Art explores and explains life. That’s the whole point of art. Can art explain Donald Trump and this Moment of MAGA, this angry, dark, cultural and political cloud hovering over us? Or more to the point in this case, can musicals help us understand Trump and MAGA?
Yes. They can. I think.
Full Disclosure: I’m a liberal. I voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, and the election results stunned me. I’ve spent my adult life studying human behavior, emotions, motivations. As someone who directs musicals, writes musicals, and writes about musicals, that’s a huge part of my job. For a long while, I have felt like I generally understood people in a fuller way than most of us do. I have the great luxury of running New Line Theatre, and one of the perks is that I choose our shows, so I never have to work on mediocre material. Ever. We produce only the smartest, most interesting, most insightful, most well-made musical theatre. Our next show, Rent, will be our 100th production, and each new show has been a master class for me in human psychology, sociology, culture, politics.
But the Great Plague of 2020 really shattered me. Overnight, theatre disappeared. For a really long time. There’s no disputing the fact that Trump’s apathy and shocking scientific ignorance prolonged the pandemic significantly, adding tens of thousands to the lists of the dead – including many theatres across America.
The election of 2024 broke me again. Suddenly the world didn’t make sense to me. I discovered that I didn’t understand all I thought I did. What do I do with that?
I discovered that a lot of people (half the American electorate?) have little or no capacity for empathy, that elementally necessary human ability to understand and even feel how another person feels. I discovered an appalling new Trumpianic permission structure for being really selfish and really mean – or maybe it’s more accurate to call it an encouragement structure. It’s not just allowed; it’s celebrated. What do I do with that?
I face all this both on a personal scale and on a national scale, as the Trump team methodically tears apart every agency and institution that serves and protects our basic humanity, and that allows us to collectively care for and lift up each other, including “the Least of These.” Trump and his acolytes are metaphorically spray-painting a giant swastika over the Golden Rule. What do I do with that?
But I also face this darkness on a local level, as the director of the Missouri Arts Council, Michael Donovan, continues his year-and-a-half campaign against our company. Just a few weeks ago, he took our grant away, right in the middle of this season, blowing a huge hole in our budget. He just canceled our contract. No reason given. We lost $16,000. We have no idea why he's doing this, and he refuses to explain or answer any questions. Why is he trying so hard to hurt our small, 34-year-old company? And again, what do I do with that?
Well, theatre is life explained, they say. So then musical theatre is emotional life explained. So can we look to our musicals to better understand any of this?
We storytellers, we who make art, are supposed to be the ones who find meaning in it all. The whole reason humans tell stories is to make sense out of life, to make order out of chaos, to connect us all through the shared experience of being human in this time and place. We learn about ourselves and the people and world around us by sharing our stories. They teach us lessons, they show us our history, they explore human conflict and communion, they deliver truths that we need, and they help us understand ourselves as well as each other.
Can they still do all that, even now?
All of this selfishness and apathy I witness is why live theatre is both awesome and necessary. It’s hard to disconnect when you’re in the same room with the storytellers and an audience. The more we connect, the better humans we become. The more we understand others and their experiences, the better we understand ourselves and the more fully we live.
The thing a musical does best is emotional connection, because the abstract language of music conveys emotion much more effectively than words can. It’s hard to sit in an audience and not forge a connection with the characters in Rent or Come From Away or A Strange Loop, or yes, even Cats. We are those characters onstage, in all their flawed humanity, so we connect with them. We are reassured as we sit in the darkened theatre that everybody goes through trials and tribulations, and that we all survive them. Sharing stories exercises our empathy muscles, and it reminds us that we are not alone -- even when it really feels that way.
I’ve always believed that the musicals our company produces matter to people, that they help us make sense of our own lives and the lives around us. So it stands to reason that I should turn to those great storytellers to help me navigate through these times, doesn’t it? After all, why do we share stories? Precisely because we are not alone; because we all share so many human experiences, even though we may not always be aware of it.
Because really, there are no Others. Or, as Rent might put it, "There's only Us."
When an artist shares a story with an audience, they connect, not just to each other, but to all the rest of us too -- “connection in an isolating age,” as Jonathan Larson wrote in Rent. But there’s a four-way connection in a live performance – among the actors onstage, among the characters inside the story, between the actors and audience, and among the audience.
The Rent kids, the Spelling Bee kids, Celie, George Seurat, Edgar the Bat Boy, Cry-Baby Walker, Sweeney Todd, Hedwig Schmidt, Fredrik and Desirée, Veronica and J.D., Queenie and Burrs, even Frank N. Furter and Sondheim’s assassins – all of these characters and many others – seek one central thing.
Connection.
And in the real world, that’s harder than ever right now, in this toxic culture of ours. While social media has connected us in ways we could never have dreamed before, it also has accidentally given us powerful tools to demonize and Other-ize – and to lie without consequence.
We are still in the infancy of the Information Age, and we’re still learning how to navigate its treacherous waters. Too many of us have not yet learned how to distinguish between legitimate information and bogus information online; because the One America News site looks on the surface as legit as the New York Times site, so those who don’t know any better don’t know any better.
Couple that with the fact that many on the political Right are motivated by fear right now, mostly of the inevitable Browning of America; and this heady brew of fear manifests itself as serious anger and outrage, often over things that don’t exist or aren’t true. Many MAGA Republicans fear the Other, so they don’t seek out connection. But we all crave human connection (just look at the ubiquity of social media), so those who fear those connections often create for themselves even more disconnection, which leads to even more anger and outrage, as they come to perceive the world only in terms of Us vs. Them.
And then Trump and the conservative media universe tell these people every day that they are right to feel that way.
Many people think social media is the problem, but it’s not. Connection is connection, whether it’s in person or not. The appeal of connection is not only the proximity of other people’s physical bodies; it’s also about emotional and social connection, and Facebook does delivers that, if you can curate your list of friends nimbly enough. (I do wonder if maybe kids should be kept off social media, but that’s another discussion.)
And let’s be honest, for those of us working in the theatre, connection is the central appeal, the act of coming together for the common purpose of storytelling to share with others, creating the quite legitimate “magic of theatre” that binds us more powerfully than “civilians” will ever understand.
Musicals have always reflected their times, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes accidentally. In the 1930s and 40s musicals were primarily about assimilation, about fitting into a community. Either the hero would assimilate or he’d be removed. In other words, the hero had to be either “Us” or “Them.” Either he belongs there or he is the Other. This theme was so prevalent in large part because many of these shows were written by American Jews who had fled Europe, who worked hard to assimilate into American culture.
In the 1960s and 70s, many musicals turned instead to the Hero Myth, a personal journey set largely outside any community, as Americans looked inward and grappled with the moral complexity of the Sexual Revolution, the Vietnam War, Watergate, and lots more. A Hero Myth story doesn’t need a “community,” so theatre producers didn’t have to hire big choruses.
