Coming Attractions

Here's the story:

Starting in about thirty-nine words, I am going off on a week-long bender of ten-minute writings, after which there will be nothing for the three days leading up to March 9, which is a significant date. Just so you know what to expect.

A Policy Clarification: Why I Don't Like Musicals

There have been a number of times in the past when I have found myself saying, with pretty reasonable conviction, "I just don't like musicals." Given that I am about as deep into the theatre as you can get without having to wear tap shoes, this seems pretty ridiculous. I have had a handful of conversations with people who are anywhere from puzzled to downright abusive in reaction to this position. I've been thinking about it more lately, and it is time to clarify the policy.

(Note: Most of the musicals discussed below are movie musicals. These are the ones that most people have seen, so they are the more common points of reference. That they are movies is also relevant to the discussion, but we'll get to that later)

(Also note: If you haven't figured it out yet, there is going to be a bit of theatre talk forthcoming. Uninterested parties have been warned)

It's not that I don't like musicals. I enjoy the hell out of the nostalgic goofiness of "Guys and Dolls" and "Singin' in the Rain," and I thought that "Moulin Rouge" and "Chicago" were tons of fun. I even saw and enjoyed "The Producers" a few weeks ago. It's not that I don't enjoy the musical as a genre, it's that I like straight plays a whole lot more (terminology note: "straight play" = non-musical, a point I make mainly to quell a certain variety of jokes coming from a certain sector of the audience). If you gave me the choice between seeing the hottest drama or musical currently on Broadway, I would choose the drama every time. Here's why:

On the first day of teaching Intro to Theatre for Non-Majors, I ask my class how many of them have seen any theatre at all (this number is depressingly low, around 60%), and if they have, what it was. Of those who have seen theatre, about 95% of them have seen big touring Broadway musicals. This means that when you say theatre, people think of "Miss Saigon" or "Les Miserables." Thus, theatre and musicals have become inseparably linked in the public's mind. The result of this linkage is that the straight play gets pushed even further away from the broader public eye than it already is. There are some amazing plays out there that you will never hear of because they don't have a catchy tune or a damn helicopter landing on the damn stage in an emotionally explosive and musically vomitous moment of damn blah blah blah. The stereotype of Theatre = Musicals also turns off a lot of people who aren't interested in forms of entertainment in which people inexplicably break into sentimental songs. The result, unfortunately, is that non-theatre people pay $125 to see the touring version of "Mamma Mia" when that money would almost buy a season ticket at the local repertory theatre. That repertory theatre is probably producing some interesting and unexpected stuff (not "artsy obscure" unexpected, but "thought-provoking" unexpected) but does not have $5 million to spend on marketing, so they are frequently overlooked.

So that's reason number one. More tomorrow.