Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Broadway, Playwriting and Such...

In RAOK's Thanksgiving contest, I requested we put a category that is not customary: stage or screen writing.

True, a play on paper is only half alive, but I fear there aren't enough playwrights around or those who are around give up the craft because they can't break into the iron-clad system. I feel it would be "the more the merrier," if more people dared.

Maybe nobody would make it into Broadway, but plays could written, performed for small audiences, and put into DVD's. I think there's a market for it and those who have entrepreneurish minds could pull this.

Last week, my husband and I went to NYC for a few days. We both love Broadway, and each time we go, we squeeze in a play or two no matter how busy we get. This time, we found out that we had watched all that there was except two, in spite of the fact that since we now live in Florida, we can make it to NYC only three or four times a year at the most.

Granted, it was the end of October and the season, but still there might have been plays we hadn't seen, but no. The reason for this is that once a production is a hit, it stays there for years. Come on...even the presidents can stay in office for two terms. Plus, most of the plays or musicals are re-hashes. To me the play's the thing and which director or actor interprets anything is secondary.

If I have seen even the best of musicals like Cats or Phantom of the Opera once or twice, I won't want to see them again. I'll listen to the songs on a CD, but that is as far as it will go.

And another thing. The price of the seats have become sky-high. A halfway decent seat in Chorus Line (something we had seen twice before and we dared to watch again) was $125 per person, the seats in the very front row were $300.

If we had bought the front seats we'd have paid $600 plus tax. For that price, I could buy at least 20 well-produced DVD's.

I think Broadway is eating itself out of existence or is becoming so unreachable that it will eventually fade into obscurity; however, Off-Broadway is doing well, at least artistically if not financially.

I feel, writers and actors who have an interest in plays should follow their dreams through and create new markets for themselves. A play can be printed and sold as a book, too. Yes, I do read plays. At the moment, I am reading August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson."

People like me miss good plays.