But I was happy to focus instead on Santino Fontana, who is very strong as the older brother (as he was as the older brother in Billy Elliot) and, most of all, Dennis Boutsikaris as the father. Boutsikaris gives such an understated and dignified portrayal he somehow moved me to tears constantly. (No, I don't normally cry at the theatre, and hardly at Neil Simon!) I don't know what it was, but he somehow endowed the character with that noble suffering that the immigrant generation went through to give their children a better life. A simple line like, "I never finished the eighth grade," in his delivery, floored me; a poignant reminder of when we didn't take education for granted and that is really wrong to judge someone for lack of one.

So that's just a snippet of what I found worthy. With this on top of Our Town, David Cromer claims the mantle of Master of American Naturalism (successor to Daniel Sullivan, one could say) and gives American (noncelebrity) actors a chance to do on stage the kind of thing they do best.
Too bad so few will get to see his work.

I guess you can thank Broadway and the increasingly clueless producers who still believe in it as a venue of quality.

The Philadelphia Experiment

Promising news from Philly, via Davenport:

The Philadelphia Theatre Company and The Wilma Theater activated their wonder-twin powers yesterday when they announced a "Best Of Broad Street" subscription package (the theatres are across the street from each other) that allows Philadelphians to create a season subscription by choosing two plays from one theatre and two plays from the other.

Let's see what happens. I bet it will still be a while before we see something similar tried in the larger and even more competitive market of NYC nonprofits. But I think it would be ideal here for a coterie of smaller companies--especially those who only put up one or two shows a season, and especially if they rent space in the same venue, like Theatre Row or 59E59. Or for a larger company to share subscribers with a smaller co. renting space from them (like MTC and the Pearl.)

Details on the "Best of Broad Street" package here.

Stop Treating Foreign Artists as Terrorists

Ask any US arts institution today what it's like to try to host touring theatre troupes in the Age of Terror, and they'll tell you it's a nightmare, rife with last minute cancellations and even detentions of foreign artists at our airports.

Time Out's Helen Shaw makes an eloquent case to the Obama administration for relaxing travel restrictions on foreign artists touring the US.

One of the reasons we didn’t get the Olympics? Our stringent, expensive visa process that sends the message: Foreigners, stay put. And now, despite the pleadings of a slew of artist organizations, the long-standing policy that allows a single venue to apply for a touring company’s multiple locations has been wiped out. It doesn’t sound that bad, right? Wrong. Each theater the company goes to must now fill out piles of paperwork and incur costs, just enough in these troubled times to make those theaters say “pass.” And that’s what we can’t afford. Art is ambassadorship, and this is the administration that was supposed to be putting out the international welcome mat.

Yes, stop treating visiting theatre troupes as terrorists, please. Especially the Middle Easterners and South Asians. How else are Americans to form better impressions of these cultures if not by seeing their art?

Diversifying the Big NonProfits: Lost Cause?

A curious proposal by Michael Kaiser regarding the ever-struggling efforts of big arts institutions (that is, big white arts institutions) to diversify programming and audiences. What's surprising is he suggests throwing in the towel.

What's even more surprising is the fact that Michael Kaiser is the chief of a little nonprofit arts org known as the Kennedy Center. And that's he's posting this very visibly on Huffington Post.

Over the past 30 years, we were encouraged, primarily by foundation and government agencies, to become more diverse in every respect: we were asked to do works by minority artists, to bring diverse audiences to our theaters, and to diversify our staffs and boards. To justify funding, the argument went, we had to demonstrate our commitment to our entire community.

Having spent a great deal of my career working with arts organizations of color, I am as committed as anyone to the diversity of our arts ecology. I do not believe that we can have a truly great artistic community if all segments of our society are not represented well.

But I do not think I believe anymore in forcing Eurocentric arts organizations to do diverse works or to put one minority on a board.

When large, white organizations produce minority works they typically select the "low hanging fruit," the most popular works by diverse artists featuring the most famous minority performers and directors. This almost invariably hurts the minority arts organizations in the neighborhood, most of which are small and underfunded, and cannot afford to match the marketing clout or the casting glamor of their larger white counterparts. How else to explain the reduced strength of American black theater companies over the past twenty years?

