Blue-Collar Broadway by White Timothy R.;

Author:White, Timothy R.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2015-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Transfers and Tours

Back in the honeymoon phase of the regional movement, before most of these performing arts centers had broken ground, artistic directors spoke of liberating actors, designers, and audiences from the crass, commercial clutches of Broadway. In an interview for “Backstage in the Beer City,” Milwaukee’s artistic director celebrated his troupe’s raison d’être in 1968: “Audiences must have at least one theatre in which they can go to see the great works of the past . . . unless cities like Milwaukee do this, the only other alternative is the jungle of Broadway—the ‘show biz’—which has nothing to do with the art of the theatre, but is a way of making money.”36 This artistic director along with Zelda Fichandler, Stuart Vaughan, and many others aspired to more than just an alternative theater; they sought a superior theater.

This is why so many of them began cut off from Broadway, building shows without so much as a stitch or swatch imported from New York’s historic craft businesses. The fledgling experiments of Margo Jones in Dallas, the hardscrabble plays performed under a sycamore in Houston, and even the fully fledged, celebrated Hamlet in Minneapolis—all were built locally. If a New York scenic carpenter or costume cutter was lucky enough to score a salaried job at a regional facility, he or she could certainly relocate. Most of the time, however, regional jobs had almost nothing to do with those who stayed put in New York.

When hit shows began to be transferred from regional theaters to Broadway, this dynamic quickly changed. The Great White Hope, a hit play of the Arena Stage’s 1967 season, was the first notable piece to turn Broadway’s show-originating hegemony on its head. In this particular case the creativity of the hinterlands circled back to employ New Yorkers. The leading player James Earl Jones so electrified audiences at the Arena Stage that New York producer Herman Levin optioned the property for a Broadway run in 1968. When the transfer production arrived for an October opening at the Alvin Theater, New York’s unionized scenic carpenters, costume craftspeople, and lighting riggers secured two months of work, crafting new components to appear onstage within their jurisdiction. Even the drapery firm Dazian’s got work from the gig, hanging drops and curtains behind the Alvin’s proscenium in ways not needed for the Arena’s original theater-in-the-round staging.

When The Great White Hope proved to be as much of a knockout on Broadway as it had been inside the beltway, other producers followed Levin’s lead. A different but equally enthusiastic group of New York producers pounced on the Arena Stage’s next hit in 1973, quickly transferring the musical Raisin to the 46th Street Theatre on Broadway. In doing so they put several local craft firms to work, just as Levin had. Other producers transferred plays from Houston and New Haven’s resident theaters within the same decade. The dynamic between Broadway and the regionals was transformed as “a long line of plays and musicals” flowed into rather than out of New York.

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