New York – Kimberly Belflower knew that “John Proctor is Vilà” he needed his final cathartic scene to work, and for that reason he needed Lorde’s “green light”.
“Literally I told my agent:” I would prefer the work not to be done if this song cannot be used, “the playwright laughed. He wrote in Lorde a letter, explaining what the song meant and made his green light.
Starring Sadie Sink, the impressive game about high school students studying “The Crucible” when the #MeToo movement reaches its small town in Georgia, won seven Tony nominations, including the best new play, most of them this season. It is between a group of Broadway shows that have focused on young people’s stories and attracted the audience to combine.
Sam Gold’s Brooklyn-Rave assumed “Romeo + Juliet”, nominated for the best revival of a play and directed by Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler with music by Jack Antonoff, drew the youngest public purchase audience registered in Broadway, reported the producers, with 14% of the buyers from 18 to 24 The average of the industry of 3%.
The shows share some DNA: Pop Music (specifically Antonoff’s styles, which also produced “Green Light”), Hollywood stars with established fanbases and stories that reflect the complexity of young adulthood.
“It was very clear that the young people found our show because he did what the theater had to do,” said Gold. “Be a mirror.”
Hugging the teenager poetry
The topics “John Proctor” do not dance (until they are literally).
Girls rush to discuss the impact of #Metoo, intersectional feminism and sexual autonomy. His conversations, faithful to the teenager, are surrounded by references to comedy and pop culture: Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, “Twilight” and, of course, Lorde.
Fina Strazza, 19, portrays Beth, a leader who is a smart-grease and well-intentioned, but his friendships and the belief system are shaken by the revelations of the play.
“You have so much empathy and you are so invested in it, but it still has these setbacks and slips that young people often have,” said Strazza, nominated for the best prominent actor in a play. Some members of the public have given their letters detailing how Beth helped them forgive how they managed similar experiences.
The script is written in prose, with frequent frequent and uppercase line breaks. The director damages Taymor, nominated for the best direction of a play one year after winning a Tony for another classic in the teenage canon, “The Outsiders”, attracted to this rate and how Belflower’s representation of Belflower captured his intensity, as Hinton had.
“There is something about such raw teenagers,” Taymor said. “None of us can escape
Classic, modern themes
During his winning production of “An Enemy of the People”, Gold met conversations with young actors and theater on climate change, politics and as “theater was something that people of their age and younger need in a different way, as the world is becoming technology,” he said.
Who conjured “Romeo and Juliet”. The original text “has everything in terms of what it means to inherit the future than the older people than you created,” said Gold.
Building the world of this show, with a set under 30, was no different from the creation of “an enemy of the people”, set in Norway in the nineteenth century, Gold said: “I think the difference is that the world I made for this program is something that a very famous audience had failed to see.”
The fans, oriented correctly, were rabid. Demand before the first preview led to a preventive extension. Connor’s word (and bootleg video) making a pullup to kiss Zegler made the rounds. “Man of the house”, a ballad produced by Antonoff sung by Zegler Mid-Show, was released as a single. With the show that premieres just before the United States presidential election, tomorrow voters even recorded new voters in the lobby.
The public was ready to pay: The average ticket prices passed around $ 150. The cheapest and most lottery tickets plotted lines hours before the box office opened. Every week, but one sold out.
“The show was initially well sold because we had a cast that liked a really specific audience,” said Seaview Productions Producer Nobile. “We continued to see that the houses were sold because these audiences came and they were on the online line talking about the ways in which they were seen.”
Building an experience of Gen Z theater with Z Z
Thomas Laub, 28, and Alyah Chavelle Scott, 27, started in Runyonland Productions for the same reason.
“We both felt a lot of frustration with the industry and the ways we came out as Michigan students who came to New York in moderation,” said Laub. Runyonland launched in 2018 with the premise that emphasized the new daring voices would change a change.
This spring, Scott, known for performing Whitney at HBO’s “Sex Lives of College Girls, performed outside Broadway in” All Nighter “by Natalie Margolin.
“I was standing on stage and looking out and seeing the college students I played,” said Scott. “I liked it,” I respect you a lot. I want to do -proudly. I want to show a story that represents you in a way that does not clear you or sinks you, but it raises you. “”
Producing “John Proctor”, Scott told Runyonland the opportunity to go to this audience on a Broadway scale. Belflower developed the show with the students as part of a collaborative project by Farm College. He has graduated more than 100 times for high school and university productions. The social marketing and influencer of Broadway production is also run for 20 years.
The previews attracted fans with a $ 29 ticket lottery. While average prices jumped over $ 100 last week (still below the Broadway average), $ 40, lottery and room tickets have exhausted most nights, increasing the capacity of more than 100%. Success is validating Runyonland’s mission, Laub said.
“Alyah does not think I cry every time at the end,” said Laub. Scott Riu. “I just want to secure -in the register, that I actually cry every time.”
Take advantage of a cultural catharsis
The final scene of “John Proctor” is a claim fed by rage and “green light”. Capturing this electricity has been key to the marketing of the show.
“Pullup (a” Romeo + Juliet “) is so shocking because he is so real. It’s like exactly a teenager,” said Taymor. “I think when you see the girls of” John Proctor “shouting … it hits you viscerally.” That cry made Playbill’s cover.
“In my opinion, the appearance of this campaign is different from a traditional theatrical campaign and feels much closer to a film campaign,” said Laub. The show team considered, in fact, the labor infiltrating Zeitgeist of its sister industries, specifically studies such as Neon and A24.
In May, “John Proctor is the Vilà” finished his second “Spirit Week” with a day of school spirit. The previous events included a social ice cream: the actors served in Van Leeuwen: a silent nightclub and a gift of banned books. For those who do not have the colors of their own school, the goods service offered t -shirts, including a print with the Walt Whitman channel, which Sink’s Shelby said: “Contained a multitude of Frickin.”
Julia Lawrence, 26, designed the t -shirt after the program team saw that her Tiktok video reimaginated her traditional merch in something more like a concert.
“It is so incredible to bring gene Z to the theater this way, especially at a time when the theater has never been more important,” said Lawrence. “In a world that is exceeded by screens, living art can be such a powerful way to find understanding.”
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Image Source : nypost.com