Whipped Cream Difficulties

Jack Viertel has a book coming out in late 2016.

Mr. Viertel is the artistic director of New York City Center Encores! The book is called (at least for now) “The Secret Life of the Broadway Musical: How Broadway Shows are Built”.

“I found that people in their 20s and 30s didn’t understand how classic musicals are built, because that golden age of musicals is so far away from us now,” Mr. Viertel said in a telephone interview on Friday, referring to an era that, for his purposes, starts with the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Oklahoma!” in 1943 and ends with “A Chorus Line” in 1975. Encores! often produces musicals from that period, including its last well-reviewed concert production, “It’s a Bird … It’s a Plane … It’s Superman” from 1966.

Mr. Viertel goes on to argue that “Oklahoma” established a “blueprint” for musicals, which was then subverted in the 1970s by “the Hal Prince-Stephen Sondheim shows – ‘Company,’ ‘Follies,’ several others”, and by the “cultural ferment” of that period. But, he suggests, current hit Broadway musicals have a similar architecture to the “golden age” ones.

From the description, it sounds like Mr. Viertel is, at least in part, applying failure analysis to Broadway musicals. This sounds like it will be an excellent companion volume to my own favorite book on the subject, Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops.

Edited to add: While the Sondheim reference is in the article, I included it as deliberate Mike the Musicologist bait. This resulted in a text message conversation, excerpted below. (I’ve left out some asides which aren’t relevant to the conversation, mostly dealing with “Beat the Devil“.)

MtM: From the description I think that book could also be titled “Get Off My Lawn: Musicals Were Better When I Was A Kid”.

Me: Could be.

MtM: Or perhaps “Musicals In Amber: Why I Think Art Shouldn’t Change”.

Me: But I think the argument that successful musicals share structural commonalities is a legit one to make.

Me: I’m not sure I’d AGREE, but it doesn’t strike me as crazy.

MtM: Which they also share with unsuccessful ones.

Me: Of course, that can be extended.

Me: “Audiences want things that are safe, predictable, and expected.”

Me: “Audiences don’t want to be challenged.”

MtM: The traditional process of putting a show together, as well as the R&H structure, is interesting. I would recommend Everything Was Possible for a study of how a show is created.

MtM: But bemoaning that shows make money through touring over an extended Broadway run? Please.

Me: Is he bemoaning that, or just saying that’s the way the economics works today?

MtM: Curious. Amazon search for “everything was possible” returned a 16GB iPod touch as the 4th result.

MtM: I got the impression he is unhappy that Broadway is no longer the ultimate goal for a show.

Me: I didn’t pick that up. But if he does feel that way, I’d like to read why.

Me: From my POV: more touring = more people exposed to musicals = healthy and vibrant musical community.

MtM: I just got a sense from the article that this book is going to be “if shows were still done like this then musicals would still be central to our culture” which grates with me on many points.

MtM: The basic subject – how dramatic/musical structure, book doctoring, etc. is interesting. If that’s his focus then Yay.