Starting with the dawn of the new Golden Age of musical theatre in the early 1990s, many musicals turned to stories about connection, in response to the selfishness and disconnection of the 1980s.
Our musicals always reflect our collective lives. In my books of musical theatre essays, I love to explore the political and social context in which a show was written and debuted, because our art always reflects our culture and politics. The greatest musicals hold on to that relevance over time. As examples, we worked on Rocky Horror a few months ago, and we were stunned at how relevant it felt -- still? again? The same thing is happening with Rent as we work on it now, and I expect the same when we do Bat Boy in the fall.
The Information Age will still be tough going for a while, as we learn collectively how to live in this new technological paradigm. It won’t be easy anytime soon, but in the meantime it’s up to us artists to provide that life-giving connection whenever and wherever we can. In fact, this post is an early draft of an introduction to a book I'm working on, in which I'm going to try to answer these questions.
To quote actor Ben Kingsley, “The tribe has elected you to tell its story. You are the shaman/healer, that’s what the storyteller is, and I think it’s important to appreciate that.”
Director Gregory Mosher said, “I have great faith in audiences. We only create problems when we treat them as customers instead of collaborators in an artistic process. . . We can let audiences down in all kinds of ways: by being dishonest with them, by betraying our own intentions and, therefore, betraying the audience’s trust. All they ask the artists to do is what the artists want to do. Audiences say, ‘I want to see what you want to show me.’ All they want is human connection, and we betray them if we don’t deliver that.”
That’s our job, after all: Connection in an isolating age. I wonder if Jonathan Larson suspected that Rent would still feel up-to-the-minute thirty years later. He probably did.
Have you ever wondered about all those references in "La Vie Bohème"? Me too! Here's what I found.
"Dies irae" -- a musical phrase that's best known from its use in the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead. The first melody set to these words, a Gregorian chant, is one of the most quoted musical phrases in history, appearing in the works of many composers, in many film scores, and used extensively in Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd score. The Latin words mean "Day of Wrath."
"Kyrie Eleison" -- Greek for "Lord have mercy," also a part of the Roman Catholic Mass
"Yitgadal v' yitkadash" -- the opening phrase of the Jewish prayer of praise and remembrance recited by mourners after a death. It translates to "May His great name be magnified and sanctified." The prayer is part of Jewish mourning rituals and is recited in all prayer services, as well as at funerals and memorials. The joke here is that none of them are religious, and their quoting of these ancient texts is entirely ironic.
"La Vie Bohème" -- this phrase means "The Bohemian Life," except it's wrong. It should be "La Vie de Bohème." And really, if you're singing it, it would be more like "La Vie'd' Bohème," so it'd be the same number of syllables.
The word Bohemian originally referred to an area in the Czech Republic, and the people there were historically called gypsies, though today they prefer Roma or Romani. In the nineteenth century, the word Bohemian came to mean anyone living an alternative, nonconformist lifestyle, particularly artists, writers, musicians, and other artsies. Henri Murger's 1851 novel, Scenes de la Vie de Bohème, the source for Rent, popularized the label.
From this point in the song to the end, these characters will catalog for us the stuff of living La Vie Bohème, i.e., The Artsy Life, all the varied influences and experiences and artists that led these people to this community, and to a fuller inner life of art, literature, music, dance, foreign films, international cuisine, and some top-drawer artistic role models.
"Playing hooky" -- 19th-century slang for skipping school, with the word "hooky" (maybe) coming from the Dutch word for hide-and-seek. In this context, it's about skipping work, in other words, not being a Good Corporate Clone.
"Making something out of nothing" -- this might seem like a throwaway phrase, but it's not. The phrase itself has several meanings. In one sense, it means simply the act of creation; but the phrase comes from Latin creatio ex nihilo, literally creation from nothing, and it originally refers to the divine act of creating the universe. But the phrase can also mean getting really upset over nothing. That one little phrase, rushing by in the middle of this song, invokes art-making, divinity, and immaturity. That's awfully good writing.
"Going against the grain" -- is an idiom that means going against the norm, the mainstream, the expected. It can also sometimes mean going against your own beliefs or conscience. The phrase comes from woodworking, where sanding or planing against the grain causes a rough surface. To create a smooth surface, you sand with the grain, in the same direction as the wood fibers. The use of the phrase as a metaphor goes back to Shakespeare (of course) and his political thriller Coriolanus.
"Going mad" -- this is specifically a reference to the widely assumed connection between art making and insanity. Aristotle famously said, "No great genius has ever existed without a strain of madness." And thanks in large part to Henri Murger's novel Scenes de la Vie de Boheme (the source for Rent), young artists sometimes romanticize that connection. So let's pause...
A 2015 study in Iceland found that people in creative professions were 25% more likely to carry gene variants that increase the risk of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. A Swedish study, which tried to establish whether creativity is linked to all psychiatric diagnoses (particularly in writers), found “an association between creative professions and first-degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anorexia nervosa, and for siblings of patients with autism.” A recent report shows that 73% of musicians have suffered from mental illness, and a report from the Office of National Statistics in England for 2011 to 2015 indicated that those working in arts-related jobs were at high risk of suicide (in some cases up to four times more at risk). Other papers have suggested a link between bipolar disorder and creativity, assessed mood disorders in British writers and artists, and psychoanalysed women artists compulsions to create.
"Loving tension" -- an idea that acknowledges the inevitable tensions within any human relationship, and that disagreements and problems can be dealt with from a place of love rather than anger. It's about embracing the complexity of human experience, including the discomforts and challenges, and still being able to connect with others, and yourself, with compassion and understanding.
"No pension" -- a reference to workplace pensions, savings plans established by an employer that offers employees regular income payments during retirement, usually until their death. The point of the reference is that because these people don't have "straight" jobs, none of them have access to a pension, and so none of them will have any financial security for their old age.
"More than one dimension" -- a reference to the idea that there could be (are?) other realities beyond what we can perceive (with the word dimension in its common though incorrect usage).
"Hating dear old Mom and Dad" -- considering the context and the characters, this is most likely a way of Mark saying he hates the conventional mainstream world that Mom and Dad represent -- or that they insist he join.
"Riding your bike midday" -- a symbol of the freedom from the oppression of a 9-to-5 office job. It likely also refer to bike messengers, who spend their days biking around Manhattan.
"Three-piece suits" -- popular in the Seventies, the three-piece suit (pants, vest, coat) was out of style by the mid-1980s and the 90s. So in this context, the phrase is remarking on the clueless corporate drones still wearing the same suit every day for decades.
