"Avenue Q" is at Home in Its New Address

The cheeky little musical Avenue Q ran for six years on Broadway, arm wrestled the Tony for Best Musical away from the bigger and glitzier Wicked, and convinced legions of twentysomethings that Broadway could be a fun place for them to go. But somehow my twentysomething niece Jennifer managed to miss it.  So she was delighted to hear that just five weeks after Avenue Q closed on Broadway, the show was reopening at New World Stages. Judging by the response at the performance we attended, it could enjoy an even longer run off-Broadway. 

The show is, famously, a parody of "Sesame Street", complete with a multi-ethnic cast of characters, puppets, and cheery message songs.  Except that Avenue Q’s characters are potty-mouthed, the puppets sexually active, and the songs about the dilemmas twentysomethings face like finding meaningful jobs, committing to relationships and coming out of the closet.  Jennifer kept nodding and sighing in recognition as the things she and her friends are experiencing unfolded on stage. She loved the show.

I had a good time too.  I saw the show back in 2003 and so I already knew all the jokes but I still laughed at most of them anyway.  And I didn’t even notice the new production’s smaller set or even the smaller orchestra. I even found myself liking some members of the cast more than the originals. It can’t be easy to act with a sock puppet on your hand but Anika Larsen is thoroughly engaging as both good-girl Kate Monster and the Miss Piggyesque vamp Lucy

The laid-back atmosphere at New World Stages, the one-time cineplex that was converted to a theater complex a few years ago, is a perfect venue for Avenue Q.  People queued up at the bar before the show to order drinks, including a fruity sangria, that could be taken to their seats. In another part of the lobby, people milled around chatting about shows they were going to see that night and might see some other night (The Toxic Avenger was playing in the theater next door to Avenue Q's, Altar Boyz down the hall.)  Inside the Avenue Q theater, waiters worked the aisles hawking drinks and CDs. Later as we left after the show, a singing duo serenaded a group in the bar area.  It all made going to the theater seem like a fun thing to do.  But you don’t have to be in your 20s to enjoy it, or to enjoy Avenue Q.

Is "[title of show]" Too Exclusive?

People see shows for all kinds of reasons. Like because they adore the stars. Or because they feel an essential connection to the playwright or composer. But I wanted to see the new musical [title of show] because of its producers. Kevin McCollum and Jeffrey Seller are the guys who brought Rent to Broadway. And Avenue Q. And In the Heights. They’re not infallible; they also brought the short-lived High Fidelity to Broadway. But they clearly have a knack for sussing out shows that appeal to the young and more diverse audiences that Broadway needs to survive in the 21st century. So I wanted to see what they were cooking up next.

I suspect [title of show] appealed to them because its creators, two thirtysomething guys named Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell, are as crazy about theater as McCollum and Seller obviously are. [title of show] is a meta-musical that tells the story of how two musicals-loving gay guys and their best gal friends join together to put on a show, which is about two musicals-loving gay guys and their best gal friends who…well you get the picture.

The show was originally put together for the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2004 (the title is a riff on the line on the Festival application form requesting the name of the show being submitted) where it won a cult following (diehard fans call themselves tossers) and they eventually got a run at The Vineyard Theatre in 2006. When that off-Broadway production ended, the show went viral with videos on YouTube (click here to see them). And each step has been incorporated into the evolving script.

Despite its openly ambitious goals (to break the mold of what a Broadway show should be, to reveal a kind of Stephen Colbert truthiness about what it takes to get a show on, to become a Tony contender) this show puts the mini in minimalism. There are just four actors—Bell, Bowen, the mordant Susan Blackwell and the cute Heidi Blickenstaff. They wear one set of street clothes each. And the set is little more than four mismatched chairs and a couple of props. The entire orchestra is just a guy on a keyboard.

Endlessly self-referential, [title of show] is chocked full of showbiz allusions (one running joke has the real voices of current Broadway divas leaving messages on an answering machine as they turn down a role in the show—the fun is trying to figure out who each one is before she identifies herself and then enjoying the way that what she says sends up her public persona). But at heart, [title of show] is about the desire to fulfill dreams and the struggle to maintain integrity while doing so. “I’d rather be nine people’s favorite thing than a hundred people’s ninth favorite thing” go the lyrics in one song.

