Word: shubertism
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Broadway congenitally hears more "voices" than Joan of Arc. Even before the Royal Shakespeare Company's epic production of Nicholas Nickleby opened at the Plymouth Theater on Oct. 4 for a three-month run, the voices of Mammon and Cassandra could be heard muttering their dire prophecies along Shubert Alley. Mammon said that no sane person would pay the unprecedented price of $100 a ticket. Cassandra moaned that 8½ hours in a seated position, with only a one-hour dinner break, was a spartan rigor that no human frame could endure. (Agreed Socialite C.Z. Guest: "The only...
Three times a week, on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, both parts will run in one day. Bernard Jacobs, president of the Shubert Organization, hopes audiences will try to attend the all-day marathon, "participating with the actors in a survival experience." It might seem like an endurance test to devote an entire day to a single show; but then, this show is all about survival and transcendence. Behind its overt stage action is the unlikely but compelling story of how a struggling theater company found its soul and its success with the same desperate gamble ?risking everything...
Even so, the custodians of the inkwell?the producers, directors and theater owners?disagree noisily over just how successful Broadway is, and what that success means. Bernard Jacobs, who with his partner Gerald Schoenfeld helped restore to grandeur the venerable Shubert Organization ?and with it much of Broadway?sees a cloud in the silver lining. "As grosses increase," says Jacobs, "so do costs. Move the decimal point over a few digits, and you're in the same place you were 54 years ago." In 1927, he notes, a straight play could be produced...
...another ho-hummable show. "If you want to know why musicals do so well so long," says Neil Simon, "just walk down Fifth Avenue. All you hear are foreign languages. Musicals they can understand." Adds Joseph Papp, who as head of New York's Public Theater acts as the Shubert of the theatrical subculture: "Broadway is one big ice-cream factory...
When Ted Kennedy wanted a hot warmup act for his appearance at a pre-convention fund raiser, he whistled for Lauren Bacall. He got fireworks. As host of "Broadway for Kennedy" at the Shubert Theater, Bacall sauntered onstage to cheers and let loose some sizzlers: "They tell us that the convention is all sewed up, but these are the same people who told us that Gerald Ford would be Ronald Reagan's Vice President and that Chrysler stock is a good buy. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing that should be sewed up is Brother...