"Fruits" -- a slang insult, along with "fruitcake," for gay people that goes back to the 19th century. But it's one of the insults that the gay community co-opted and took for themselves (like "queer"). In the British outsider slang called Polari, fruit means Queen.
"No Absolutes" -- a reference to the idea that there are no absolute truths in ethics and that what is morally right or wrong varies from person to person or from society to society. It comes from Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy of Moral Relativism, which holds that no truth is universally valid, but instead, all truths are relative to a specific context or perspective, to different cultures, languages, or individuals. Arguably, acknowledging that there are no absolutes can encourage a more nuanced and flexible approach to thinking, allowing for the possibility of diverse perspectives and interpretations. Nietzsche proposed that morality itself could be a danger. He believed that morals should be constructed actively, making them relative to who we are and what we, as individuals, consider to be true, equal, good and bad, etc. instead of reacting to moral laws made by a certain group of individuals in power.
Absolut -- a well-known vodka brand, and a fun bit of wordplay
Village Voice -- the news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, The Voice began as a platform for the creative community of New York City. It ceased publication in 2017, although its online archives remained accessible. After an ownership change, The Voice reappeared in print as a quarterly in April 2021.
Miso Soup, Seaweed Salad, Soy Burger, Tofu Dog, Meatless Balls -- the joke here is that no one at the table orders anything "normal" -- until the thirteen orders of fries, of course. The first two items are Japanese dishes, the other three are dishes that should have meat in them but don't. And we're forced to wonder, why are they buying these dishes defined by meat -- a hamburger, a hot dog, and meatballs -- and requesting versions of them without meat. It's also a joke on high maintenance customers, many of whom Jonathan Larson had inevitably faced working for ten years in the Moondance Diner.
"Hand-Crafted Beers made in local breweries" -- a reference to micro-breweries, a phenomenon that started in the 1970s, small breweries that emphasize quality ingredients, unique flavors, and varied brewing techniques. Their smaller production scale allows micro-breweries to experiment with different flavors and styles, offering beer drinkers a wider variety of options. Consumers often appreciate supporting locally-owned micro-breweries, viewing them as stewards of their region's identity and legacy. There's an implied rejection of national corporate brands here.
Yoga -- originally, a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices and disciplines that originated in ancient India, aimed at controlling body and mind to attain salvation, as practiced in the Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist traditions. Yoga as exercise is part of a modern yoga renaissance, a 20th-century blend of Western gymnastics and haṭha yoga. Yoga as exercise is now a worldwide, multi-billion-dollar business involving classes, teacher certification, clothing, books, videos, equipment, and holidays.
Yogurt -- a food produced by bacterial fermentation of milk, dating back to Ancient Greece, introduced to America in the early 1900s, declared health food in the 1950s (though current research isn't so sure), and in 1966 was enhanced with sweeteners and fruit for the first time.
Rice and Beans and Cheese -- a beloved Mexican dish
Leather -- a sexual subculture centered on activities that involve leather garments, like leather jackets, vests, boots, chaps, harnesses, and other accessories. Some leather enthusiasts are also into BDSM (bondage, domination, and sado-masochism). For some, leather clothing is an erotic fashion that expresses heightened masculinity or the appropriation of sexual power.
Dildos -- sex toys, usually shaped like an erect penis, sometimes battery-operated!
Curry Vindaloo -- a dish and curry from the state of Goa in India. It's known globally in its British-Indian form as a staple of curry houses and Indian restaurants and is often regarded as a fiery, spicy dish. Vindaloo evolved from the Portuguese dish carne de vinha d'alhos. The traditional vindaloo recipe is pork, but alternative versions are also commonly used, including beef, chicken, lamb, mutton, prawns, vegetables and tofu.
Huevos Rancheros -- a vegetarian breakfast egg dish served in the style of the traditional large mid-morning fare on rural Mexican farms. The basic dish consists of fried eggs served on lightly fried or charred corn or flour tortillas, topped with a spicy salsa made of tomatoes, chili peppers, and onions. Common side dishes include refried beans, Mexican-style rice, and guacamole or slices of avocado, with cilantro as a garnish.
Maya Angelou -- an American memoirist, poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees
[Susan] Sontag -- an American writer, critic, and public intellectual. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels. She wrote extensively about literature, cinema, photography and media, illness, war, human rights, and left-wing politics. Her essays and speeches drew backlash and controversy, and she has been called "one of the most influential critics of her generation." Sontag lived for many years with her partner, director and playwright Maria Irene Fornes.
[Stephen] Sondheim -- composer and lyricist, one of the true geniuses of the American musical theatre, who took the art form forward after the Rodgers and Hammerstein era.
[Allen] Ginsberg -- an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Generation. He vigorously opposed militarism, economic materialism, and sexual repression, and he embodied various aspects of this counterculture with his views on drugs, sex, multiculturalism, hostility to bureaucracy, openness to pederasty, and openness to Eastern religions.
[Bob] Dylan -- an American singer-songwriter, considered one of the greatest songwriters of all time. Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year career, and his work is widely taught in university classes. With an estimated more than 125 million records sold worldwide, he is one of the best-selling musicians in history.
[Merce] Cunningham -- an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than fifty years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other disciplines, including musicians, graphic artists, and fashion designers. As a choreographer, teacher, and leader of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, he had a profound influence on modern dance and avant-garde art more generally.
[John] Cage -- an American composer and music theorist, a pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments. Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives.
Notice the lyric in "La Vie Boheme" is "...Cunningham and Cage" -- Larson parried them together as a couple!
Lenny Bruce -- an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist, renowned for his wild, free-wheeling, aggressive style of comedy that combined satire, politics, religion, sex, and lots of vulgarity. His 1964 conviction in an obscenity trial was followed by a posthumous pardon in 2003. Bruce forged new paths in comedy and counterculture, and in 2017, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him third (behind Richard Pryor and George Carlin) on its list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time.
Langston Hughes -- an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri, and one of the earliest innovators of the literary form called jazz poetry. He is most widely known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance.
Uta [Hagen] -- a German-American actress and theatre practitioner, who originated the role of Martha in the 1962 Broadway premiere of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. She later became a highly influential acting teacher at New York's Herbert Berghof Studio and authored best-selling acting texts, Respect for Acting and A Challenge for the Actor. Her most substantial contributions to the teaching of acting were a series of "object exercises" she created that built on the work of Konstantin Stanislavski and Yevgeny Vakhtangov.
Buddha -- a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE, and founded Buddhism. His name means "Awakened One" or "Enlightened One." According to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and severe asceticism, leading to freedom from ignorance, craving, rebirth, and suffering. His core teachings are summarized in the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, a training of the mind that includes ethical training and kindness toward others.
