During my recent visit to New York I was sat in a restaurant one evening, enjoying a night off from the theatre, when suddenly out of the corner of my eye I could see a Broadway report being shown on television. After taking a closer look I soon realised I was watching NY1 – New York City’s main 24-hour cable-news television channel.
The report covered several big stories, including the Broadway transfer of The Cripple of Inishmaan starring Daniel Radcliffe, Norm Lewis becoming the first African-American performer to star as the title role in the New York production of The Phantom of the Opera, as well as a review of Idina Menzel’s new show If/Then and a mention to off-Broadway show Heathers The Musical.
In Britain it’s exciting when a West End cast is given a two minute performance slot on daytime television, but a lengthy West End round-up is completely unheard off. This sums up the main difference I discovered between West End and Broadway theatre - there is so much more respect, passion and excitement for theatre in New York. They celebrate their theatre culture whilst sometimes ours is forgotten.
As I queued outside the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre to see my first Broadway show, The Bridges of Madison County, the first conversation I overheard was about Tony nominations. The Tonys are a huge event in America, they are broadcast live to millions and successful shows often see a huge boost in ticket sales. The awards act as a stepping stone for actors who win the main performance prizes (particularly those in musical theatre), with many crossing over into the realms of TV and film, something which is much harder for musical theatre performers in Britain.
Whilst the Oliviers are still one of the biggest nights in the West End calendar, they are certainly no longer the most important. The coverage seems to be going backwards, a couple of years ago you could watch the awards live via the red button and hear the action unfold live on BBC Radio 2. However, this year the only place you could watch/hear the results live was in Covent Garden. The live performances were brilliant, but sitting on the ground in Covent Garden to watch the live-steaming, whilst drunks stumbled through the crowd and technical problems caused disruption to the screens, was far from ideal.
To be an Olivier Award winning performer is still a huge deal and respected achievement, but a show winning lots of awards doesn’t necessarily make it a box office triumph; a recent example being Top Hat which was nominated for seven Olivier Awards last year. Weeks after picking up three awards, including the all-important ‘Best New Musical’, the musical announced its closure, with a decline in sales being blamed.
On Broadway Jerry Mitchell’s stage adaptation of Kinky Boots didn’t win over critics and received tough competition from Matilda. However, when Kinky Boots won six Tonys, including ‘Best Musical’ and ‘Best Score’, it enjoyed a huge post-Tony boost in advance sales. The musical is still going strong, with a West End transfer planned for next year.
New York City and London are certainly the two theatre capitals of the world. They are both different and similar in so many ways, but there are things we could learn from Broadway. It would be great to see more mainstream coverage of theatre in Britain. It seems odd that arts journalists are being fired and theatre PR’s are finding their jobs increasingly harder when so many thousands and thousands of people attend the theatre night after night. Something isn’t right.
Andrew Tomlins (Editor)
No comments:
Post a Comment