Where I Reveal My Dorky Obsession With Musical Theater Once and For All

Last Sunday Ben Brantley wrote about the dying art form that is the musical theater in this country.

In the past when these kind of dire predictions have been made I would have said that the critics were overreacting. But when Lestat, Tarzan, and Hot Feet all emerge in a period of just a few months - one begins to wonder if the new musical exists solely to challenge reviewers to see just how negative a review they are able to write.

With the meek excuse of scheudenfraude I have to admit I sort of love reading really, really bad reviews (as long as I have no personal investment in the show, of course). And with the trio named above, Brantley and Isherwood outdid themselves.

And it's easy to. Because these shows are bloated corporate endeavors. They have no soul attached. There is no reason to "feel bad" that a reviewer may be forever ruining the career of a young upstart composer who was weaned on Sondheim, or a shiny eyed lyricist who grew up idolizing Finn and has spent their life dreaming about writing the next great American musical.

Or if not a goal quite so lofty, simply dreaming of making people smile at the creation of a truly elegant rhyme. Or making them laugh with the achievment of a particularly smart and clever patter song.

Or simply making them feel something, anything, that is true and authentic. Good musical theater has the power to achieve that. When the equation is right and the symbiosis between story and words and music clicks - a musical (or play with music, or what have you) can twist something someplace inside you that words or music - on their own - fail to reach.

This just opened in DC and it may be the first DC theater ticket I actually buy this year. I saw the show when it played in New York and was moved by a musical for the first time in a long time that evening (incidentally - the Sweeney Todd revival, while one admires the skill involved, left me totally cold).

So, what to do? Support young artists. See new musical theater. It may be awful but it just as well may be fabulous. And usually it will at least be authentic. And the tickets will be loads cheaper than a Broadway ticket.

See what's playing at the Fringe Festival here, or the one in New York, or at the Musical Theater Festival. See the show I am working on for some of these very festivals.

But more on that later.