Stacy Wolf
Appearances
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
A lot of shows fail on Broadway financially and critically and then do extremely well once they get out into the rest of the country in amateur venues.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
Students like to take my classes because they are musical theater fans or kids and they think, oh, this is going to be fun. And then they realize that musicals are among the most important cultural artifact. So we treat musicals as seriously as we would treat Shakespeare or Shakespeare. Symphony by Beethoven.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
We think about South Pacific in relation to gender relations and race relations and class relations in the 1940s. We look at Phantom of the Opera in conversation with a backlash against women in the late 1980s. Pretty much any musical that you look at, even the ones that seem the silliest and most escapist and most not conversing with U.S.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
culture and society really are in conversation with the society, especially if they were hits. They have to be.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
Tiny in terms of number and outsized in terms of symbolism, right? Just symbolism and not, let's say, profits, since we're talking about an industry? Not in terms of profits. A lot of great things happen on Broadway. Broadway is the place where it begins. It's symbolically important. It creates the canon. It creates the version by which all other versions are compared.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
But the real lifeblood of the form, why musical theater is thriving and continues to thrive in spite of all the odds against it, in that it's face-to-face, it's slow, it's hands-on, it requires incredible collaboration, only a few people can see it at a time. All of those things that happen in high schools, community theaters, summer camps, that is really the lifeblood of the form.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
For example, in 2017, 2018, the Educational Theater Association, which does a survey every year, found more than 37,000 high school productions took place that year with more than 46 million people in the audience.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
Once the show has the as seen on Broadway imprimatur, it then has a certain kind of stamp of approval that makes it legible to anyone. Another example of this, not of a show that didn't succeed, but a show that was never intended to succeed, was Newsies, Disney's Newsies. What do you mean it was never intended to succeed? And it was meant to go out and tour and then become an amateur production.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
It did very well on Broadway. And because it was fairly cheap to run, because it had a set that was always meant to tour, it made back its money very quickly. Once it went out on the road, it did well. And once it went to schools, it was and continues to be very, very popular. What is it about that show that works in schools? It has a very light romance between a feisty girl and a delightful boy.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
It has a huge chorus that's endlessly expandable. And even though they're newsboys, they can also be played by girls. It doesn't have any bad words. The politics are kind of, I won't even say Marxism light, but kind of labor movement light. So it has a good uplifting message. There's nothing to offend anyone in Newsies. And also it can allow a completely multiracial cast.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
It has a character with a disability. So it has a lot of great stuff going on for a school. And it's very entertaining. The music is super catchy, easy to sing. It can have a lot of dance or doesn't have to have a lot of dance, depending on what you have in your school. Because for high schools, the teacher or the director is always having to calculate who they have in their population.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
So it's never an arbitrary choice for them. It's a very calculated decision about what show can they do. Do they have enough parts for girls? Can their kids sing the show? Do they have musicians?
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
Typically, a full-length show costs somewhere around $3,000. If you were going to do a Broadway junior show, a 60-minute show, that would run you closer to $700 for the show.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
There can be thousands of productions per year, and it can be some millions of dollars per year.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
Because any musical that deals with something as overtly political as race relations could have a hard time in our country at this moment. There probably will be certain segments of the country that would be absolutely thrilled to do a show like that. It also sounds to me there's a great friendship in the center of this, which is always something welcome for high school shows.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
I can't overstate how much those issues have affected what's produced. It's so difficult for a high school teacher and students to get their show past a school board, a principal, and a community that finds problems with every single issue.