What makes a broadway play

The workshop route has become fairly common. This process is used primarily for musicals. Workshops will last somewhere around six to 10 weeks. Those cast in a workshop will not always be contracted to play in the production if the show does go to the next step. In a workshop, the musical is being developed in everyway- the book, lyrics, and music may be changed, rewritten, cut and replaced. Dances are choreographed, scenes staged, and music, lines, and lyrics learned.

As the show becomes refined, it will be performed for potential investors. The next step could be a production at a theatre in a large city, such as Chicago; a move to an Off-Broadway theatre, or a full Broadway production.

Several readers have written asking for a definition of the difference among Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway. The distinction generally has to do with theatre size but not percent of the time. Theatres with up to 99 seats generally are considered Off-Off-Broadway; seats generally denote Off-Broadway; and and larger generally denote Broadway.

There are many exceptions, however, and some overlap. First of all, of course, there is the music. Minstrel songs and the cakewalk; Irish ballads and patriotic jingles; ragtime marches and stirring blues; poignant torch songs and jazz ditties; totemic anthems and rock opera — the musical has captured every idiom of American expression.

However, this is by no means the only kind of music to appear on Broadway. Then, there are the lyrics, the words that go with the music. Broadway lyrics have become another form of native poetry — words, catchphrases, sentiments, and stanzas that have entered the American lexicon. The lyrics of Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin, and Irving Berlin — to name but three — are routinely quoted in poetry anthologies around the world. In the early days of the musical, what mattered most were the songs, and it was essential that they were catchy enough to amuse the audience or provide material for dancers or comedians.

But, beginning in the s, the situation, the book or libretto, of the musical started to achieve primary importance. A story or narrative became more frequently the spine of the musical, and in the s, mostly due to the narrative sophistication of the shows of Rodgers and Hammerstein, the songs followed the plot and the characters, rather than the other way around.

When you factor in things like talent fees, rehearsals, and marketing, the average Broadway play costs millions of dollars to produce. Unsurprisingly, it's become quite difficult to turn a profit on the Great White Way. According to the Broadway League, only one in five Broadway shows breaks even. Furthermore, those lucky few that actually make money have to run for an average of two years before doing so.

BY Mark Mancini. As they say, there's no business like show business … This story was updated in Big Questions News theater.