OT: Musical Broadway feeds on pop songs

Date: 26 Jun 2003 00:44:04 -0700
Newsgroups: alt.music.moody-blues
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Musical Broadway feeds on pop songs
By Scott Galupo Prediction: Madonna will hit Broadway again. Not the singer
herself — although that's always a danger — but her music. If the trend of musicals created around the hits of pop stars
continues to thrive, it's only a matter of time before the Material
Girl's hits become fodder for a live stage production. Just last week, it was announced that Rod Stewart's catalog is
being retrofitted for a musical called "Tonight's the Night,"
scheduled to debut this fall on London's West End. Add that to the megapopular, Abba-themed "Mamma Mia," the
Queen-themed "We Will Rock You," and the Twyla Tharp-choreographed
"Movin' Out," which turned Billy Joel's hits into a Tony Award magnet. If that's not enough, fear not. More pop musicals are in the
hopper. An Elvis Presley musical called "Can't Help Falling in Love," for
example, is being planned for the Broadway stage, according to
Arlington-based Signature Theatre Director Eric Schaeffer. The trend isn't confined to the New York-London axis; it has also
filtered down to the theatrical grass roots. Frederick's Maryland Ensemble Theatre just ended its run of
"Planet Claire: A Sci-Fi Go-Go Musical," based on the music of the
B-52s. Pop musicals, to be sure, aren't an entirely new thing. Before the
bellwether "Mamma Mia," there was the Who's rock opera, "Tommy," and
later, the "Rocky Horror Picture Show," a 1975 cult movie that began
as a pop experiment in a small London playhouse. However, the current shows are linked by a distinctive new
wrinkle: They are deriving original stories for the musical theater
from songs that have previously succeeded in the pop music
marketplace. Such musicals trade on solid, time-tested brand names, and they
appeal to a lucrative crossover market that potentially includes both
baby boomers and thirtysomething Gen-Xers, explains Marks Chowning,
vice president of the Hippodrome Theatre at the France-Merrick
Performing Arts Center in Baltimore. "The thing that ultimately sustains theater is audience
development," Mr. Chowning says. What better way to hook theatergoers than to piggyback on music
that's long been popular? "If the music weren't good, it wouldn't
endure," Mr. Chowning reasons. "Those are very well-established
brands, and you're capitalizing on that in the same way you cast a
star, or any other marquee value you attach to any entertainment
production." "It's just smart theatrical production," says David Petrou,
president of Eisner Petrou and Associates, a communications consulting
firm that numbers Clear Channel Entertainment among its clients. "It's not just mass appeal, it's 'most' appeal." This formula happens to be so "most-appealing" that pop musicals
are virtually critic-proof. "Mamma Mia" generated such a groundswell
of word-of-mouth enthusiasm that lukewarm reviews didn't matter a
whit: Box-office numbers for the production, which will start another
run at the National Theatre in November, have been consistently
strong. Pete Sanders, who's handling marketing for a "Chicago" revival
that debuted at the National Theatre on June 10, says, sadly, that
there aren't many original musicals being written today. So why not produce musicals that appeal to consumers who don't
read theater criticism and wouldn't normally spend their money on live
theater? "It's widening the base of theater, and that's always good," he
says. "People who go to 'Mamma Mia' might not go to 'Chicago.' " However, after seeing "Mamma Mia," Mr. Sanders hopes, maybe
they'll be more inclined to see a pure Broadway show. "You want pieces that have various access points so audiences can
find a way into the piece," says Wendy C. Goldberg, an artistic
associate and director at the Arena Stage. Having been hooked by a pop musical, audiences "could then
potentially shift to something else down the street on Broadway," Ms.
Goldberg says. Mr. Schaeffer, for his part, isn't so sanguine about the
pop-musical phenomenon, arguing that it's a cheap-and-easy way of
ginning up interest among media-saturated audiences. While he thinks there's value in some of the productions —
particularly "Movin' Out" — he wonders how many times pop musicals can
be made without seeming like threadbare imitations of one another.
"There are only so many ways to slice an apple," he says. "Everyone was worried that 42nd Street was being Disneyfied," Mr.
Schaeffer continues. "Everybody thought it would turn into a theme
park. It didn't." It's turning into a different kind of pop culture emporium, he
fears — one that depends on a somewhat unadventurous audience. "If people are going to spend $100, they would rather gamble on
something familiar than something unknown," he says. What's lost in this derivative medium-melding, Mr. Schaeffer
contends, is real storytelling. "You don't have challenging musicals on Broadway anymore," he
laments. "The big concern is that we're losing the theatricality of
storytelling." But Ms. Goldberg says that although pop musicals can fairly be
lumped together, artistic quality varies from piece to piece. "They're all actually quite different," she says. "Personally, I'm
less excited by 'Mamma Mia,' but I saw it, and I understand why it was
made. "The notion of taking Abba songs and creating a story line around
them — it's a good idea. It wasn't the most successful artistic piece
I've ever seen, but I think it has its place." Only time — and audiences — will tell how much drama can be wrung
from pop songs that go, "If you want my body, and you think I'm sexy
... ." For now, one thing, at least, seems certain: As long as people
keep showing up, producers will continue supplying the product. Watch out for "Material Girl" at a theater near you.