Alas, they’re going to have to count me in the hundred people category. I see a lot of theater and so I got most (but not all) of the inside stuff and laughed at much of it. I thought Bell, Bowen, Blackwell and Blickenstaff were all appealing and amusing. And I could see how very much this show means to each of them. But part of what I so love about McCollum and Seller shows is their determination to reach out to people who aren’t theater geeks, to those who may think that theater isn't for them. This show strikes the theater populist in me as an us-and-them affair.

There were a lot of tossers at the performance I attended, including the man sitting next to me, who whooped after every song and kept glaring at me when I didn’t. It’s also been interesting to read the critical responses to the show. A few old-time traditionalists, like John Simon and Clive Barnes, were turned off but most of the reviewers love it. Of course, they’re insiders too; Roma Torre, the theater critic for the local cable channel NY1, is even a punch line in the show. But what are tourists from Tulsa or Tokyo (or even those folks from Teaneck who only see a show once or twice a year) to make of all this?

Now I know that not every Broadway show needs to appeal to every Broadway theatergoer. And this show should be applauded for trying something different and making Broadway cool for a hip segment of the forty-and-under crowd. And they may be even a bigger part than one might think since the society is increasingly showbiz savvy. My fellow blogger Chris Caggiano at Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals is a fan of the show and in his review (click here to read it) he reminds us that people were probably just as dubious that the similarly-themed A Chorus Line would appeal beyond the theaterati when it began its original15-year run back in 1975.

I confess that I don’t like being on the old-foggy side of this generation gap. But I do think [title of show] is a bit too smug. Still, there are lots of theater geeks in New York and around the world who will glorify in the exclusive secret-handshake nature of the show. [title of show] is for them and they’re bound to love it. But it may not be for your elderly aunt. Unless, of course, one of the reasons you see shows is that she’s the Auntie Mame who introduced you to the unpredictable craziness that is theater.

No Glory for "Glory Days"

Update: two hours after this entry was posted, it was announced that this show would close after just 19 previews and only one performance.

Almost every theater geek can think back to some youthful desire to make a show about his or her buddies. Mine was to be called These Are My Friends and centered around a group of precocious kids at an arty college like the one my precocious friends and I attended. It’s been decades since I thought about These Are My Friends but watching the new musical Glory Days not only reminded me of it but also made me deeply grateful that I never did anything with it. For this little show about four young misfits who get together a year after their high school graduation is an unnecessary flop.

The story of how Glory Days got to Broadway became lore even before it opened at Circle in the Square last night. Two friends—the show’s composer Nick Blaemire and book writer James Gardiner—started writing a musical 7 years ago when they were still in high school. They grew up to be actors and while performing in productions at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, persuaded that company’s artistic director Eric Schaeffer to take a look at their script. Apparently impressed by their nascent talent, Schaeffer gave their show a full-fledged production in January.

Peter Marks, the lead theater critic for the Washington Post, saw Glory Days and gave it such an encouraging review (click here to read what he said then and here to read what he says now) that producers John O'Boyle and Ricky Stevens decided to bring it to Broadway and, according to a Variety article (click here to read about them) beat out two other transfer candidates —Next to Normal and [title of show]—to get the space recently vacated by that hit nerd fest, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

I can imagine how Blaemire, 23, and Gardiner, who recently turned 24, must have felt when they got the news. In fact, you can read how they feel in their Playbill bios. “Can’t believe this is happening. Not one bit,” acknowledges Blaemire. But I don’t want to imagine how they must feel reading today’s reviews. The New York Times’ Ben Brantley made every effort to avoid slamming these young guys, diplomatically saying that while the show may “evoke tears of pride and nods of recognition among friends and relatives of the writers. Average theatergoers will probably feel less indulgent.” Others were far less kind. Wrote amNY critic Matt Windman, “After enduring all 90 painful minutes of this undercooked, horribly amateurish show, you'll be wondering how the hell it got to Broadway.”

I do wonder. Although I can’t say I wasn’t warned. My buddy Bill and I try to avoid talking about a show until we’ve both seen it. But over the weekend, I got an email from him that read “Last night I saw the worst show I've seen in, oh, several years. Excruciating. My lips are sealed till I see you and know what you’ve been seeing.” By a process of elimination, I had a pretty good idea which show he meant. Still, I hadn’t expected Glory Days’ book to be so unformed (the boys simply wander around the stage talking about how they have and haven’t changed and then wander off) or the music to be so uninspiring (with just two exceptions, the show’s 15 art-pop songs all sounded the same to me).