Pablo Neruda -- Chilean poet, diplomat, and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature.
biseuxals, trisexuals -- a exaggeration to illustrate openness and acceptance of any sexuality. The word trisexual is commonly used as a joke to describe someone who's willing to try anything with anybody. But the word also has been adopted seriously by people who believe there are more than two genders.
homo sapiens -- modern humans. There are twin references here. This is sly wordplay. In context, with "...bisexuals, trisexuals, homo-..." Larson sets us up to expect homosexuals, but then he tricks us with homo sapiens instead. And on another, more serious level, though, humans are the raw material of all art. Homo sapiens have certainly shaped these artists and their work.
The extra bonus of Larson's wordplay is that his trick sets up a whole new list of rhymes -- homo sapiens, carcinogens, hallucinogens -- and then a close rhyme, with men. But Larson's not through yet. Following men with Pee-wee Herman reminds us comically of Pee-wee's embarrassing arrest in a porno movie house. And then Larson rhymes Herman with German in the phrase, "German wine," which sets up another new rhyme with turpentine and Gertrude Stein.
Carcinogens -- substances that can cause cancer, found in workplaces, homes, and even in some foods. Examples include tobacco smoke, certain viruses, and radiation.
Hallucinogens -- a class of psychoactive drugs that alter perception, mood, and cognition, often producing vivid and intense sensory experiences. They can cause hallucinations that can involve any of the five senses. The true hippies and Bohemians distinguish between "good" (natural) hallucinogens, like peyote and mushrooms; versus "bad" (man-made) hallucinogens like LSD, DMT, and PCP.
Pee-wee Herman -- a totally nerdy, totally hip character created and portrayed by the American comedian Paul Reubens. His onstage Pee-wee Herman Show was broadcast by HBO in 1981, and a slightly revised version briefly ran on Broadway in 2010. Reubens took the character to the silver screen with Pee-wee's Big Adventure in 1985, which paved the way for Pee-wee's Playhouse, an Emmy Award-winning children's series that ran on CBS from 1986 to 1991. Another film, Big Top Pee-wee, was released in 1988. In 1991, Reubens was arrested for indecent exposure in a Florida porno theatre.
German Wine -- known for its diverse grape varieties and production styles, with white wines like Riesling being particularly renowned internationally. The country also produces red wines, particularly from the Pinot Noir grape, known as Spätburgunder.
Turpentine -- an artist's necessity, to thin out oil paint and to clean brushes -- and sometimes used for suicide.
Gertrude Stein -- lesbian American novelist, poet, playwright
[Michelangelo] Antonioni -- Italian film director and screenwriter, one of the auteurs who launched the Italian New Wave in the Sixties.
[Bernardo] Bertolucci -- Italian film director and screenwriter, another of the auteurs who launched the Italian New Wave in the Sixties.
[Akira] Kurosawa -- Japanese filmmaker who directed 30 feature films in a career spanning seven decades, still regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, with a bold, dynamic style strongly influenced by Western cinema but distinct from it.
"Carmina Burana" -- a famous cantata composed in 1935 and 1936 by Carl Orff, based on 24 poems from the medieval collection of poetry, Carmina Burana. The first and last sections of the cantata are called "Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi" ("Fortune, Empress of the World") and this section is very familiar to American movie audiences.
Entropy -- the general trend of the universe toward death and disorder; or more casually, the process of degradation or running down or a trend to disorder; chaos, disorganization, randomness.
Empathy -- the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person, or to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling, an absolute necessity for any artist.
Ecstasy -- a state of intense joy, bliss, or spiritual exaltation, often described as a trance-like state or transcendence of ordinary consciousness; and it's the common name for MDMA, a synthetic drug with stimulant, empathogenic, and minor psychedelic effects, known for its ability to induce feelings of euphoria, empathy, and connection. In other words, ecstasy improves your empathy.
Vaclav Havel -- Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and political dissident, who was still alive when Rent was written.
Sex Pistols -- an English punk rock band formed in London in 1975, whose career actually lasted only two and a half years, but they became hugely influential in popular music. The band initiated the punk movement in the United Kingdom and later inspired many punk, post-punk and alternative rock musicians, and their clothing and hairstyles were a significant influence on the early punk image. (Some cultural historians argue that costumer Sue Blaine was the one who invented punk fashion with her costumes for The Rocky Horror Show in 1973.)
8BC -- a nightclub, performance art and music concert space, and art gallery in the East Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1983, the space was closed in late 1985 over city fire codes. During its short lifespan, the space showcased over 650 performances ranging from punk rock and no wave bands to Japanese Butoh theatre. The club's name came from its location on 8th Street, between Ave. B and Ave. C. (In later versions of Rent, this reference was changed to "BBC.")
"The Fame Game" -- a phrase generally used to describe the pursuit and dynamics of fame, often with a negative connotation that it's a competitive and manipulative arena. The phrase emphasizes the idea that fame is not a naturally occurring phenomenon but instead a game played for attention and recognition. And notice that in context of this lyric, they're celebrating refusing to be part of the "fame game." It's something Mark has to learn before our story is over.
Marijuana -- this reference isn't just a shout-out to getting stoned. In this context, it's about the many great artists who have used marijuana over the centuries. The list of stoner artists is really long, but a small sample includes the Beatles, Brian Wilson, Paul Simon, Louis Armstrong, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Marley, Snoop Dogg, Willie Nelson, Lady Gaga, Dave Chappelle, Lenny Bruce, Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, Jerry Garcia, Pablo Picasso, Carl Sagan, Sting, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Salvador Dali, David Hockney, Vincent Van Gogh, Melissa Etheridge, Toby Keith, Jay-Z, Oscar Wilde, David Bowie -- and probably William Shakespeare. Scientists recently tested residue in a pipe found in Shakespeare’s home, and it tested positive for cannabis residue. In Shakespeare’s 76th sonnet, he refers to a “noted weed” and “newfound methods and compounds strange.” Scholars speculate he was probably writing about marijuana.
Sodomy -- usually misunderstood to mean homosexaulity, due to a sloppy misreading of the story of Sodom in the Christian Bible; and it eventually came to mean any kind of illegal sex.
S&M -- an abbreviation for sadomasochism, sexual practices that involve either inflicting p[hysical pain (sadism) or receiving physical pain (masochism), and/or humiliation. This can range from mild forms of bondage and role-playing to more extreme activities.
High Holy Days -- a series of Jewish holidays that begin with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and culminate with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. This period is a time of reflection, repentance, and prayer, lasting about ten days.
Vocoder -- a machine that electronically transforms the human voice
"Musetta's Waltz" -- the song "Quando me'n vo'" in act two of Puccini's 1896 opera La Bohème. It is sung by Musetta (Mimi in Rent), in the presence of her bohemian friends, hoping to reclaim the attention of her occasional boyfriend Marcello (Rent's Mark). The meta joke here is that inside the world of Rent, Roger and Mark are aware of a song from the other stage adaptation of their story.
