Broadway’s theatre district is famously far more compact than the West End – the theatres in New York literally rub shoulders with each other as only happens at the bottom of Shaftesbury Avenue at home, and are mostly squeezed into a 13-block radius on either side of Broadway (but mostly west) between West 41st Street and West 54th Street. So it creates a greater sense of urgency around the streets there: everyone seems to be going to a show or otherwise connected to the theatre. And your chances, even by day, of running into people you know are amplified: I run into far more people on the streets here than I ever do in London (except, of course, on a first night, where we’re all in the same place at the same time, turning our lives into Groundhog Day).
No sooner did I arrive on Thursday afternoon, for instance, than I went to a diner on 8th Avenue on my way to the theatre, and actor Kevin Chamberlin walked past the window on his way to the show he is starring in on Broadway (a revival of The Ritz), saw me and came in to say hi. [Click below to continue reading]
I met him first socially at the beach house of a mutual friend in the Hamptons a few years ago, and subsequently got to him better when he was in London reprising his Broadway performance in Dirty Blonde. The first thing he said to me on Thursday was that he’d seen a theatre column I do for A Bear’s Life magazine – an American gay lifestyle magazine (http://www.abearslifemag.com) – and had noticed I had referred to him as “cubacilious”. (You probably have to know about the gay bear subculture to understand this!) But he’s agreed now to do an interview profile for the magazine, too, so I’m meeting him for lunch tomorrow to do so!
And then on Friday morning I was walking down 8th Avenue and ran into British director David Grindley coming in the other direction, who only the night before had opened a new production of Shaw’s Pygmalion, in which he directed Claire Danes as Eliza Doolittle – that morning’s reviews had been mixed, but as David pointed out to me, the main complaint seemed to be that it wasn’t the musical My Fair Lady, which is utterly revered over here.
Then at yesterday’s matinee for The Ritz, I ran into Scott Rudin, a producer who makes his money doing films but channels it into his passion for making (and seeing) theatre. Last season, he was responsible for David Hare’s The Vertical Hour, Vanessa Redgrave in The Year of Magical Thinking (now London-bound to open at the National Theatre next year), and the return of Angela Lansbury to the Broadway stage, after nearly a quarter of a century’s gap, in Deuce. Scott is always at the theatre – I run into him as often in London as I do here – and it shows in the people he works with in the movies as well: he told me he is currently commuting to Berlin a lot, where Stephen Daldry is shooting The Reader for him; and Sam Mendes is now in post-production for Revolutionary Road, starring Sam’s wife Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, that Scott is also producing. But Scott never wants to talk movies when I see him – that’s the day job, I guess; instead, he always wants to know what’s hot in London.
But theatre isn’t all about star names: sometimes its fun to follow more obscure talent. A few years ago I was in Dress Circle in Covent Garden, and they were playing a cabaret album by a couple called Anya and Robert, and I was so intrigued by what I was hearing that I bought it. I fell in love with that album, called Ordinary People, and since then they have also brought out a second album, You Loved Me. Their albums are entirely made up of their own original material, and Anya has a resonant voice and the kind of personal rapport with the songs that puts me in mind of one of my cabaret singer-songwriter favourites, Amanda McBroom. On a previous visit to New York, I noticed that they were doing a cabaret gig at a venue on Restaurant Row, and went along: they were as delightful in person as on their albums. And then on Friday, I noticed an ad in the New York Times for an off-Broadway musical they had written (and were starring in): Greetings from Yorkville. I immediately tried to reach the press agent for it, but he wasn’t in his office when I called and didn’t respond to my e-mail, either; but since I only had one shot (and free slot) in which to actually see it, I bought a ticket and went last night.
The show, currently running at SoHo Playhouse, turned out to be an autobiographically constructed extended cabaret show that weaves their songs inbetween the story of their artistic struggle to make it as songwriters. And the show itself looks like its another sign of that continuing struggle: I was glad to have paid last night, in fact, as there were so few of us there. But I’m certainly glad to have caught it; I’m worried that not many will.
You're absolutely right, Broadway is wonderful and 'OFF BROADWAY' is quite literally just off Broadway plus its one hundred times better than London's so called FRINGE.
London might have the history and beautiful theatres like Drury Lane and The Gielgud but Broadway is definately a theatre town.
I can't blame the talented Mr. Grindley for some sort of denial of what the reviews said about his production of Pygmalion . It not being My Fair Lady isn't just an "over here" thing. It's just the fate of that play because the musical was so good. The fact is that the reviews for his production of Pygmalion are mostly bad and most of them blame the casting and the design and Mr. Grindley's direction. A good production of Pygmailion would still lead to comparisons with My Fair Lady; a bad one leads to critics longing for My Fair Lady.