The actors playing the friends—Steven Booth, Andrew C. Call, Adam Halpin, Jesse JP Johnson—are full of energy but Schaeffer, who directed the production, doesn’t given them much to do besides running up and down the metal bleachers that, along with reflector lights, constitute scenic designer James Kronzer’s entire set. Bill says that in an effort to keep himself involved, he counted the lights; there are 480.

Even the harshest critics are loathed to blame—or discourage—the show’s young creators. All of us who love Broadway are delighted when young people want to bring their experiences and talent to live theater. But youthful enthusiasm just isn’t enough. I don't know if Glory Days could ever have become glorious but it should never have been brought to Broadway the way it is now.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the vibrant In the Heights, is, at 28, only slightly older than Blaemire and Gardiner but he began working on his show when he was in high school too. Fortunately for him, and for us, he hooked up with Kevin McCollum and Jeffrey Seller, the producing team that also brought Rent and Avenue Q to Broadway and who clearly know how to develop young talent and how not to push it into the big time prematurely. The difference between their shows and Glory Days is a reminder that producing is also an art.

Having My "Jerry Springer" Moment

There’s a difference between liking a show and admiring one. Two days have passed since I saw Jerry Springer: The Opera, the sacrilegious, potty-mouthed musical that had a two-night run at Carnegie Hall this past week, and I still can’t decide if I liked it. But I certainly do respect its audacity.

British comedians Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee based their musical on the trashy American TV talk show on which people in dysfunctional relationships shamelessly reveal personal secrets that range from infidelity and incest to racism and homophobia and then frequently end up trading blows with one another. Thomas and Lee placed their second act in Hell where Springer referees a debate between a diaper-clad Jesus and a nattily suited Satan, with a much put upon God making a cameo appearance. The situations are irreverent, the music is operatic; the lyrics are profane enough to make a gangsta rapper blush. (Click here to read an interview with Thomas and Lee about the show’s derivation).

Jerry Springer was a critical and commercial hit in London, moving from a five-month run at the National Theatre in 2003 to the West End, where it played for another 15 months (click here to see one of the dozens of YouTube clips from that production). But a national tour through the rest of Britain set off protests from Christian groups at almost every stop, a BBC broadcast drew some 50,000 complaints, and a Broadway transfer was cancelled when financial backers got cold feet. The show finally made its U.S. debut last summer at Chicago’s Bailiwick Repertory Theatre, a non-equity company known for its gay-themed shows.

So when I saw that the infamous show was being done for two nights at Carnegie Hall, I knew that I had to see it. There was nearly as much to see outside the concert hall as there was on the stage inside at the second night performance my always-up-for-anything buddy Bill and I attended. Despite the cold, people milled around on the sidewalk, clearly pleased with themselves for being there and eager to see who else had come. A small band of religious protesters from the Catholic group The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property stood to one side, carrying picket signs and, from time to time, tentatively singing hymns. But people mostly ignored them and kept schmoozing.

Even inside, it took a while for the SRO audience to settle down and the show started about 15 minutes late. Tough-guy actor Harvey Keitel seemed miscast in the non-singing role of Springer. But David Bedella, the one holdover from the original British cast, gave a high-voltage performance in the dual roles of Satan and the tabloid show’s Warm-up Man. The rest of the cast, all Broadway veterans, all eager and able to show off their operatic chops and, each wittily costumed by Ilona Somogyi, was equally terrific as the show’s unhappy guests.

It seemed deliciously transgressive to be watching so naughty a show in such a decorous setting as Carnegie Hall, although I do wish the acoustics had been better because I had trouble hearing all of the lyrics. I also wish that director Jason Moore, who also helmed Avenue Q, another cheeky TV to stage transfer, had drawn out more of the poignancy that is evident in some of the YouTube clips from the London production. Still, I laughed and I gasped and I wasn’t bored. But I still don’t know if I liked the show. Shock and awe can be dazzling and barrier breaking but sometimes, it is no more consequential than a sky full of fireworks.

Broadway Goes Technoculture

If you're reading this blog, I know two things about you: (1) you're interested in Broadway and (2) you feel at least some comfort online. What I wondered was how comfortable Broadway felt not only online but with all the new technology from cellphones to social networking websites that are defining modern life. The big challenge for all the old traditional art forms and institutions—books, museums, opera, theater—is to find new ways to connect to media-savvy audiences, particularly the tweens, teens and twentysomethings who can give them the infusion of fresh blood they'll need to thrive in the 21st century. So I poked around, asked some friends, trolled some sites and found to my delight that Broadway is beginning to get its high-tech act together.

