Chapter 1: What makes Broadway theater inaccessible to many?
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When I was a kid growing up, I went to public school in the Bronx, and it was in the sixth or seventh grade. I had a math teacher. I'm sure he was a fine-to-good math teacher.
The reason, however, that I remember him most is because I recall him, vividly recall him, taking an inordinate amount of time the year that I had him to have us read and listen to the lyrics and music for the musical Les Miserables. So instead of teaching math, he would play what I assume was the cast recording in class, and he would explain to us what was going on in the story.
And then eventually, we went to see a live Broadway performance of Les Mis.
You're a lucky boy. Yeah, I think for some people that would be the ideal math class.
I cannot say it wasn't. I cannot say it was. All I remember is, why are we not learning math here?
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Chapter 2: How can cast recordings enhance the theater experience?
I feel like math will be more useful to me, this is what I was thinking at this age, than theater. And buddies, I was wrong. Because theater has proven much more useful to me in life than math. At least today. At least today. This is the Sunday special. I'm Gilbert Cruz. Joining me today is Jesse Green, a culture correspondent here at The Times and a longtime theater critic for The Paper.
Welcome, Jesse. Thank you, Gilbert. And Elizabeth Vincentelli is the former chief theater critic for The New York Post and a regular arts and culture contributor to The Times. Hello, Elizabeth. Hello. And I just want to start by saying, particularly given what the two of you do, that, of course, seeing theater live is the best possible way to experience it.
But I think we all know that it's not always possible.
Chapter 3: What role do streaming services play in making theater accessible?
It's not always accessible. It can be rather expensive sometimes. So today we're going to talk about all the ways to experience theater if you cannot actually get there. Jesse, what was your first encounter with theater before you ever saw a live performance?
Well, aside from my parents fighting in the house. I mean, that's just like Virginia Woolf right there. That's very dramatic, yes. Yeah. No, cast albums. I think like most people of my generation. And my parents had, among the jazz and classical and opera, they had a lot of the classic musical theater. Guys and Dolls, Carousel, Oklahoma. Things like that.
And they were in regular rotation in our house. And regular rotation, what did that mean?
Chapter 4: How did personal experiences shape the guests' love for theater?
I mean, you didn't exactly have a playlist. You just picked up the LP. Yes, they were LPs. And you put them on the turntable. People are really into vinyl. Again, Jesse, they know exactly what you're talking about. Okay. Well, so my parents would go to Broadway and go see shows. And they developed an interest in Sondheim. And we didn't know who that was.
And they would bring back cassette tape recordings. And I... We had a cassette tape recording of A Little Night Music, and I was obsessed with it. This is 1973 or something like that. And I couldn't really understand all the lyrics.
Chapter 5: What impact did the pandemic have on theater accessibility?
It's very contrapuntal. There's voices here and there. And I was so obsessed with it. And because it was a tape, there was no lyric booklet. And I... actually transcribed the entire musical by hand.
Get out of here.
I did. And in order to get some of the lyrics, you know, you had to switch, you know, move to the right speaker, move to the left speaker. And of course, I got a few mondegreens out of that, like crazy wrong lyrics, but that I was convinced were the right lyrics. But when you want to be part of the musical theater... And you can't be there yourself.
You will find these weird ways to incorporate it almost physically, in my case, into my body by writing it and then, you know, singing it, unfortunately, whenever I played it again. And what about you, Elizabeth?
Well, I had a completely different experience because I grew up in a very tiny... I can't even describe it as a village because it was the middle of nowhere in France.
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Chapter 6: What innovative ways are artists adapting theater for streaming?
So we had no cast album, no theater. But what we did have is we had a lot of theater on TV, actually, because French TV has done a live broadcast or what would now be called live captures. They were on all the time. And so I used to watch them a lot. And...
One in particular, I think, was very formative on my taste because every Friday there was a show called Au Théâtre Ce Soir, which means At the Theatre Tonight. And the only, that was not the classics, it was all boulevard stuff with actors who were kind of comic tornadoes.
When you say boulevard, I know the word, but you're referring to timely comedies?
Yes, exactly. It's comedies very often involving cheating husbands and husbands of wives.
13 Routes de l'Amour, things like that.
You know, and mistaken identities, all that. So a lot of slapsticky stuff. So I would watch that religiously with my grandmother, which tells you how edgy that was. And yeah, I was completely obsessed with them.
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Chapter 7: How have social media platforms influenced theater engagement?
And they would have some new boulevard. And then they had like classics, like they had Fido and La Biche. So that's really what I grew up with.
And I forgot, that brings up that back in the day, there would be variety shows on television. And often they would include incredibly long stretches. They were taped in New York. They would get the cast of some current show. They'd come on and do an eight-minute segment, an 11-minute segment. And you would get particularly sort of brassy dames kind of musicals.
But it was a great way to see that stuff. And it was a way for people to learn what musical theater was about.
And also the borders between pop and Broadway were very porous. Like you had the Supremes doing a Broadway medley that went on for like 29 minutes or it felt like it.
And the Beatles sang So There Was Love. A music man song.
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Chapter 8: What are the best ways to experience theater at home?
Oh, we were going for the same reference. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
So, but yeah. And then I got into MGM musicals when I was a teen. And I would say a big breakthrough was one of my aunts had a cast album of hair. I later realized it was the British cast.
Uh-oh.
Didn't know that at the time.
Like the inferior cast?
Always.
That is true. Actually, that is.
It is true. No, it's.
Absolutely. We can go back.
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