What’s Wrong With the Broadway Musical?
Once a universal cultural touchstone, Broadway musicals have now become a revolving door of unchallenging confections and straight-from-Hollywood adaptations
Each May, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle votes on the best play, foreign play and musical of the season. This year it chose not to give a best-musical award. What’s more, the NYDCC (of which I am a member) made the same call in 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2010. To be sure, nearly all of the 19 members loved “The Band’s Visit,” but it won last year’s best-musical award after opening off Broadway in 2016. As for this year’s shows, only two Broadway musicals got any support, “Mean Girls” (one vote) and “SpongeBob SquarePants” (two votes). Every other member either picked off-Broadway shows or abstained.
To read the entire Wall Street Journal article:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/whats-wrong-with-the-broadway-musical-1525894408
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