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-kaiser/questions-on-diversity_b_333470.html

I do appreciate the honesty and the willingness to reject the routine assumptions and think from scratch. He makes good points about the value of coproductions and collaborations between companies of different sizes, strengths and ethnic backgrounds. And it's a good question to ask what has happened to black theatre companies over the past twenty years. But did, say, Lincoln Center producing Joe Turner's Come and Gone really ruin the chances of any smaller African American troupes showing their work and getting audiences? I'm inclined to think that in a case like that, the exposure of that play to a wider Broadway audiences might well have increased curiosity and enthusiasm for the work of August Wilson and other writers of color.

So is Kaiser really saying something as fatalistic as, look: we're white, ok and white stuff is all we know how to do?

What is he saying? And what's prompting this?

The Theatre Will be Digitized

The revolution to make top-rank live professional theatrical performance accessible to millions via digital technology is happening. And it's happening in the UK.

First there was "NT Live" the Royal National Theatre's broadcasting of select performances into cinemas around the world. (Similar to the Metropolitan Opera's program here in NY.) Having now seen an NT Live showing--of a fetching All's Well That Ends Well) I'm convinced the future is here.

Not a future without live performance or where video substitutes for that. But where easy-access digital video exists as a second-choice alternative to at least get a sense of performances one is not able to see firsthand--not just due to cost or scheduling, but because the performance might have been halfway around the world!

One of the pleasures of watching the National's All's Well is that I really felt an amazing approximation of experiences I've had at that theatre myself. Having been there I could imagine myself in the space watching that performance. And all from the comfort of my corner art-house movie theatre in Queens. For $20.

No, it wasn't better than seeing the real thing. But honestly I wasn't going to get to London anyway this fall. And it was definitely better than watching it on television from my couch. At least I was in a proper seat and couldn't just go to the kitchen or answer the phone. (Thus it demanded the same kind of attention live performance does.)

Speaking of television, there's another key function this innovation could play today--filling the gap left by the abandonment of live theatre by television networks. With not even PBS any longer committed to an "American Playhouse" preserving great dramas (not just musicals) done by great actors, can new media step in to provide that service.

So enter yet another British company, a two-bloke startup, simply called Digital Theater that has begun offering, for a modest rental fee, "high definition, downloadable theatre productions filmed in front of live audiences" straight to your laptop.

So yes, this would return us to the diminished screen of the tv. But still. Pretty neat, I say. And aside from the simple pleasure of peeking in on interesting productions from the UK--and soon, hopefully, elsewhere--just think of the value to history and future research.

I tell you, the first major US theatre company that pulls an NT live or Met Opera and goes ahead and gets a grant and puts their entire season online...that'll be a trailblazer. (I'm looking at you, Guthrie. Goodman. Anyone?)

Theatre 80 Lives

Following up on a previous post, the owner of Theatre 80 St. Marks himself--Locan Ottway--writes in to say reports of the space's demise are greatly exaggerated.

We have a web page which soon will have the schedule for Theatre 80, I believe it is Theatre80SaintMarks.com … it will be up soon. We don’t publish the schedule until there is a deposit check in hand, but we are in final negotiations for two operas, a musical, and several other works, including dance… and the big (you heard it first here…) news, is that we are installing high definition projection with a 12 by 28 foot retractable screen, set far back on the stage, so that the sight lines and image will be a great improvement from my father’s day. We will have film on occasion, though our primary focus will be live theater.

Continued best wishes from the Otway family to those dear patrons who have shown us such love for the past 44 years.

All the best
Lorcan Otway

Thank you, sir. We need spaces! So we're pulling for you.

It's a nice website--and it includes rental info.

Say What?

The Broadway musical Memphis is about a white guy? Worse, a white DJ who brings black music to the whiteys?

And it's written by the I Love You, You're Perfect guy and someone from Bon Jovi?

Oy.

(Roma Torre calls the lead "a rough-hewn cracker--make that firecracker!")

