Although on the surface this by-the-numbers theatre documentary would seem to simply be a blatant advertising campaign to get more tourists to flock to Broadway shows, in actual fact the film is much more substantial than it at first leads on, especially in conveying the checkered history of Broadway theater and the surrounding (and ever-changing) area of Manhattan’s Times Square. The documentary would make a great library resource for performing arts students.
Not surprisingly, On Broadway has star-powered talking heads to spare: Dame Helen Mirren kicks things off with her high praise of the ongoing mythos and spirit of Broadway, while other well-known veterans of stage and screen weigh in throughout the film, such as the late Ian McKellen, Alec Baldwin, famed choreographer Tommy Tune, and many other directors and actors that have made a mark on Broadway.
More importantly, though, we’re given a multi-decade guided tour of Broadway’s ups and downs over the years, from its musical heyday in the 1950s and early 60s to its financial bottoming out in the gritty but experimental 1970s and 1980s, all the way up through Broadway/Times Square’s gentrified renaissance in the late 1990s and 2000s led by the deliberate Disneyfication of the Times Square area; during this period, the content of Broadway musicals went from often risqué, cutting-edge productions like A Chorus Line, Cabaret, and Chicago in the 1970s to finally the safety and bankability of Andrew Lloyd Webber and clean tourist-friendly entertainment like Cats and Phantom of the Opera.
What’s unexpected about the film, however, is the recognition of how important off-Broadway venues have been to Broadway—Joseph Papp’s Public Theater being the most prominent—serving as the testing ground for future profitable Broadway productions. The film’s interviewees are an eclectic mix, whose voices are generally hopeful about the future of Broadway but also not without skeptics who say the Broadway shows might be bigger and more well-attended than ever, but perhaps at the cost of artistic innovation and loss of its collective creative soul. Recommended for all theatre majors or media librarians looking to develop their popular culture film collection. Aud: C, P.
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