Abstract
My thesis explores the artistic effects of two different kinds of financial investment on Broadway. I define and then trace the rise of what I term the "corporate producer" over the past twenty years, then document the fall of the independent creative producer, which had been the traditional means of producing shows on Broadway prior to the 1980s. This rise and fall is documented through personal interviews with Broadway professionals, and through newspapers, magazines, and literature on current and past practices in theatre production both on Broadway and on tours. The rise of the corporate producer has resulted in an increasing pattern of revivals, musicals based on movies from the past, and expanded musical revues. Broadway has begun to resemble the mass produced product seen in any department store across the country, and Broadway's actors are turning into assembly line workers exercising in front of a constant stream of mediatized and mass marketed consumers. The demands of such a life are changing the concepts of theatre, performance, and acting. In addition to life on Broadway, the touring business of Broadway has been taken over by corporate producers as well, and tours have begun to take on characteristics of other industries based upon the principles of Henry Ford, suffering from downsizing of labor and materials, division of labor to its smallest units, and de-unionizing and control by and ever expanding middle management with an eye on the bottom line. The Broadway actor is becoming standardized, like a piece of machinery on an assembly-line. Liveness is being traded for frozen or "cinematized" events, and Broadway is becoming a movie. These theatrical movies are being taken across the country, changing what the United States views as theatre, and preparing the next generation for accepting these movies as Broadway.
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