Crowd Control

LIKE a bear roused from hibernation, Broadway emerged from the winter doldrums to sense a honeyed, if troubling, shift in the spring air. First came the announcement that Fantasia Barrino would be making her Broadway debut in “The Color Purple” -- news broken when the pop singer returned to “American Idol” for the first time since she was selected its 2004 champ. On the heels of her subsequent appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” hits on the musical’s website soared from 2,000 per day to 20,000, and advance sales, which had grown anemic, skyrocketed by $6.5 million.

Then the reality show “You’re the One That I Want,” created to cast the leads in the new Broadway revival of “Grease,” wrapped up its 11-week competition by crowning Max Crumm and Laura Osnes as Danny and Sandy. While the TV ratings were dismal, the musical has taken in more than $9 million in advance sales. And Broadway took notice.

Internet chat rooms burned with commentary. “Being a musical theatre actress myself, I’m furious.... If this is the way my industry is heading, then what was the point in all my time and money invested into my training!” posted Steph80 -- while the Old Guard reacted with resignation.

“Casting in the theater is really very delicate, and I think the process is seriously diminished,” said veteran producer Manny Azenberg. “Some things should be done quietly in life, and casting, like sex, is one of them.”

But Kathleen Marshall, the director-choreographer of the upcoming revival of “Grease” and a judge on “You’re the One That I Want,” called the criticism disingenuous. “Look, casting has never been as pure an exercise as some would have us believe,” she said. “It’s always been a question of getting the right people for the roles -- and I’m confident Max and Laura are -- at the same time as getting attention for your show.”

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This cat’s out of the bag

THE debate is hardly going away, not if Andrew Lloyd Webber has anything to say. “We will never return to the old system now,” he recently told the London Sunday Express. “Under the old process, I would never have seen Connie Fisher.” Fisher is the 23-year-old actress-telemarketer whom the British public chose to star in Lloyd Webber’s West End revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music.” The BBC-TV reality show “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” that Lloyd Webber created, and on which he appeared as a judge, launched the casting trend.

No doubt with an eye on the $30-million advance and strong critical notices that greeted the revival’s bow last November, Lloyd Webber has another reality program, “Any Dream Will Do,” to choose a lead for a West End revival of his “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” And similar reality programs are under discussion for revivals of “Evita,” “Starlight Express” and “Jesus Christ Superstar.” Meanwhile, the West End revival of “Grease” has mimicked America with “Grease Is the Word,” featuring concert promoter David Gest, ex-husband of Liza Minnelli, among its judges. “I thought it was important to bring musical theater to a prime-time audience,” Lloyd Webber said by phone from Spain, where he is working on a sequel to “Phantom of the Opera.” “The ‘Grease’ show in America was appalling, just awful. But when it is done right, it can lead to the idea that theater can indeed be cool.”

In some ways, these shows are merely a new wrinkle on stunt casting that has been around at least since impresario David Merrick began tapping performers with little or no stage experience, such as Betty Grable, to keep “Hello, Dolly!” humming along. More recently, “Get the ‘American Idols’ ” has been a Broadway producer’s mantra as such contestants as Diana DeGarmo and Frenchie Davis have added financial luster to “Hairspray” and “Rent.”

Certainly no one could argue the value of the visibility that reality shows can bring. Barrino made her “Color Purple” announcement to an “American Idol” audience of about 40 million -- this for an art form whose national TV exposure has generally been relegated to the annual Tony Awards telecast, which draws a mere 7 million.

But there are inherent dangers to consider. “If it sparks an interest in live theater and helps Broadway shed its elitist label, I’m all for it,” observed producer and director Des McAnuff. But, he added, “reality programs are bottom feeders, and there’s a danger of dumbing everything down. If you really don’t end up with the most talented people, you could damage the work itself.”

The 22-year-old Barrino comes to the role of Celie in “The Color Purple” with no theater but a wealth of life experience -- including a poor Southern background, rape at an early age and illiteracy -- mirroring that of the character she will be playing for six months, beginning Tuesday.

“Because Fantasia brings such an authentic voice to the role, [the show’s] likely to be even more emotional than it was with LaChanze,” said Scott Sanders, lead producer of “The Color Purple,” referring to the veteran actress who won a Tony Award for creating the role. “I feel she was born to play this role.”

Fantasia’s involvement could not have come at a better time. “The Color Purple” had taken a perilous dip at the box office this winter and pundits were “dancing on our grave,” the producer noted wryly. Given his star’s inexperience, Sanders arranged for the show’s musical director to begin working with Fantasia early on at her home in North Carolina, hired an acting coach and extended the rehearsal period to eight weeks from the usual three to four. “It’s a question of making her comfortable with the process,” he said.

What may be affecting Broadway’s jaundiced view of reality shows stems from what Sanders called the “reversal of the talent stream.” He noted that at one time Broadway anointed new stars -- such as Marlon Brando, Paul Newman and Barbra Streisand. But that role has been usurped, in part, by shows such as “American Idol.” “It’s become the greatest open call a producer can have. Every week, somebody calls me and says, ‘That’s your next Harpo,’ ” he said, referring to a leading character in “The Color Purple.” “And it’s coming from every little pocket in America -- people singing in choirs, schoolteachers, some guy working in a gas station -- not just from people who can afford a bus ticket to New York City.”