"ACT UP" -- the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, founded in 1987 by playwright-activist Larry Kramer, an international, grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic. The group works to improve the lives of people with AIDS through direct action, medical research, treatment and advocacy, and working to change legislation and public policies.
Masochism -- the enjoyment of suffering pain or humiliation, inflicted by you or others. It can manifest in various forms, including sexual masochism, where sexual arousal is associated with pain or humiliation. Masochistic behaviors can also be seen in everyday life.
"AZT break" -- an antiretroviral drug used to treat HIV/AIDS. It works by interfering with HIV's ability to replicate. While it was the first drug approved by the FDA for HIV treatment in 1987, it's not now recommended as first-line therapy anymore due to potential side effects and the availability of more effective treatments. The "break" illustrates that patients had to take pills up to six times a day on a strict schedule.
"Food of Love" -- is a reference to Shakespeare dark comedy Twelfth Night, in which Duke Orsino says, "If music be the food of love, then play on."
"Living with, not dying from, disease" -- is a reference from the AIDS movement, an effort to stop people from saying someone sas "dying of AIDS," and to say instead that someone is "living with AIDS."
"tear down the wall" -- a metaphor referring to the Berlin wall, but now standing in for political activism on behalf of all the Others who are oppressed.
"The opposite of war isn't peace; it's creation." -- this is a Jon Larson original, and it's brilliant. And it's true. The opposite of destruction isn't the lack of destruction. The opposite of destruction is creation. The opposite of war is art.
We start blocking Rent this week. I cannot wait to see it on its feet, so the actors can start playing. It's been ten years since we last worked on this show, and it's so great to be back.
We've just begun rehearsals for Rent, and I could not be more delighted. Our cast is terrific.
I saw the show on Broadway in 1997 with the entire original cast; then I researched and wrote about the show for my 2001 book Rebels with Applause: Broadway's Groundbreaking Musicals. I saw the off Broadway revival in 2011; then I directed the show myself in 2014; and while we worked on it, I wrote even more about it here in my blog (see links below).
Saying I love this show is a severe understatement.
Saying that we need Rent right now is also an understatement. Rent is about community, about connection and empathy. Right now, it seems that so much of America has lost those things. Our country has indeed been rent, as in torn apart.
Maybe Angel can save us all.
There are so many songs in Rent I love (almost all of them) and so many lyrics that always strike me as powerfully truthful. As I look at America in 2025, one lyric that smacks me in the face is in "Halloween," when Mark asks, "How did we get here?" Yeah, no shit. We're all asking that right now, aren't we?
The other line that seems doubly potent today is in the Support Group:
There's only us. There's only this.
It reminds me of President Obama telling audiences that there aren't any superheroes coming to save us -- we've got to be the heroes.
There are certain shows that have completely changed the way I think about theatre, Hair (which we've done three times), Rocky Horror (which we just closed for the second time), Grease (only once for New Line, three times for me personally), and Rent. In each case, I first saw the show (or movie) and thought to myself, Holy shit, musicals can be THIS?
Each time it was like walking out the door from a sepia-toned world into Technicolor. Each time, these shows expanded massively for me the possibilities of this art form I love so much.
I'll always remember being struck, from the opening moments, by how un-Broadway Rent was, the whole show, how raw and un-pretty and free of the usual show biz bullshit. It was so refreshingly, disarmingly honest about both its story and its storytelling. And it didn't sound like Broadway; it sounded like the world around us. That was new.
Jonathan Larson was a visionary. I'll always mourn for the amazing works he would have created for us if he had lived longer. But I'll also be forever grateful that he left us Rent, which has meant so much to so many. It heals us. That's why we're producing it this year. We need healing.
The only thing I know how to do right now, in this ugly world of ours, is put some light out into the darkness. My way of doing that is to bring Angel back to us for four weeks and hope that her deep humanity and her limitless empathy and compassion might stay with us for a while.
I know it might sound a tad crazy, but I sort of feel like Rent will "protect" me in some way while it's with us, like some kind of psychic armor against those slings and arrows of outrageous fascists who seek to disconnect us from each other.
Rent's Act II opener "Seasons of Love" has always seemed like a prayer to me. We have to remember that the lyric doesn't say, "You can measure in love;" it says, "Measure in love." It's a command. That's easier said than done, I know, but that's what Rent demands of us.
When we did the show last time in 2014, I blogged a lot about what we were discovering inside this masterpiece. Yes, it's a masterpiece. These are my Rent posts from 2014:
I spent my high school years crazy, madly in love with Rocky Horror. I saw the movie at midnight screenings at the Varsity Theatre eighty times during my four years of high school (1978-1982).
For a media class, senior year, my friend Stephanie and I created a multimedia presentation explaining the Rocky Horror phenomenon. We got an A+.
A decade later, I started New Line Theatre, a company designed to produce shows just like Rocky, but the production rights for the show were tied up for years!
Finally in 2002, New Line got to produce the stage show, and it was a blast. We were the first in the region to do it after all those years, so our audiences were thrilled to see Rocky in its original form.
Twenty-three years later, here I am directing Rocky Horror again. It's been a wonderful ride, with a wonderful cast, band, and staff. But Dr., Frank N. Furter has left the building.
Our brilliant graphic artist Matt Reedy even re-designed our poster after he saw the show, to match our actors and costumes. He's been designing our posters for more than twenty years, and he's done really outstanding work for us. You can see all of it in our coffee table book of New Line posters.
As always, I learned new things about the show, even after my (almost) lifelong love affair with it.
My biggest takeaway -- how ballsy it is that this show spends all evening in subversive but very silly satire, with outrageous characters in a bizarre situation, and then, the story ends in total seriousness. Frank's gorgeous power ballad "I'm Going Home" always knocks the audience out because though it may be shallow, it's serious. No joke.
After that, once Riff-Raff kills half the cast, there are no more laughs. The story ends with the exit of the mutinous, homeward bound Riff-Raff and Magenta, but the show doesn't end yet.
Instead, all these characters, alive and dead, leave us with a final sobering thought, not a hopeful one, not a musical comedy ending. They sing the very serious, densely poetic "Super Heroes," reminding us that despite all the fun we've had with this show (and with the Sexual Revolution) that freedom and fun sometimes come at a cost.
Brad steps forward and sings:
I've done a lot;
God knows I've tried.
To find the truth,
I've even lied.
But all I know
Is down inside, I'm bleeding.
