My friend Randy is one of the producers for it. I stopped by the BO today to try to get student tickets (well, A student ticket) and the ticket seller said they were long gone--I'm going to try again Saturday.
I get that people don't necessarily want to see such a dark show. What infuriated me was that know-nothing protest that apparently thinks history is off-limits and that musicals should do nothing but tap dance and make people feel good. "Where's the musical about the Holocaust?" IT'S CALLED CABARET. AND THE SAME GUYS WROTE IT.
The protest was half-assed. They heard the words, "minstrel show" and "blackface," and they were ready to rumble. Yes, to do this show in the minstrel form was incredibly risky. And Tesse mentioned that she was concerned that people would shun it, because it's a minstrel show written, directed and produced by white people. Guess it was a valid worry.
What this show did, what the cast conveyed, was just gutsy beyond words. I hope they get the recognition it deserves. Someday.
I can tell you that shows like this, regardless of quality, rarely do well during times of decreased morale. People spend their days forced to fend off misery, they don't want to then spend lots of money and their evenings doing the same by choice.
When the economy picks up, when things get better, someone should stage a revival of this show, so that it can be tested under the correct conditions for it's merits to be noticed.
The Broadway League recently released its demographic data on the Broadway Audience. The stats are pretty much the same as they've been since they started collecting this info. On the average, 65% of the money to be made every year from Broadway ticket sales is made by selling to people who attend Broadway maybe one or two times a year. These are tourists, business travelers and people who go to a Broadway show to celebrate a special event. Now, it's quite possible that some percentage of that 65% attends theatre regularly outside of Broadway, but this group's main goal is to enjoy themselves and they are most likely to buy tickets based on some kind of familiarity with a star or the material and is more likely to buy full price tickets in order to get the best seats possible. There is very little money to be made by attracting people who attend theatre regularly. There are very few of them and they normally use discounts. There is absolutely a huge difference in the audience makeup when an underrepresented ethnic group is
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I get that people don't necessarily want to see such a dark show. What infuriated me was that know-nothing protest that apparently thinks history is off-limits and that musicals should do nothing but tap dance and make people feel good. "Where's the musical about the Holocaust?" IT'S CALLED CABARET. AND THE SAME GUYS WROTE IT.
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Yes, to do this show in the minstrel form was incredibly risky.
And Tesse mentioned that she was concerned that people would shun it, because it's a minstrel show written, directed and produced by white people. Guess it was a valid worry.
What this show did, what the cast conveyed, was just gutsy beyond words.
I hope they get the recognition it deserves. Someday.
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Reply
When the economy picks up, when things get better, someone should stage a revival of this show, so that it can be tested under the correct conditions for it's merits to be noticed.
-elf-
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