Robert DuSold

For the very few who know that song, it’s from “Funny Lady”..the sequel to “Funny Girl”… great song in a kinda weird movie. Another brilliant Kander and Ebb soliloquy…

Satin on my shoulder how lucky can you get
Money in my pocket how lucky can you get
Every night's a party where the fun never ends
You can circle the globe with my circle of friends
Someone I am crazy for is crazy for me
I'm his personal pat
Wow how lucky can you get
He there gorgeous
Big success
What's your secret gorgeous
Just lucky I guess

You wanna know what it's really like
Fantastic!
Satin on my shoulder and a smile on my lips
Money in my pocket right at my fingertips
Wrap it up and charge it that's my favorite phrase
How lucky
When I see the chauffeur think I'll give him a raise
How lucky
Life's a bed of roses whirling perfume on me
You can spare me the blues I don't sing in that key
And if there's a man who'd leave me I am happy to say
I haven't run into him yet

Gee wee wow
How lucky, how lucky can you get!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aAdcenbaxYw

Anyhoo, here we are in the midst of the reformation and reckoning on Broadway …that has no direction or leadership.. the result is just a whole bunch of people with a vague fear of Twitter and theatre makers begging for a sort of wanna-be recognition by the movement that has no one behind the curtain.

Not even an old dude with levers and smoke.

It’s all so fucking weird to me.

The New York Times, at times, seems to be the de facto leader of the new day in theater.. here’s a recent air drop of supplies to the ground troops:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/01/theater/playwrights-cancel-shows.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

“Why Some Black Playwrights Are Saying Their Shows Must Not Go On”

The steps by playwrights to halt productions of their own work reflects concerns by Black artists frustrated by what they see as a failure of theater administrators to live up to the lofty promises made during and after the spring of 2020, when George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police prompted nationwide protests and calls for change in many corners of American society, including the arts. In theater, an anonymously-led coalition of artists, known by the title of its first statement, “We See You, White American Theater,” circulated a widely read set of demands for change.

There’s that man behind the curtain thing. The “anonymously-led coalition of artists”, some of them quite rich and famous, put out a screed that had… and still has.. most of the theater industry quaking in their boots. Or possibly stilettos if you count strippers.

What barely anyone is acknowledging.. if they are it’s in hushed tones at Joe Allens.. is that anonymous group is targeting some people for retribution… I suppose “white American theater” .. whatever the fuck that is.. and very specifically gay white men and women.

Evidently it’s supposed to be empowering to threaten and target people based on their appearance.. or their sexuality. Or their gender. In theater.

🤔

Giving credence to some ethereal movement(?) full of malice in the New York Times with a hyperlink to the manifesto is part of the problem.

And, I’m being kind by saying malice.

One of the other hyperlinks in the article quotes a playwright pulling her work due to the “white capitalist patriarchy” or something like that. I don’t have the brain space to go back and read it.

Regional theater is dying on the vine. The truth is audiences are not coming back to even approaching pre-pandemic attendance.

A lot of that is programming.. and the political climate that’s permeated the arts.

Long Wharf and Victory Gardens amongst many others have either shuttered or reduced their seasons.

There is now a separate ecosystem of grievance that has superseded art.. you can get more famous by burning down the house than writing a play. The author of “Slave Play” seems to be succeeding at that, especially since that very play topped out at 22% capacity during the busiest time of the season on Broadway recently.

All of it.. all of it.. is virtue signaling with other people’s money.

One of my fave things about the intentional implosion of theater is the expectation that “theater administrators” made “lofty promises” and failed miserably.

Promises for what? To who?

Another amorphous group.. theater administrators(read white patriarchy even though most boards and theater companies are quite diverse) seems to be responsible for every aspect of every person in theater 24 hours a day. At work, not at work…

This isn’t about change for the better. It’s not building bridges. It’s not engendering empathy. It’s not productive.

It’s about burning down the house.

What perplexes me is that the aggrieved aren’t contacting law enforcement, or lawyers .. I was gonna say unions but…

The fascinating thing about the warinthecosmos is two things are going on at once. Irony doesn’t describe it.

Oh, here comes the luck part.. and it is St. Patrick’s day this weekend..where everyone gets to vomit on the subway and feel ok about it.

While the war is waging .. Kate Shindle of ActorsEquityForNow wants to “reinvent the way the whole theater industry operates”.. the thespiannetwork has been bailed out twice by the federal government.

The latest crazy is the failure of Signature Bank this week.. which is the bank where most of Broadway does it’s business.

There was a run on the bank.. probably due to shitty investments with cryptocurrencies.. that caused the bank to fail.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/signature-bank-silicon-valley-bank-broadway-1235351450/amp/

“Broadway owes the federal government another thank you note, because I think had they not come in and taken control of it, today would have been a nightmare,” a general manager on Broadway told The Hollywood Reporter on Monday.

The other thank you note was obviously for the ginormous federal government and state grants to theater during the pandemic …”Hamilton” got a delicious $40 million in free money.

This quote I found very interesting…

“The only bank right now that could be palatable for us to work with is City National because the rest of them do not understand our industry and do not have an ability to front face with us,” another general manager told THR.

I know from experience that raising money.. especially lots of it.. for theater is very much based on speculation… many times investors get their money in just under the wire.. or not at all. I wonder how much fancy footwork these banks are doing to keep shows afloat on a daily basis.

So, while the house is being torched, the federal government is guaranteeing dollar for dollar payroll and operating expenses for Broadway.

The very machine that is being railed against has been, and is, operating only due to you and me.

Taxpayers.

Here’s the deal. Every person who is a part of the arts wants to be plucked out of obscurity.. and make money. Make it.

No matter who you are.

No matter who you are.

Broadway will always be about Thursday.

That’s the day you get paid.

As I approach the feted St. Patrick’s Day, it’s always seemed to me the only holiday where we’re all one thing, We can all be Irish. We all wear green and puke and get drunk and shit like that.

OK not all of us.

Anyway, I’m hoping for a ceasefire in the war that we’re all paying for.

I know that’s never gonna happen.

And neither is that thank you note.

How lucky can you get?