He tried to be open to the experience, but it broke him. Then Janet steps forward and sings:
And super heroes
Come to feast,
To taste the flesh
Not yet deceased;
And all I know
Is still the beast Is feeding.
Janet describes her sexual awakening, with the dubious understanding that once awakened, it doesn't go back to sleep. And though she ultimately enjoyed her awakening, this new Janet does not belong now in the world where she lives. (Richard O'Brien's sequel-adjacent second film Shock Treatment rebalances Brad and Janet, for an ironically unhappy Happy Ending.)
The Narrator closes Rocky Horror by telling us we are lost, in time and space. Not just Brad and Janet; all of us too. And we know he's right. And that's a hell of a way to end this rowdy, vulgar rock fable.
But I wonder if Rocky Horror without that sober ending would have been as big a success over time. The last two songs force us to re-think what we've just seen in a new context -- the human pain and suffering of these people who've been through this experience (exactly like several Shakespeare plays do to us), which parallel real-life pain and suffering. This whole musical shows us our own world, but in a cultural funhouse mirror; then finally at the end, it takes that distorted mirror away and lets us see ourselves, no more goofy aliens, no more rock and roll. No more ironic distance.
Rock and roll equals sex in this world, so rock must be banished at the end of the story as well.
Without "Super Heroes," this is arguably a rapey, dated musical about sexual assault. With "Super Heroes," it's an insightful, adult commentary on the real-world ramifications of the sexual openness of the 1960s -- or really, on any moment in history when oppression and freedom do battle within our culture, and the Others rise up. Like right now.
My other big takeaway from our run of Rocky is that no matter how frustrating these times seem to me personally, people need stories more than ever, to try and make sense of the chaos of this world. It matters that we keep telling stories, and it matters which stories we tell and how fearlessly. We can't hide. We have to tell the truth. Even if it pisses some people off. That's the job.
This show revealed uneasy truths about us when it debuted onstage in 1973 and on screen in 1975, when New Line first produced it in 2002, and now, in 2025, maybe even more than when it first opened.
As I wrote in my program notes, "Rocky Horror is lots more than sex, drugs, and rock and roll. We can revel in the anarchy and craziness of this incredibly entertaining rock and roll fable, but our real world is peeking out from between the sheets, and it’s begging us to pay attention."
So many people leaving our Rocky performances told me how much they needed that experience. It was certainly good medicine -- and a call to action? -- for all of us. That's what art does.
Even though I despair for our country, still I know that my job -- my place in the world -- is as storyteller. And in today's world of intentional lies and misinformation, our duty as storytellers is even more vital now, to help explain this world, to connect people to each other, to tell the truth.
Rocky Horror does that. Our next show Rent does that too. And so do the shows we're planning for next season. That's the job.
Most people think of Rocky Horror as silly, sexy nonsense. I thought about it that way in high school when I saw the movie more than eighty times at the Varsity Theatre (now Vintage Vinyl).
But then when I worked on it for the first time in 2002, my mind was blown by how smart and subtle and sophisticated the show really is. It follows the classic Hero Myth structure, and it explores the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and Americans' ridiculous reaction to it. Along the way, it gives us a subliminal history lesson in American Sex, from the often shirtless, short-shorts clad Flash Gordon in the 1930s to the barely disguised "physique magazines" of the 1950s, to the Free Love movement of the 1960s, and the mainstream backlash in the 1970s.
I have argued for years that Rocky Horror should never be removed from its time and place. "Re-imagining" the show in other contexts diminishes the truth behind this story. This is a story about a relatively unique cultural moment, and its detailed specificity is exactly what makes it timeless and universal.
It's a truism of storytelling -- the more specific the story, the more universal its impact. The success of Fiddler on the Roof around the world is proof.
I finally understood years ago that my job as director is never to be fresh and original. My job is to help the actors tell this story as clearly as possible. That's my only job. It's not to dazzle or impress; it's just to tell a story. The only reason to come up with "a new vision" or a new approach is that it will tell that particular story more clearly. But new visions almost never tell the story more clearly. Directors and actors are interpretive artists, not writers.
The last time I directed the show, I was very focused on being faithful to the original stage show in 1973 London. This time in 2025, I wanted to strike a balance between being faithful to the original but not being bound by it. This time, we strayed quite a bit from the stage show and the movie, but tried to be true still to the intentions of Richard O'Brien and the original team.
I think we succeeded in that. The hardcore Rocky fans love our production and that balance we struck, enjoying the references and call-outs to the film and delighted at the many differences.
In 2002, it wasn't as clear as it is now. We need Rocky Horror. In 2025, as the MAGA world stokes hatred of those of us who are Other, this show is a ferocious Fuck-You to Trump and his MAGA followers. This show is a celebration of difference and a morality tale about refusing to evolve even as the world around us evolves. Janet embraces the Sexual Revolution (i.e., Frank) while Brad runs from it. Janet embraces purely physical love (with Rocky), while Brad is still stuck in the emotional entanglements of love ("Once in a While"). The two of them begin our story in the same place, but end up in very different places.
During the run, it's been surprising to me how many people thank me for this show and tell me how much they needed it right now, how much it is genuinely healing for many of us. Our next show Rent will be the same.
Sometimes I wonder if what we do really matters in a world this ugly, this mean, this upside-down, but our audiences are telling me, even with a show as silly on the surface as Rocky Horror, what we do does matter. I have to hold on to that.
It's been such a hard few years for most of us. For those of us who are Other -- essentially everyone who isn't a straight white married man -- we live in fear of what's still to come from Trump and his followers. Every day it gets worse and more destructive. Every day is gets scarier.
But at least we get to come together in a darkened theatre and share what is most human about us all, and we feel that profound human connection that we all need and that seems more important today than ever before.
As Next to Normal reminds us, "We need some light."
'Twas a year full of New Line, still soldiering on Down this long, winding road, toward a long promised dawn; 'Cause when times feel this ugly, confusing, distraught, And people fear things might get worse than they thought; Then that is when we who tell Stories must rise, And share those good tales full of glories and size, Of poetry, popcorn, and beautiful lies.
The truth, it's not easy, especially now, To keep us afloat and to hold to our vow Making musicals that entertain and inform; To remind us how much we're the same, come the storm; And to help us see all of those things we can't see When we're rushing through life, and we can't find the key, When a hushed, darkened theatre's the best place to be.
Now, sometimes a show's just too weird not to do; And the question's not should we?; but if not us, who? The Great Ol' White Way is no longer the spot In which every great musical must be begot. No, our art form is thriving on stages and screens Spanning ocean to ocean, and what all that means Is that we can find gems like the Sweet Potato Queens.
But darkness descended -- the fictional kind -- With our Gothic, romantic pop opera, designed To renew and re-focus the Dracula tale, From epic-sized horror to more human-scale, From heroes-and-villains to lovers and pain, About love that is sacred and love that's profane, About op'ning a heart before op'ning a vein.
