Fast Food Theatre

One of the things I’ve picked up in my direct to consumer arts marketing position at my second job is that there are certain productions, usually musicals, that have achieved this mythical status, they are musicals that everyone goes to see, again and again. They make for great shows to bring into town to get the names and addresses of anyone remotely interested in the arts so we can bombast them with telephone calls in the future for the less popular shows. Some of these fast food productions are Rent, The Lion King, Phantom of the Opera, The Producers, Les Miserables, and Miss Saigon, just to name a few of the heavy weights.

But what makes these productions fast food productions vs. other theatre? Simple, they fundamentally have only been directed once in the original production. Every subsequent production looks materially similar to the previous production. While of course the set is put together differently, the costumes are resized to fit different actors, and characters are approached from a slightly different acting motivation, the current productions are the same as the original. There has not been a revisioning by an experienced director to recast the production into a different light that speaks to current audiences, instead these productions are left speaking to audiences who walked out of theatres 5, 10 or even 20 years ago, but not to today’s audiences.

This is not to say that these shows don’t serve a purpose but they shouldn’t be the only productions on your theatre diet, just as you should eat a larger variety of food than just McDonald’s you should see more theatre than just Phantom of the Opera or Cats, because there are a lot of great varieties and flavors out there, and just one flavor is pretty bland.