Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Musicals as a Mirror
PBS is running their 6-hour mini-series on the Broadway Musical this week. while reading about it I was struck by the fact that the mini-series producer spoke about musicals as a mirror of their times. I seemed to recall a similar sentiment expressed by 42nd St. Moon Managing Director, Lauren Hewitt.
Sure enough when I was flipping through my notes, I found a story she had told about first considering to work at 42nd St. Moon.
Although Lauren definitely had planned to run a theatre, having gotten an graduate degree in arts administration, she wasn't hot on the idea of running a musical theatre at first. She thought of it as a "commercial thing, not an artistic thing."
Now Lauren knows she was "under-educated." She started going to some 42nd St. Moon productions and started to:
"see the connection between these lost musicals seen through a modern lens and new works. They had historical impact; and said a lot about how we expressed ourselves about problems and conflicts."
Sounds a lot like what PBS is trying to highlight with their mini-series, no?
Sure enough when I was flipping through my notes, I found a story she had told about first considering to work at 42nd St. Moon.
Although Lauren definitely had planned to run a theatre, having gotten an graduate degree in arts administration, she wasn't hot on the idea of running a musical theatre at first. She thought of it as a "commercial thing, not an artistic thing."
Now Lauren knows she was "under-educated." She started going to some 42nd St. Moon productions and started to:
"see the connection between these lost musicals seen through a modern lens and new works. They had historical impact; and said a lot about how we expressed ourselves about problems and conflicts."
Sounds a lot like what PBS is trying to highlight with their mini-series, no?
// posted by ElisaC @ 6:59 PM 
