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Jukebox Triumphant
Audiences cheered for Jersey Boys (2005 - still
running), a thinly dramatized
collection of pop hits introduced by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, but
some in the profession expressed concern when this show became
the first jukebox musical to win the Tony for Best Musical.
This pleasant tuner would delight suburbanites and tourists for years to come. Its main
rival was The Drowsy Chaperone (2006 - 674 perfs), a spoof of 1920s musicals that
bore no real resemblance to its supposed targets. A handsome adaptation of the
hit novel and film The Color Purple (2005 - 910 perfs) was
plot-heavy, but
a promising score and generous publicity (courtesy of producer Oprah Winfrey,
who plugged the musical on her popular daytime talk show) helped keep the show running strong for more than a
year.
And several failures drew attention. Few mourned when Andrew Lloyd Webber's mawkish The Woman in White
(2005 - 109 perfs) and Disney's earthbound adaptation of the animated Tarzan
(2006 - 486 perfs) both lost millions of dollars. And there was positive
glee when Elton John's unimaginative score helped bury the vampire musical
Lestat (2006 - 39 perfs). The spectacular failure of Shonberg &
Boublil's dreary The Pirate Queen (2007 - 85 perfs) verified the
public was no longer buying the old megamusical formula either. And Mel Brooks
stumbled with an uninspired adaptation of his own Young Frankenstein (2007 - 484
perfs). Was the endless stream of Broadway musicals based on films finally
coming to an end? Like a breath of fresh air, America's growing Latino
population made a long overdue appearance with In the Heights (2008 -
still running), which took actor-songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda from
off-Broadway obscurity to Tony-winning fame with a salsa-infused score and tons
of critical approval.
And a Little Child Shall Lead Them . . .
A spunky little musical called [title of show] (2008 - 102 perfs) that
featured its two authors spouting musical theatre in-jokes took an innovative
approach. It parlayed several brief runs off-Broadway into an avalanche of
low-cost internet publicity, but once on Broadway could not find a substantial
audience. A heavy-handed adaptation of the animated film Shrek
(2008 - still running) had trouble filling seats.
On the other hand,
audiences packed the tuneless but energetic adaptation of Billy Elliot
(2008 - still running), which had three talented young actors alternating in
the role of the poor coalminer's son who dreams of studying ballet. While this
British import won the Tony for Best Musical, the awarrds for score and book
went to Next to Normal (2008 - still running), a native born show
about a family facing emotional meltdown set to a powerful rock beat.
Although no one dared say it, Broadway had just offered a full season in
which no successful new musical featured traditional showtunes. Those were heard in
Patti Lupone's exciting revival of Gypsy (2008 - 332 perfs), a
superb restoration of Rogers & Hammerstein's South Pacific (2008 -
still running), and a coolly-received bilingual revival of West Side Story (2008 - still
running). But the presence of these Golden Age shows merely made the change
all the more apparent. After a reign of more than a century, the showtune was now a
dinosaur, even on Broadway. With tourists making up more than 60 percent of
its audience, the Broadway musical resigned itself to being little more than
another tourist trap -- like the soul-less floor shows of Las Vegas, but with
occasional sparks of invention.
(As the decade unfolds, more will be added.)
Next: And the Future?
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