Return of the living dead?

A tossed-off remark in The New York Times' fall preview has me scratching my head. Charles Isherwood, in a short piece about upcoming revivals, glancingly refers to the domination of Broadway houses by remounted shows: "...[T]hese days, as revivals seem to outnumber new plays, at least on Broadway, it is easy to point to their preponderance as evidence of the business's superannuated condition." I know that the common thinking about the Great White Way is that it's overrun with audience-pleasing retreads of yesteryear, but that ain't actually so. I flipped open my handy copy of Time Out New York and discovered that, as of today, there is exactly one revival on Broadway: Chicago. Sure, some shows like The Phantom of the Opera, The Lion King, Rent and others have been running so long they're practically pale revivals of the original productions. And true, this fall there will be a handful of revivals: Heartbreak House, Company, A Chorus Line and Les Miserables. But Isherwood doesn't even mention the last two. If you carefully read his statement, I suppose he's saying there are more revivals than new plays on Broadway, but again, that's not the case right now. And come the fall, there will be a little bunch of new-ish plays: The Coast of Utopia, The Little Dog Laughed, The Vertical Hour. It surprises me that no copy editor took a second to see if, indeed, Broadway served up a majority of revivals. I'm not trying to say that Broadway is a wonderland of new work by exciting young talent, but revivals are no longer the rule on the Main Stem, they're the exception.

Comments

[Joshua James]

David,

Welcome to the blogsphere!

Question - does THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED count as a new play on B'way when it already debuted Off-Bway? Technically, it's new to BROADWAY, sure, but it's hardly new in term of new york exposure, right?

[David Cote]

While the play itself may not be new to theatergoers who saw it at Second Stage, it is technically a new production, with three recast performers and set & lighting changes for the new venue. As far as Tony voters go, even though the play opened earlier this year Off Broadway, the transferred production is eligible for the Best New Play category. I think there's some statute of limitations for a show to open elsewhere, transfer and still be considered a "new" play or musical. For example, "Assassins," while it never made it to Broadway in 1991, was deemed a revival for the 2004 Tony Awards. But two years before that, Ivan Turgenev's 150-year-old "Fortune's Fool" was deemed a New Play. The vagaries of an imperfect awarding system.

[Patrick Pacheco]

That Broadway is awash in revivals is a common misperception among the public as well. I can't tell you how many times people come up to me and make that observation, even in seasons when the Tony nominating committee could only come up with two qualifiers. As you point out, David, some shows are so long into their runs that they appear to be revivals. But another factor is that even new shows, like "Thoroughly Modern Millie" "Hairspray", and "Drowsy Chaperone", SEEM like revivals.

[PatrickKelley]

I think that maybe what he is saying is that the presence of revivals in any considerable number limit the success of new shows, as people will turn to the seemingly tried and true given the reality of limitations of time and money. This is especially true of tourists to the area. Never mind that most of these shows are, as you say, pale copies of the originals. They will naturally gravitate to them from original reputation.

A deduction from Patrick, who doesn't necessailly know what the hell he is talking about.