The (R)evolution of Youth Orientation in Broadway
New York City, New York | November 14-17
Questions
- What does Broadway’s shift to younger audiences mean for the future of Broadway and what is the influence it is having on these audiences presently?
- How do these musicals and plays affect its viewers in a way that film and television can not?
When I arrived in New York I took photos and notes of my first impressions of the physical landscape of Broadway. I then conducted interviews over the next three days with different people in theatre including a composer, actor, and major theatre critic. I also saw three different Broadway musical productions, The Lightning Thief, Waitress, and Moulin Rouge.
Me, onstage the Longacre Theater with the set for The Lightning Thief musical designed by Lee Savage
Findings
After spending my time in New York City and conducting my interviews I found some of the answers to my questions, but also discovered bigger and more valid questions in terms of Broadway, its audiences, and accessibility. I started this project with this idea and supposed understanding that Broadway was changing to attract younger audiences, children and young teens. What I learned through an excellent conversation with now former editor in chief of American Theatre magazine Diep Tran was that, Broadway has always been for children. Which is why Disney musicals on Broadway are so successful there has always been a goal of wanting children to be attracted to Broadway for their parents to buy tickets. What Tran pointed out was how Broadway musicals are now trying to attract millennials, young adults who are starting to become independent and produce their own income. Which is why productions such as Mean Girls, Spongebob Squarepants, and Beetlejuice, or rather film and television adapted for the stage musicals, are so popular. Tran also nudged me in the direction of an even more important question: how do we make Broadway less important?
So yes, how do we make Broadway less important while also at the same time acknowledging it is seen as important and has influence. In my conversation with Jorrel Javier, a Filipino actor who played Grover on Broadway during The Lightning Thiefs’ limited run at the Longacre Theatre and an overall lovely person, he expressed his struggle with the same questions. Javier talked about his experience when he was a child and what it was like seeing somebody that looked like him on stage for the first time as being a life changing moment that told him theatre was a space he could also be a part of. Javier talked about how important it was for him to be on a Broadway stage being a queer person of color performing for little kids who saw him and realized it was an incredible experience and privilege. But Javier also traveled with the show on its first national tour and said that journey was just as moving because it brought the show closer to its fans all across the US.
Me and Rob Rokicki composer for The Lightning Thief Musical
The show’s composer Rob Rokicki was a great voice, he acknowledged his privilege as a cis-white man and described why he thought it was so important to put on a rock musical based off a middle-school chapter book. Rokicki is one of many working hard to change what is considered normal or appropriate for the Broadway stage, redefining what is considered important. Rokicki shared how before the show reached Broadway it was adored by critics for its scrappy, low-budget charm, but once it reached Broadway the very same critics tore the show apart, making it abundantly clear how Broadway continues to have a strong set of rules on what is and isn’t allowed.
When I saw Waitress the next day I sat in the obstructed view section which gave me not this beautiful view but rather...
This still very amazing view. Obstructed view seating equals cheaper tickets, and at this performance I was surrounded by a bunch of local high school teenagers, every single one of them a student of color, on a field trip with their English teacher. I asked the ones closest to me if this was their first time in a Broadway theater and if they knew about the show. Most of them answered honestly and said they never have and never really cared much about Broadway or theatre or thought about it too hard. Which, as I am doing this project with teenagers in mind, was both shocking and amusing. It puts in perspective that I and many others may be overthinking everything that goes on stage, but most kids are there cause it's a free field trip.
But this cast of Waitress delighted these apathetic teens, they laughed and cheered, and genuinely enjoyed this show that was about love and finding inner strength and community. Waitress is a rare gem with a completely women-led production team, and the cast on stage that night did not reflect the majority of the audience, but the majority of the city. Those students saw people who looked like themselves on stage dealing with life and issues that anyone will face. After the show it was clear they walked out more impressed then they had come in, but who knows if they'll get another chance to see a show outside of school.
Walking into Moulin Rouge at the Al Hirschfield Theater
Personal Impact
Well, my first time in New York, a childhood dream, I got to meet a Broadway composer, see a show based off my favorite book ever, and get to go backstage at a Broadway show... it was pretty impactful. I walked away feeling so grateful and wishing more little musical theater nerds across the nation could experience all of this with me. But going backstage also told me something very simple: it's just another stage. It tore down this grandeur this barrier that I assumed was impossible to walk through. And I want to bring that energy forward into my future, and look towards local theater with more respect and love then I had previously. Because all stages are stages, they don't really do much else, it's the people who work on them and behind them that make theater the medium that it is.
Rob Rokicki and friends onstage the Longacre Theater
Next Steps
What's next is the fun part, the hard part, the work that is already being done but needs elevating: make all theatre more accessible.
Not just Broadway theatre, but theatre on a local level. Support new writers, directors, designers, who are young, queer, of the global majority. Jeremy O'Harris playwright and poet has Slave Play currently on Broadway and with this platform he and his producers are openly challenging and changing the way accessibility works in terms of ticket prices and for Black audiences. O'Harris has started a sponsor program that allows people buying tickets to donate a few dollars for someone else to see the show. O'Harris is also pointing out the flaw of marketing in theater that it assumes all people of color can't afford theater, and not advertising in a way that encourages people of color to want to go see theater. Because yes it is expensive but it's also not marketed towards everyone equally, why did Hamilton nation? It marketed itself as accessible to everyone.
I look forward to my remaining time at CC and beyond to work in theatre and fight to make it a more open and accessible entertainment medium bringing the magic of a Broadway show to audiences sitting in theaters in their home towns.
Thank Yous
A huge thank you to the Keller Family for giving me this incredible opportunity and to everyone who supported me in this project:
Lisa Schwartz
Matt Cooney
Rob Rokicki
Jorrel Javier
Diep Tran
Thomas Lindblade
Karen Roybal
Harrison Lake
Ryan Platt
Amelia Shugrue
Nina Matza
Kim Sherman
Michelle Farabaugh
Charlotte Schwebel
Kathy MacGowan
