On April 14, something almost never seen before on Broadway happened: the premiere of a completely new musical, created from scratch by theater professionals who neither adapted a book nor a novel nor a series nor drew on the songbook of a radio group. Lempicka It told a new story, that of the Polish portrait artist Tamara de Lempicka, and its creators had poured 13 years of work into it.
On May 19, something that is usually seen on Broadway happened: that new musical closed abruptly, this time after only 41 performances due to lack of audience. Lempicka has become the latest example of the growing poison that is originality in commercial theater, even in its capital, Broadway.
And it is also a sign of something deeper: that the craft of creating musicals (those works written by playwrights and composers with decades of training who have dedicated years of their lives to collaborating with actors, set designers and choreographers to create a unique and new performance where the musical tradition and that of many other disciplines are reconciled with the dramatic needs of a specific story) is in danger of extinction. modus operandi that for decades has given us West Side Story, Sweeney Todd, My Fair Lady, Evita and many other classics, or even The Miserables, It’s starting to be a relic.
Until now the invincible was eating ground music jukebox, works with songs by already known groups (the irreducible Mamma Mia! of Abba, those of Elvis Presley, Madonna, Blondie, Take That, Green Day, the Beatles, Cher, Spice Girls, Michael Jackson Daft Punk, Donna Summer and Alanis Morissette, and there are even two of Bob Dylan). Actors and sets superimposed on the image of pop stars.
In the shadow of these blockbusters languished the Stephen Sondheims, Richard Rodgers, Leonard Bernstein, Cole Porter and George Gershwins of our time. Some works gave some joy: hamilton, from 2015, it is a blockbuster of more than 1,000 million dollars, and one of the few musicals to win the Pulitzer; In 2020, the experimental In The Loop achieved the same award. But otherwise, the state of health of the genre is… Lempicka.
Now a third way is emerging. Neither radio hits nor purely theatrical works. In recent months we have seen the announcement of almost entirely original musicals, whose composers are… pop stars. There is a The Great Gatsby by Florence Welch (of Florence and the Machine), a Opening Night by Rufus Wainwright (based on opening nightby John Cassavetes), a Romeo and Juliet by Jack Antonoff (producer of Lana del Rey, Taylor Swift, Lorde) and a film to be directed by Michel Gondry where the characters will sing songs by Pharrell Williams (a torrential rapper and creative director of Louis Vuitton’s men’s collections, for those who want to glimpse there some thesis on culture in 2024). It is one of the most radical changes in the genre in its century and a half of life: the hands that fill the stages have no longer been nourished by them. They come from outside.
“There is no room for chance, only safe bets are valid,” says Spanish producer Fernando de Luis-Orueta. He points out the exorbitant prices at the box office: “For 500 dollars you can only leave satisfied. And you have already won over a Rufus Wainwright fan before the curtain goes up.”
“Who produces musicals now? They are no longer visionary producers as in the past,” warns Alberto Mira, professor at Oxford Brookes University and author of The Pop Musical (Columbia University Press) and a monograph on Stephen Sondheim to be published by Akal.
It refers to the legendary producers who, in the 20th century, took risks with risky proposals that they developed with creative teams that they themselves formed and pampered like football coaches: Harold Prince helped to forge West Side Story, Cabaret, Company, Evita, Fiddler on the Roof either The Phantom of the Opera, and Cameron Mackintosh, The Miserables. “Now, musicals come out of studios like Stage or Disney, and the studios want a sound that works beforehand.” Studios operate differently. Instead of throwing things together to see what comes out through osmosis, a result is decided beforehand and then the cheapest way to get there. For some, it is pure and simple market demand. For the purists, it is to defenestrate a sacred office, to put tiktokers to direct films.
Certain pop stars had already dared to try dramaturgy, a genre of incomparable prestige when it turns out well (the Anglo-Saxons call it legitimate theatre for something). Broadway has seen Tommy, the rock opera by The Who from 1969, and, in 1988, Chess, about a chess championship in the depths of the Cold War: original music by Benny Andersson and Björn UIvaeus, composers of Abba. Seen in their day as exercises in intrusion, in this new panorama they have the aura of endearing precursors: Tommy has returned to Broadway this year and Chess will do so next year. On the other hand, Elton John is the signer of the most profitable musical in history, The Lion King (as well as disasters like Aida, in 2000, Lestat in 2006 and The Devil Wears Prada in 2022). The force with which this new batch has burst forth suggests good health.
And those new composers trained to tell stories musically? They are still there. Your safe bet is film adaptations: in 2025 they will arrive Karate Kid, La la land either Magic Mike. The hit of the season is Death Suits You So Good. Will any be a masterpiece? De Luis-Orueta responds: “Theatre always survives”
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