It was timely in 2004, we all knew, But American Idiot wasn't yet through. For it debuted on Broadway in spring 2010, And it somehow seemed even more relevant then! Now, crafting our version, near twenty years on, Has revealed to us insights our zeitgeist has drawn; Then as now, life's no sprint; it's a damned marathon.
But no matter how gloomy this night might appear, The good news is New Line will always be here To guide us, to grapple with gobsmacking times, Through characters, stories, and music and rhymes; For art is a map of the world and the soul, And it helps us to steer when life's out of control, And it keeps us connected. And it makes us feel whole.
Stay Sane and Safe, and Have a Happy New Year! Long Live the Musical! Scott
P.S. I started these year-poems on a whim way back in 2013. If you're a glutton for punishment, here are my poems from 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, and 2023. (Yes, I skipped 2021.)
P.P.S. To buy tickets to our 2025 shows, Broadway Noir, Rocky Horror and Rent, click here.
P.P.P.S. If you'd like to contribute to New Line Theatre (you know you would!), just click here.
New Line has been in transition the last few years. The Great Plague of 2020 didn't really cause this transition, but it sped it up.
I remember when I turned forty (twenty years ago!!), I told my friends that New Line could not get "middle-aged" just because I was. It's one of the reasons we produce shows like bare and Be More Chill.
But the biggest change since 2019 has been a turnover in the people who work with us. Some of our longtime New Line veterans left town and/or moved on to other life adventures.
Mike Dowdy-Windsor joined us as an actor in 2009, and he became our Associate Artistic Director in 2012, but he and his husband Dominic moved to California in 2022. But as board member (and occasional performer) Alison Helmer reminded me, New Line has been around thirty-two years, and every so often, we get a whole new generation of New Liners -- even while a good number of our longtime veterans stick around. Sometimes, that new generation brings the return of past New Liners, which is always a treat. And that's our secret sauce.
It's always a little sad when veteran New Liners move on, but it's also really exciting when a new generation joins us. So many of our actors this season are new to our company, and that's very exciting. It's so much fun to see what new things and different perspectives they bring to our work. At the same time, we still have some longstanding New Liners joining us again this season.
Clayton Humburg just played Johnny in American Idiot which opened this current season. Nine years ago, he joined us for the first time, in Heathers, and then as Rock and Roll Boyfriend in our last production of American Idiot. This was Clayton's eighth New Line show. Todd Schaefer first joined us in 2002, for Cabaret and then as Brad in Rocky Horror. Later this season, Todd returns to play Frank N. Furter, in his fifteenth New Line production. Chris Strawhun first joined us in 2010, in Evita, and he returns this season for his tenth New Line show, as Eddie and Dr. Scott in Rocky Horror. Ian McCreary first joined us in 2019 as one of the lovely and dangerous Cagelles in La Cage aux Folles, and this season he returned for his eighth New Line show with American Idiot. Victoria Pines first joined us in 2001 in The Cradle Will Rock, and she returns this season as Magenta in Rocky Horror and as Joanne in Rent, her fourth and fifth New Line shows.
Likewise, Chris Moore first joined us as an actor in Head Over Heels in 2020, but now he's our Associate Artistic Director and he was the lead director for American Idiot, the first time he's directed for New Line. (There will be more.)
It's this great mix that makes such great theatre -- the comfort and familiarity of working with our veteran New Liners, mixed with the energy and excitement of working with new people.
Part of that mix is also a very intentional diversity of race, gender, age, body type, and sexuality. We have actively focused on that diversity in our casting for decades, and I'm happy to say that this season will be our most diverse ever. That's due largely to the amazing new people who came to audition for us. And all those new people came to us largely because Chris Moore cares so deeply about that diversity and did some very active recruiting. I've always been proud that our casting has been race-blind, and we often cast actors of color in leading roles that are traditionally "white." But thanks to Chris, we're doing better in these efforts than ever before. (He's the driving force behind our January concert at the Sheldon, called Broadway Noir.) All of that is really important to me as Artistic Director, so I'm very grateful to Chris.
Sometimes the specific advantages of working with new people are a surprise. It wasn't until we were a couple weeks into rehearsal that it occurred to Chris and me that almost no one in our cast had even been born when the 9/11 attacks happened, and we were doing this show entirely born out of that event. What we eventually realized is that this was an advantage -- the characters had also never experienced 9/11 before. The biggest surprise is that they all found historical and emotional equivalents in today's world. It was welcome proof that this story, so specific in so many ways -- is truly universal and timeless.
Also, many of these actors had never performed a piece of musical theatre this serious, this dark, this confrontational, and it was genuinely thrilling for many of them. I've been doing shows like this for so long that I forget the rush of discovering that there are so many musicals like this. All of this changed the show in lots of ways, obvious and subtle.
Several people came up to me after performances and told me sheepishly that they liked this production better than our production in 2016 that I directed. Every time it made me laugh, and I reassured them it was okay to like this one better. Of course, that got me thinking about how the two productions were different.
My conclusion was this. I think our 2016 production, much like Michael Mayer's original, was colder, more outraged, more rebellious, more political, more Brechtian -- more of a fuck-you to the audience. In contrast, this new production was more emotional and more human, and so the ending felt gentler this time. I had done my best to keep my fingers out of the process, to let Chris make the show his own, so the two productions really were different -- partly because of the different directors, and partly because of the different cast with different, more indirect connections to the story in these different times.
Same material, very different show, every bit as dramatic and powerful. That's cool.
It took me a while in my directing career, but I finally learned at some point that there are no "right" answers when you're directing a show, only stronger choices and weaker choices. And sometimes there are several strong choices which can take you down several different but parallel paths. As I reminded Chris, we never have to try to make it unique or fresh or different. That happens by itself and we shouldn't force it. Sondheim taught us that in Sunday in the Park with George:
Anything you do,
Let it come from you. Then it will be new. Give us more to see.
It feels a little odd that we're producing a whole season of shows we've done before, shows that originally debuted in 1973, 1994, and 2010, and yet they all feel (sadly) relevant again. But I know that in this dark, ugly, fraught time, these shows will help us navigate. We chose shows for this season about lost humanity, sexuality, and community. And because they are all modern musicals, all three are also about connection, and connection's arch-nemesis, "Othering." All things we need to be reminded of right now.
Even though we've produced these shows before, even though you may have seen them before, I promise you this -- we will give you more to see.
Long Live the Musical! Scott
P.S. To buy Rocky Horror tickets, click here, and to buy Rent tickets, click here.
P.P.S. To check out my newest musical theatre books, click here.
