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| Marilyn Miller on the cover of a Ziegfeld Theatre program, and "The Farmer and the Cowman" scene from "Oklahoma!" |
Performers have also been the cornerstone of the musical. They could be comedians like Bert Lahr or Bert Williams; singers like Ethel Merman or Ethel Waters; dancers like Ray Bolger or Marilyn Miller. With the stronger demands of the narrative musical, performers had to become actors as well; indeed, after the success of nonsinging actor Rex Harrison in "My Fair Lady," actors with minimal singing ability -- Richard Burton, Lauren Bacall -- became major musical stars. Of course, what Broadway values most these days is the "triple threat" -- performers who can sing, dance, and act. In fact, in the past, there were separate dancing and singing choruses; now everyone is expected to do it all. Star performers like Bernadette Peters, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and Nathan Lane appear to have limitless talents.
None of these elements would come together without the producer. The idea for a new musical can come from a writer, composer, or performer, but it can only be realized by a producer. He or she must raise the money for the production; the amount required is called the capitalization. This amount must not only cover getting the show to opening night but also create a financial cushion for several weeks or months until the show catches on with audiences. The producer will rarely spend his own money; he raises it from investors -- usually called backers or "angels," for obvious reasons -- and pays himself a salary. If the show is a success and makes back its initial expenditure (recoupment), investors get whatever percentage of their contributed amount back in profits. For example, if you invested $1,000 in "Oklahoma!" in 1943 and it cost $100,000 to produce, you would get 1 percent of the profits after recoupment (distributed weekly). If "Oklahoma!" had flopped, you would have lost all your money; luckily, the show was a big hit: anyone who did invest $1,000 received $2.5 million!
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| New York's theater district, and "Miss Saigon" poster. |
A Broadway musical is both a risky and an exciting proposition. It is the most costly business venture in the theater. Typically, a musical will now cost at least $10 million to produce; to put this in context, 30 years ago, a musical cost one tenth that amount. (Tickets also cost about one eighth as much in 1974.) As hard as it is to raise that money, the rewards can be enormous. Cameron Mackintosh's four shows ("Cats," "Les Misérables," "The Phantom of the Opera," and "Miss Saigon") have run on Broadway for more than 62 years total and, internationally, have made more money than these four movies -- STAR WARS, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, JURASSIC PARK, and TITANIC -- put together. But the rising costs of originating a show have driven away more independent individual producers and opened the field for corporations like the Walt Disney Co. For example, "The Lion King" may well be the most expensive show ever -- rumored at above $20 million -- and took about four years to turn a profit, but a big company can afford to wait that long for a return on their investment. That's why there's no business like show business!
As if these weren't enough, the story of the musical is also the story of its creators and performers, men and women from every aspect of American -- and foreign -- society, who came together, often under the most invidious circumstances, to create something that transcended their differences. Refugees came together with native sons and daughters; task masters worked with dissipated alcoholics; white producers championed black performers -- and black performers turned right around and made fortunes for those producers; artists fled financial failure for the blandishments of the lucrative worlds of film and television -- then fled right back to the stage; gay artists created enduring models of heterosexual romance and heterosexual artists became icons within the gay world; songwriters lost fortunes in the Depression, only to regain them by writing about the Depression itself -- the list of ironies and strong compelling biography is endless, each story replete with illuminations about our culture.
Yet, still, the elements that constitute the musical don't end there. The production of the musical is an art form itself. Complicated and often inflammatory, the craft of producing a Broadway show involves knowing the public's tastes (and usually challenging it), raising capital, battling societal trends -- all on the most expensive real estate in the most fractious city in the world. And, finally, there is the dissemination of the musical, which encompasses a vast narrative of communications and the media. Through sheet music, over the radio, in movies, on television, on gramophones, hi-fis, and CDs, through word-of-mouth, through visiting tourists, servicemen, grandmothers and their grandchildren, the world of the Broadway musical has been brought to every corner of this country and, by extension, the world. The musical is as powerful an image-maker of America as Hollywood has been and the shaping and shifting of that image is another cultural marker.
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photo credits: Photofest and the New York Public Library
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More about how minstrelsy influenced the musical from writer Mel Watkins and historian Ann Douglas, and an explanation of the cakewalk. Critic John Lahr discusses the cultural mythology of the Broadway musical.
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