Bernie Telsey, one of Broadway’s most prominent casting directors, who works on “The Color Purple,” said he appreciated the new tributary of talent -- “every week that somebody got kicked off the ‘Grease’ show, we saw them in our offices” -- but added, “I hope it doesn’t give the impression that you don’t have to be trained to be on Broadway. I’ve met just as many ‘Idol’ rejects who are unready as the ones who are ready. It is very difficult to do a Broadway show eight times a week.”

Tara Rubin, who cast the Tony Award-winning “Jersey Boys,” said shows such as “You’re the One That I Want” give audiences a distorted version of the casting process. “It’s not a contest. We’re not judges looking to humiliate the people who are auditioning for us,” she noted. “It’s a rigorous process in the company of performers who have spent their entire lives training -- dancers at the barre, singers in vocal training, actors who have gone into debt to get their MFAs. There’s no substitute for discipline, training and talent.”

Many New York actors found the talent on “You’re the One That I Want” to be laughable. “Ninety-nine percent of those guys wouldn’t make it past the first cut,” said Paul Castree, who made his Broadway debut in the 1994 revival of “Grease.” Many of his peers thought the show was painful to watch, he said, complaining that it was simply a pale imitation of “American Idol” that failed to show the true dramatic tension and thrill of the audition process conveyed by musicals such as “A Chorus Line.”

“Look, I understand the economics,” he said. “I was just in ‘High Fidelity,’ which didn’t run because it didn’t have stars to keep it going. But that was an original musical. It’s even more insulting when it’s a revival that they don’t turn to people who’ve put in the time and effort to hone the talents needed to carry a Broadway musical.”

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Growing into the roles

MARSHALL looks askance at such criticism, at least as it applies to “Grease,” in which the characters are meant to be 18 and are usually played by actors in their 20s. “How many dues are you meant to have paid by the time you’re 21?” she asked, sardonically. “Would I have cast Max and Laura had they come through the usual route? Probably not. And yet in the usual audition process, you see someone for 10 minutes and you hope it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.

“Here, I was able to put Max and Laura through a very long and involved process, and I saw them grow to a point where they could handle anything.”

Seth Rudetsky, a Sirius Satellite Broadway channel host, said the animosity toward “You’re the One That I Want” is misplaced. “OK, so I thought the show was very theme park,” he said. “But if people want to get worked up about something, they should be yelling their heads off about the sound of Broadway -- all that lip-synching and small orchestras that are destroying Broadway. Have you heard the tinny sound of the Broadway orchestra these days? Where is the outrage about that?”

Rudetsky has a point. Quality control may not come from the critics; such marketing ploys have been invented precisely to render their judgment irrelevant. But Fisher’s recent history in the London revival of “Sound of Music” has sounded cautionary notes. When she was chosen for the role of Maria, it was announced that she would sing six performances a week, the other two going to Emma Williams, a veteran West End performer. The schedule had been used for other strenuous musical roles in the Lloyd Webber cannon, such as Evita and Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard.” However, it was subsequently reported in London papers that Fisher insisted on performing all eight shows, especially since sales appeared to hinge on whether she was appearing.

Last month, the vocal pressures of singing eight performances a week took their toll. Fisher began missing performances because of what was described in the press as “a bleed” on her vocal cords. Finally, the producers put Fisher on a two-week vocal rest. Lloyd Webber said ticket returns at the box office were “negligible.” Fisher has since returned, but she now has an alternate who will be singing two performances a week. The alternate will not be Williams but rather Aoife Mulholland, a finalist in “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?”

Perhaps more disconcerting to the purists are reports that “the people’s Maria” has been using a click track -- a prerecorded version meant to enhance a singer’s live performance -- for some of the more demanding numbers, such as “I Have Confidence” and “The Lonely Goatherd.” Click tracks have been a not-so-dirty secret on Broadway and the West End for years -- reports first surfaced when Minnelli starred in “The Act” in 1977. But Rudetsky maintains they are becoming more prevalent just as orchestras have become smaller, replaced by computer programs that simulate orchestra sounds. Vocal problems have plagued even the most experienced performers; Nathan Lane and Bernadette Peters missed several performances during the runs of “The Producers” and “Gypsy,” respectively.

Rudetsky, who also worked as a pianist and music director for several Broadway shows, including the 1994 revival of “Grease,” wondered if the more taxing roles in musical theater might preclude a novice from being chosen in a reality format.

Lloyd Webber dismissed the click-tracks controversy as a “big red herring,” maintaining that Fisher used them only in the week of her return. “I can think of a dozen musicals [including ‘Phantom’] where click tracks are available right now in the event that one of the singers has a cold and needs to preserve his or her voice.”

He’s more concerned, he said, that the bad reviews and low ratings for “You’re the One That I Want” may have “tainted” theater reality shows in America. He has an ax to grind, though, since David Ian, his co-producer on “The Sound of Music,” brought “You’re the One That I Want” to NBC without Lloyd Weber’s knowledge -- even though the composer maintains it was his idea. “I was very upset, but not as upset as I was when I saw the program,” said Lloyd Webber, who nonetheless appeared as a guest on the reality show.

The composer is still keen on bringing the format -- the monster he created -- to the U.S., possibly by following the development of the “Phantom” sequel or a revival of “Superstar” to a Broadway theater or a stadium tour. “If you think you could develop a program that taps into the extraordinary energy and excitement of live entertainment ... one which could discover not only actors but also writers and composers,” he said. “If you trust the public and respect the art form itself, show the true complexities of what it takes to get on a show, it could be something incredibly energizing for the whole of the theater industry.”