P.P.P.S. To donate to New Line Theatre, click here
What responsibility do theatre reviewers have these days? What role do they play in our culture?
And maybe more to the point, what value does a theatre review have today, when literally anyone can set up a blog and declare themselves a reviewer? Like filmmaking, music, publishing, and other areas, reviewing has been radically democratized in this digital age. Anyone can make a film now, or record a song, or publish a book.
And anyone can be a reviewer. Literally.
That's because there are no criteria to be a reviewer, no gatekeepers, no particular rules or conventions or deadlines anymore -- and no editors! -- so reviews are now just random people's opinions, quite often people with no training, expertise, or credentials. Just opinions. And many reviewers take a week or two (or more) to publish their reviews, giving them even less value. Theatre reviews are fast becoming little more than Amazon customer reviews. And I guess that's not necessarily a problem -- as long as we understand that's what they are.
Throughout the 32-year history of New Line, I have publicly called out reviewers when they weren't doing their jobs. I won't go after them if they simply don't like a show, but I will if they misunderstand the show and then criticize it for their misunderstanding, or if their review is simplistic and superficial. Especially in New Line's early days, too many people still thought all musicals are silly and brainless, and I had to teach reviewers how to watch and think about the work we do.
Sometimes, local actors and directors are horrified that I dare review the reviewer. But why shouldn't we?
When New Line produced Jerry Springer the Opera, one local reviewer ended his review by telling his readers that they might enjoy the show more if they left fifteen minutes before the end, because nothing happens. Now the truth is, the last fifteen minutes of the show are very intellectually dense and philosophical, referencing Dante and William Blake, and ultimately leaving us with a profound statement that lines up shockingly well with the ethos of Springer's TV show. By the end of this brilliant opera, Jerry Springer himself has united Heaven and Hell.
In other words, there's a lot that happens in the last fifteen minutes of the show, and this reviewer just didn't understand any of it. I called him out on it.
When we produced The Rocky Horror Show the first time, one reviewer dismissed our production entirely because it wasn't enough like the film. But we weren't producing the film. We were producing the very different stage show, which came first. I called him out on it.
When we produced The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, one reviewer dismissed the entire show as "glamorizing" prostitution. But onstage (unlike the film), Whorehouse is a very clear-eyed look at prostitution, and it tells a true story, with a very unhappy, true ending. And besides, the stage show isn't about sex or about prostitution -- it's about the mad hypocrisy of the culture and politics around these women, at the height of the Sexual Revolution. And seriously, how glamorous could they be when they're all wearing early 1970s polyester jumpsuits? I called the reviewer out on it.
So when we got a positive but clownish review from KDHX for our current production of American Idiot, I called the reviewer out on it. On cue, a handful of local actors were predictably shocked, stunned, and deeply saddened yet again that I had reviewed the reviewer. Apparently, they believe reviewers can criticize our work, even irresponsibly, but their work deserves some kind of Trumpian Immunity?
No.
In this Idiot review, the first two paragraphs are the reviewer's pointless musical autobiography, weirdly straining to establish his punk street cred. (Spoiler Alert: reviews are not about the reviewers.)
When he finally gets to the show he's reviewing, he declares that "New Line's timing" in producing the show this year is "well-timed." Our timing is well-timed? (KDHX has since fixed this sentence, so clearly somebody knows there's a problem here.)
Then this guy writes, "Despite its obvious six degrees of plot separation from La Bohème by way of Hair and Rent...” What's he smoking? The plot, characters, and themes of American Idiot have virtually nothing to do with Bohème, Hair or Rent. And also, how do you play the Six Degrees game with plots?
He goes on to write, "The musicians sit behind a chain link fence, but their musical talents, under the direction of bassist John Gerdes, roam freely..." WTF? Can someone please explain to me how musical talents roam freely...? This is a reviewer who loves his own writing too much and who's trying to sound like a better writer than he is. That never works. And also, reviews are not about the reviewers.
There's lots more clumsy self-indulgence in this review, but I'll spare you. What's my point? The artists who work with New Line deserve better. This kind of chatty, un-serious review is disrespectful of us and our work.
As I expected, I was social-media-scolded for being a bully and for having a "meltdown," for reviewing this guy's review. Let's get real -- disagreeing is not bullying, despite what people on Facebook may think. And being offended is not having a meltdown. I'm baffled by this genuinely weird mindset that reviewers are somehow above review, that it's "unprofessional" to call them out.
Because that would mean that Steve Sondheim, Hal Prince, David Merrick, Joe Papp, and lots of other legendary theatre artists have been unprofessional for publicly calling out critics for irresponsible reviews. (They haven't.) If reviewers want to be part of the public cultural conversation, they have to take the good with the bad, like everyone else who puts work before the public.
You know, like theatre artists.
Reviewers should not get a pass for un-serious, un-thoughtful reviews. In Days of Olde (pre-internet), reviewers were afforded some respect and authority because their job was to think and write about the art form, and even so, they were often held to account by the public through Letters to the Editor. But that's nobody's job anymore, at least not in St. Louis. Nobody gets paid to review theatre locally. Now, reviewing is a sideline. A hobby. Some of our local reviewers are excellent, some are fine, but a few are terrible and a few are little more than synopsis machines. One big problem is that admission to the Critical Community is now just the price of setting up a free blog.
To paraphrase Gus the Theatre Cat, "Reviewing is certainly not what it was." It's probably too much to ask that any of them read any of these...
So what do we do about all this? No idea. As a species, we're still figuring out how to navigate the digital era, how to sift out the bullshit from the truth, who to give our trust to, who to believe, how to judge information, and so much more.
Maybe in this digital information age, when theatre companies can share with their potential audience (virtually cost-free) production photos, rehearsal photos, video clips, glimpses behind-the-scenes, interviews, blog diaries, and so much more -- maybe reviews as we know them and review pull-quotes will soon go the way of the Betamax and the Walkman.
I mean, when many reviews have all the gravitas and depth of a Facebook post, do we really need them? Do they still serve the community in any meaningful way?
Reviewers in St. Louis don't represent theatre audiences today the way they once might have. To be blunt, with only a couple exceptions, all the St. Louis reviewers are pretty old; the majority are male; and with only the rarest exception, they're all white. That does not align with the majority of our audience. Or the audiences we want to reach. Or our city.
So now what? No idea. It's a new world. And there's still a lot to figure out.
Long Live the Musical! Scott
Author's Note: I generally distinguish between critics, who write about shows in the context of the art form and the times and the culture; and reviewers, who say if they liked a show or not. Critics are people like George Bernard Shaw, Harley Granville-Barker, Eric Bentley, George Jean Nathan, Harold Clurman, Langston Hughes, Robert Brustein, Frank Rich, George C. Wolfe, et al.
