Something I love about living in New York: a spur-of-the-moment phone call can land you, minutes later, in the audience of a Broadway show.
Because I am generally what is known as a
broke-ass motha-fucka, I tend to see the big Broadway shows either right when they start (when they're giving out free tickets) or after they've been running for ages (when they're giving out free tickets). There is a huge difference in the audiences that make up the early-goers and the late-goers. The early-going audience is, if you are a theater person, everyone you've ever met or worked with, who are all connected to the biz in some way. The late-going audience is all tourists, and, if you are a theater person, you've never felt more anonymous in your life.
When I'm one of the late-goers, as I was tonight, I find that without fail, I am sitting within earshot of a very particular pair of theatergoers.
The breakdown:
[WOMAN 1] Mid to late 50s. Overtly pedantic. Self-proclaimed but misinformed Expert of the Theater. Must be comfortable with Jewish or Long Island dialect.
[WOMAN 2] Mid to late 50s. Woman 1's companion. As if she's never been to the theater before; she might as well be visiting Mars.
Here's some dialogue I overheard tonight:
WOMAN 2: What's that man doing?
WOMAN 1: He's conducting.
WOMAN 2: What's he conducting?
WOMAN 1: An orchestra. There's a live orchestra down there.
WOMAN 2: A live orchestra?
WOMAN 1: Mm hm.
WOMAN 2 (nearly silent): Wow.
More from tonight:
WOMAN 1: Now, this is a Broadway theater.
(WOMAN 2 nods throughout.)
WOMAN 1: But there are also off-Broadway theaters. They're small. Now there are off-Broadway theaters with 300 seats, and off-Broadway theaters with 800 seats, but they're all small.
Now, I know this makes me seem like a horribly arrogant theater cognoscenti, but
all I want to do is lean over and say:
ADAM: Actually, off-Broadway theaters by definition are those with 100 to 499 seats. So, there are off-Broadway theaters with 300 seats. But 800 seats a Broadway theater makes. For example, the Golden, current home to the hit Broadway musical
Avenue Q, has 805 seats. Now, this is nothing in comparison to the 1,900+ seats of the Gershwin (where
Wicked calls home), but, technically, both are Broadway houses.
In my weird fantasy world, the two ladies thank me and, pleased that they've learned something new about the wonderful world of theater, enjoy the show at hand even more than they would have previously.
But in the real world, I'd probably get a dirty look, so I keep my mouth shut.
The real kicker of a conversation I overheard happened in a Broadway theater a couple years ago, between two Women 1s:
WOMAN 1A: What else have I seen lately...? Oh, I just saw that
See What I Wanna See musical down at the Public Theater.
WOMAN 1B: Oh, I did not like that show.
WOMAN 1A: Neither did I. That Michael John LaChiusa. He wrote that
Wild Party that was on Broadway...
WOMAN 1B: Oh, I did not like that
Wild Party.
WOMAN 1A: I don't understand why they keep giving that Michael John LaChiusa millions of dollars to write these Broadway musicals!
At this moment, I just about choked on my own saliva.
Because all I wanted to say was:
ADAM: Actually, Michael John LaChiusa wasn't paid millions of dollars to write those musicals. If one of them was commissioned by the Public, he'd be lucky if he got ten grand to write it, and then, when and if it transferred to Broadway, he'd get a certain small percentage of the box office gross, and that was only as long as it was running, and paid against any advance he may have received from a commercial producer. Here's an article you should read (I keep a copy in my bag) which talks about how he had to put his piano into hock when he was writing his musical
Marie Christine, so he could pay his rent. I know all this because I'm a musical theater writer who basically aspires to what Michael John LaChiusa has, and I can tell you firsthand it's not the money. In fact, a couple years from now, I'm gonna write a blog entry in which I correctly refer to myself as a
broke-ass motha-fucka.
But, you know, dirty looks. So I kept my mouth shut.
