Any composer worth their salt would love a commercial production of a musical like a Dreamgirls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamgirls). Like any other job it's whom you know and your relationships with people who help you attain that goal. Since attaining a fellowship in 1997 and graduating from The Tisch School at New York University in 2000, I have been working as a composer as well a music teacher. Both jobs require so much energy. I think I have been very fortunate. I am employed. Roz Ryan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roz_Ryan) who is a Broadway performer who routinely returns to the long running Broadway hit, Chicago refers to her recurring role as her "good government job". She is secure in the fact that she can work there while doing other projects. My teaching is my good government job that I enjoy but my passion is writing music. Even though I would love to have my musicals on Broadway it has not happen, yet. A composer encounters endless readings that may lead to a workshop production.
Broadway today is very high stakes. Most musical do not make their money back during their run on Broadway, but once the national tours, international tours and amateur productions start to happen, you make a living off of your music. Interestingly enough, musicals like Nunsense, Menopause, The Musical and Naked Boys Singing, make millions! First off, they are shows that play small venues with small cast that can play anywhere. A musical like The Fantastics (http://www.thefantasticks.com/webpages/home.html), which holds the record as the longest running musical has ran over forty years at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in New York City's Greenwich Village before closing briefly to move to a uptown to the Snapple Theater New York City Theater venue in Times Square. This production that was capitalized initially for a few hundred dollars forty years ago, (http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/04/27/the-fantasticks-earned-its-investors-a-24-000-return-and/) has earned the investors a 2400% percent return on their initial investments!
Of course as a composer this a dream! The thing that I like about working as a composer in-residence at Street Theater is that I am able as a composer to have my work staged and mounted in about 3 weeks after writing the material. Most composers in my position go through the process of securing reading and developing a pedigree by winning writing awards, grants readings at prestigious Theaters to gain word of mouth, critical acclaim and or a strong audience following. Networking and developing the relations is crucial in ensuring a production of one's musical.
Commercial theater such as Broadway, are in competition with Hollywood using well know movies and Jukebox musicals to ensure a return on their investments. They bring in well known to bring in the audience. New Yorkers during it's hey day used to regularly attend Broadway. These days, Broadway is very healthy because of the tourists who come to see these shows. Identifying themes such as well known movies and movie stars dominate the scene. It is very high stakes today. Just take a look at the controversy with the musical, based on Spiderman (http://theater.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/theater/reviews/spider-man-turn-off-the-dark-opens-after-changes-review.html). It seem to work in their favor as the soap opera played on the fate and artistic merit of the show as well as it's original director, Julie Taymor who was forced off the creative team (http://chrisluner.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/julie-taymor-cashing-in-on-catastrophe/ as well as the unfortunate accidents that occurred during the over extended preview of the musical (http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/performer-is-injured-during-spider-man-performance/) With Off Broadway it seems difficult to return caplization of a musical to it's investors because these types of theater usually have under 499 seats. The math formula to insure a return on an initial Off-Broadway musical is difficult if not impossible. Most off-Broadway musical production has their eye on the Broadway pie. Theaters such as Lincoln Center Theater The Public, New York Theater Workshop, Manhattan Theater Club all have been extremely successful in making Broadway transfers of plays and musicals to the Broadway stage. But after a production closes a lot of these productions don’t make back their initial investments unless national, international companies are in demand and regional theaters across the United States and the world. There are exceptions to this unspoken rule.
With The Theater for the New City's Street Theater productions Crystal Field's work carry an important message that is more invaluable than my dream of the piece of the Broadway Pie that I hold dear. Some things are more important than the monetary and physical trappings of the theater business. True it would be nice to have production of my our production that outlast the lives of Crystal and myself but the legacy of the sixties and seventies of speaking up and making a difference in the world that we exist in is a message more invaluable at this point in my life. Suffering through my cancer scare recently has help me answer that question why do I put myself through the tight deadlines of not having a completely realized arrangement of a score walking into the rehearsal period doesn't seem important when I see our material fully staged with costumes and props on a stage in a month! I think that is the siren call I respond to as an African-American composer in the new millennium. I always knew I love music since it ran my family with my father and his cousin, the jazz organist, Larry Young who took lessons together as children in the late 1940's, a jazz pianist, I remember me sitting in on the baby grand piano during a thanksgiving jam session during the 70's with my late father, Joe on the Hammond B3 my Aunt, Bernice who still sings and her late husband, Burt who set up the mixing board in their apartment of blocks from their apartment located blocks from the Jerome Ave El train in the Bronx during Holidays like Thanksgiving. They were trying to visualize their dreams as music artists. My father's cousin Larry Young (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Young_%28musician%29) had significant success as a Jazz artist working with the great Jimi Hendricks and Miles Davis but succumbed to a mysterious death of a drug overdose in 1978 (http://www.larryyoungmusic.com/bio.html). These are some of the things I'm reflecting on with the 50th year of my birth! Half a century! The journey of my so-called "Banks musical legacy" is an interesting journey. I'm thankful for the grace of God who has permitted to continue my journey here on this earth. He must have his reasons. I guess my work is not finished yet as a music teacher and a composer and musician. I'm having a renewed relish for what direction he has guided me thus far!
