America may be the land of opportunity where anyone can become President (even those who don’t actually win the public vote, it seems); but it’s also increasingly the case that this ultimate supposed democracy extends to the fact that anyone can be on Broadway, too: all you need is to win a reality TV competition. American Idol has become Broadway’s biggest open audition – and a key selling point, too. The Color Purple has had a new injection of life from the arrival of Fantasia Barrino, winner of American Idol’s third season, who took over the lead role of Celie earlier this year. I finally caught her in it when I saw it on Thursday, and she lives up to her name: she’s fantastic. [Click below to continue reading]
She may have more sincerity than skill in the acting department, but she blows the roof off the place when she sings – and it’s thrilling to hear an audience getting behind her, as this one does, so vocally in kind. (She’s currently in the show to January 6).
She was, of course, their choice – just as Connie was ours in London for The Sound of Music. And just as The Sound of Music, Joseph and Grease finalists in the UK are finding work even if they didn’t actually win those contests, so American Idol is spawning a clutch of Broadway (and off-Broadway) performers from amongst its ranks: another finalist joining The Color Purple (from December 19) is LaKisha Jones, while Tamyra Gray is currently in Rent and Anthony Federov in the off-Broadway return of The Fantasticks.
Clay Aitken, the runner-up on series two of American Idol, has just been announced to take over as Sir Robin in Monty Python’s Spamalot (from January 18); but he’s already been on the New York stage as the subject of an off-Broadway musical earlier this year, Idol: the Musical, based on the fan worship that surrounds him, that came and went in just one night in August, after replacing its entire cast during previews.
From American Idol to Ryan Idol: proof that Broadway likes fame in any (dis)guise is offered by the revival of the gay bathhouse comedy The Ritz featuring, as one of the patrons, sometime gay porn star Ryan Idol, which I’m seeing this afternoon.
But these are all personalities that have been imported to Broadway from fame, or notoriety, elsewhere: what about creating its own stars? Time was, of course, that the Great White Way would do precisely that; but nowadays it needs a little help from its TV friends. Hence the fact that, simultaneous to the West End’s TV casting call the current revival there of Grease, another was being staged on Broadway to do the same thing for a new production there. I saw it on Friday, and was surprised at how lacklustre the two stars found here are: next to Danny Bayne and Susan McFadden who won the TV contest in London, the two unknowns here – Max Crumm and Laura Osnes – are fatally lacking in both rapport and charisma.
The producers of the London production David Ian and Paul Nicholas are also on hand as the lead producers for New York, though they’ve not simply imported their London version but have had Broadway director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall stage an entirely new, though not significantly better, production. Ian’s programme biography, by the way, proudly lists amongst his producing credits the Las Vegas edition of The Phantom of the Opera (where it was redubbed Phantom: The Last Vegas Spectacular), which he did wearing his Live Nation hat as chairman of global theatre for them; when I actually saw the show in Vegas last month, his billing was nowhere to be found. Evidently when Live Nation’s Vegas co-producers BASE Entertainment purchased Live Nation’s share of the production, they were written out of the billing, including Ian’s contribution; but it’s good to see that he still claims credit for the show.
Finally, from Grease to Grease-lite: Grease did, of course, spawn a host of imitators, including the good (Hairspray, as London is currently finding out) and the bad. I caught Happy Days – the Musical yesterday at Paper Mill Playhouse, just across the river from New York in New Jersey, and though some friends have wondered if this is anything to do with the Samuel Beckett play of the same name, alas it isn’t: it’s a musical based on the long-running TV series. Though the theme tune and characters are retained, it’s not dissimilar to Fame – the Musical in otherwise failing to bring it to new life but relying instead on the audience’s affection for the original to carry it through. It’s not enough.