Just this week, the New York Times ran an article on how the folks over at Spring Awakening are inviting audience members to compete for the prize of a backstage tour by sending text messages via their cellphones (click here to read the article). I know some of my fellow bloggers hate this idea because they worry it will lead to more phones going off during the show but I say let's get the kids into the theater and then teach them how to behave once they're there. Avenue Q is trying to lure them in with a series of podcasts that will be downloadable at iTunes. Legally Blonde and the recently departed The Pirate Queen launched extravagant multi-media websites. Rent and other shows offer ringtone versions of their songs. It's all good.

Broadway producers in the past embraced the new technology of their day too—from the first cast album of Oklahoma in 1943 to scores of cast performances on the old Ed Sullivan TV show to D. A. Pennebaker’s now-classic documentary on the cast recording of Company. So I applaud Curtains for joining more obviously youth-friendly shows like Spring Awakening and Legally Blonde and setting up its own page on MySpace. More producers should put video clips on YouTube too. There are already a few, placed there mainly by fans who seem to have sneaked cameras into theaters and made bootleg videos but productions ought to be uploading their own highlights. It's free advertising and costly production values like those for TV spots aren't necessary since the rough, homemade quality of the videos is consider cool on YouTube. But more than anything a MySpace page or a YouTube clip signals that Broadway is up to date and makes the shows seem as though they want the people who are interested in these sites to be interested in them too.

I think it would be really great if Broadway annexed some space on Second Life, the online site that simulates the real world. Companies like Nike have set up shop there. Politicians like Barack Obama are campaigning there (click here to see him in action and to get a sense of how 2nd Life works). The Louvre has opened a virtual branch. Heck, even the country of Sweden set up a virtual embassy "to promote its image and culture." Now doesn't that sound like exactly what Broadway should be doing?

Walking the Plank with "The Pirate Queen"

After years and years in which one person shows and two handers have made up too large a part of its diet, with even the musicals tending towards small portion productions like Grey Gardens and Avenue Q, Broadway seems to be bingeing on big cast shows this season. There are 44 actors in The Coast of Utopia, 38 in Les Misérables, and 34 in the straight play Inherit the Wind. But not even 41 hard-working singers and dancers are enough to make a satisfying meal of The Pirate Queen, the Les Miz duo Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s musical version of the story of Grace O’Malley, a 16th century Irish proto-feminist and nationalist who not only commanded a ship of pirates but maneuvered a face-to-face summit meeting with Queen Elizabeth I.

I didn’t go to the show with high expectations. I’d heard about the poor notices it got during its fall tryout in Chicago. And even though I don’t read reviews until after I’ve seen a show, I had a sense that the New York critics weren’t much happier with the changes that show doctors Richard Maltby (pitching in on the book and lyrics) and Graciela Daniele (helping out with the staging) had made for the Broadway production. So when I called to invite my niece Jennifer to see the show, I warned her that it probably wasn’t going to be the best time she’d had in the theater. Jennifer, who’s now 27, has been going to the theater since before she was old enough to read a Playbill and she has very strong opinions about what she likes (Spring Awakening) and doesn’t like (Tarzan) but she’s obsessed with the Tudor era and so I thought she might see something in the show that others hadn’t. She didn’t.

It wasn’t a total washout. We both enjoyed the Irish step-dancing numbers choreographed by the Riverdance folks, who also produced the show. And we got a kick out of the over-the-top costumes that Martin Pakledinaz created for Queen Elizabeth. But neither the book nor the music did much for us. In fact, the show proved to be the theatrical equivalent of the proverbial Chinese meal that leaves you hungry an hour later—on the bus ride home neither of us could remember even one song from the score. And if you believe New York Post theater columnist Michael Riedel, The Pirate Queen’s landlord is hungry for something else too. Riedel reports (click here to read it) that agents for Live Nation, which owns the Hilton Theater where the show is playing, recently showed the space to director Susan Stroman as a possible home for the new Mel Brooks show, Young Frankenstein. Undaunted, The Pirate Queen’s producers are maintaining their swashbuckling attitude and posting daily entries to their website. Take a peek (click here to visit it); it’s more entertaining than their show and a lot cheaper.