On B'way, The Party's Over

Variety's Robert Hofler laments the diminished status of the once mighty Broadway opening night party ritual.

Nowadays, there isn't even a few thousand dollars' worth of publicity, much less a million, to be had from a Broadway opening-night party, most of which feature only two reporters (Variety's and Playbill.com's), three video cams (NY-1, Broadway.com, Broadway Beat) and a gaggle of photogs. The New York Times dropped its Bold Faces column years ago, and the New York Post and the Daily News rarely send reporters to legit events anymore.

"Over the years there's been a diminishment in the press exposure that an opening-night party generates," says producer Jeffrey Richards, who has two new shows ("Superior Donuts," "Race") on Broadway this fall. "It's hardly commensurate with the increased cost of some of these parties."

A sitdown dinner at Tavern on the Green or a big hotel ballroom can easily run $75,000 and up. Most fetes these days feature a sampling of canapes at a cost of about $25,000. (For his recent "Donuts" fete, Richards served sushi in memory of his Jeremy Piven-"Speed-the-Plow" contretemps from the previous season.)

Unless there's a major movie star present onstage or on the red carpet, producers can't count on national coverage. But there's the rub. Movie people don't do press. Not on Broadway. Not anymore. Although there was a full dinner at the glitzy Gotham Hall for the recent "Hamlet" preem party, Jude Law eschewed all interviews.

Even Carrie Fisher--Carrie Fisher!--refused interviews and photographers!

Most pithy sign of the times?

"Now you look around at a party and no one is looking up," says uberpublicist Chris Boneau. "They're all staring at their handheld device when they should be drinking. Reading the reviews in a newspaper was actually more fun. Reading it off a BlackBerry is work."

Heck, why wait for the party. I've seen publicists and creative team alike skimming the reviews mid-show from their seats.

Supply Outpacing Demand?

“[T]here are fewer people patronizing the arts but more arts organizations.”

-NEA chair, Rocco Landesman, as interviewed in New York last week by the ubiquitous Frank Rich.

Talk amongst yourselves...

The Actor's Life

When I saw Terri White in the Encores concert presentation of Finian's Rainbow last spring, I knew she was a wonderful performer. Naturally, I did not know that just a year previously her acting/singing career had put her literally in the streets.

Susan Dominus in today's Times tells her remarkable story:

In the summer of 2008, Ms. White, 61, could not make rent. She was evicted from her apartment of 14 years, after a breakup with a longtime girlfriend. She could not work. She also could not find a way to ask for help. For three months, when she was not crashing on a friend’s couch, she slept in Washington Square Park. The daughter of traveling performers, Ms. White has been performing in musicals since she was 8....

Between gigs on Broadway and singing with Liza Minnelli, Ms. White had always worked for tips in piano bars around the West Village. She was a regular at 88’s until it closed, then found a new home at Rose’s Turn on Grove Street — until it, too, closed. She struggled to get a perch at the few surviving piano bars around town. Heartfelt if campy renditions of American songbook classics were out. Spoofy if campy versions of ’80s pop were in. “They want to bring in the younger crowd,” Ms. White said. “And I’m old.” She still played one night a week at the Duplex, on Christopher Street, earning enough to keep her phone on and get by on Ramen noodles, and kept some clothing there after losing her apartment. In the park, Ms. White slept on a bench near the bathroom because it made her feel more civilized.

[...]

Ms. White never mentioned to the others who slept in the park that she had been nominated for a Tony award* [see note] when she performed, alongside Glenn Close, in “Barnum,” in 1980....

Thanks to a sympathetic cop, a loving partner, and a knockout audition for Encores audition, she's now on Broadway, in Finian's big transfer. (Singing the apropos anthem "Necessity.")

So, a happy ending. And perhaps an exceptional case. But perhaps many show people this morning will read with chills down their spines.

Is this today's actor's nightmare?

(Here's a quick clip of White singing "Necessity." Great song.)

*Wow. Commenter Tom catches this, um, untruth. A little internet research would have prevented this reporting error.