Broadway Babylon Read Online Free PDF Page A

extraordinary success continues after 16 years; they occupy the best Broadway houses and have caused a backup of productions wanting to play New York. With the exception of Stephen Sondheim, American musicals’ dramatists were stifled, and the Broadway landlords did little or nothing to bolster their hopes, being contented with the prospect of having their flagship theatres filled into the millennium.”—S TUART O STROW in his 1999 book
A Producer’s Broadway Journey
    “The Broadway musical used to be capitalism’s most joyous money-spinner. Today’s musicals are the closest that business comes to fooling all of the people all of the time.”—C HARLES N ELSON R EILLY (actor,
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
; director,
The Nerd
)
    “It’s one of the tragic ironies of the theater that only one [person] in it can count on steady work—the night watchman.”—T ALLULAH B ANKHEAD in her memoirs
Their All for Their Art
    “
Wildcat
was a very mixed experience for me … If I could have done
Mame
as a musical play, it might have made the movie better. I’d have been terrified to sing and dance again on Broadway, but I’d have forced myself. I’d have given it everything. Back during
Wildcat
I didn’t have a supportive husband behind me.”—L UCILLE B ALL
    “I think most actors would literally break a leg to be in a Broadway hit show. Or an arm
and a
leg.”—C AROL B URNETT
    “I sweat blood when I’m on that stage. Later, I sometimes feel ten years older.”—R OBERT P RESTON (
The Lion in Winter, The Music Man
)
    “Once you become known as a functioning, contributing, and rewarded part of the Broadway scene, there’s a lot less of being liked for yourself and a lot more of being disliked, or even hated, for who you are. Or more to the point, for what you’ve achieved.”—M ICHAEL B ENNETT , director-choreographer (
A Chorus Line
)
    “For a killer role, a really terrific comeback role and vehicle with all the right ingredients, I’d give up my house, if not its contents.… I wouldn’t go back unless it’s absolutely terrific. It’s too easy to break your heart over Broadway.”—A NTHONY P ERKINS (
Greenwillow
)
    “Whenever I’ve been on Broadway, I’ve had to try very hard to forget that I’m in a foreign country, and try to remember that the stage—an actor’s home—is universal.”—S IR J OHN G IELGUD
    “When you sign on to be in a play, you temporarily give up the sanity in your life. Your schedule, your habits, your diet, everything—they all go out the window for the duration.”—R OSIE O’D ONNELL (
Grease
)
    “Forget going out for lunch, for starters … and the ladies who lunch, or dinner parties! Part of the so-called glamour of starring on Broadway is having to eat by yourself a lot.”—E THEL M ERMAN
    “A play, let alone a musical, is terribly demanding. It just has to come first in your energies and attention. You can do that, for a while. Eventually, I had to put my family first.… It simply and unfortunately is more difficult for an actress.”—A NGELA L ANSBURY , four-time Tony winner
    “The stage is completely absorbing. Very different from camera work. In a play you must be prepared to sacrifice your private life as well as a regular schedule. Not that I entirely sacrificed my private life, but I would have. And I’ve always liked my private life.”—C HRISTOPHER H EWETT , of TV’s
Mr. Belvedere
, who costarred in the movie
The Producers
and on Broadway in the 1959 musical
First Impressions
, based on Jane Austen’s
Pride and Prejudice
    “The concentration required is just tremendous, total. This is the real acting, the essence of it. And acting on Broadway is the most paranoiac kind of theater acting. You feel as if every theatergoer in the Western world is watching you, that’s all.”—C HRISTOPHER R EEVE (
The Fifth of July
and
A Matter of Gravity
)
    “You’ll more readily try something completely bizarre on Broadway than