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Feb. 1st, 2015 01:27 pmI gotta admit, when I read Making It Big: The Diary of a Broadway Musical, I was kind of hoping for an amazingly hilarious disaster.
However, unlike Glen Berger, the author of the immortal Song of Spiderman, Barbara Isenberg -- who embedded herself in the production of Big to write this book -- is an actual journalist who appears to value the concept of objectivity, which made for a professional, informative and interesting but relatively non-juicy depiction of the concept-to-stage process of musical creation. Was Big a promising musical whose success was sabotaged by bad timing, a mediocre work that sacrificed artistic integrity for cheesy capitalist values, or a trainwreck that never came together at all? Barbara Isenberg is not an art critic and declines to comment. She is here to report the facts.
(Many years ago I was actually in a middle-school production of Big. I don't remember it being ... good ... but, I mean, this was the same middle school where we swapped out the ending of Pippin for "STEP INTO THE BOX! THE BOX represents THE UNKNOWN!" so it's not like we were going to turn out a heartbreaking work of staggering work of genius regardless. Also, the premise of Big itself is SO WEIRD. "Twelve-year-old boy becomes an adult overnight, lands a job as major toy executive, hooks up with adult woman, becomes twelve-year-old again having learned valuable life lessons about ...something... IT'S FINE." I'm not actually sure that it's fine.)
The juiciest part about the book is the TONY AWARDS SCANDAL that comes towards the end, during a year that includes Rent, Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk, Big, Victor/Victoria, and ... a couple of other things nobody has ever heard of, two of which were nominated instead of Big and Victor/Victoria, both of which were basically shunned. I actually found myself caring about this because I kind of love Victor/Victoria. (Actually, reading this book made me really want to rewatch the film version of Victor/Victoria. Sometimes singing, dancing, cross-dressing Julie Andrews is all I need in this life.)
Anyway, the casts of Big and Victor/Victoria both threw hissy fits, and Julie Andrews (as the only person nominated from Victor/Victoria) refused to accept her award, and someone involved in Big tried to make a case for the voting being SKEWED UNFAIRLY by some people who HAD IT OUT for big-budget musicals, and meanwhile Rent sat around smugly raking in awards, because this was the nineties and "Seasons of Love" was going to be on the radio nonstop for the next five years and we were ALL JUST GOING TO HAVE TO COPE.
The book ends, full circle for me, with the show about to close but everyone trying to be peppy about the fact that it's probably going to have a great future being revived by various middle school and high school drama groups! Well, yes. Yes it is.
However, unlike Glen Berger, the author of the immortal Song of Spiderman, Barbara Isenberg -- who embedded herself in the production of Big to write this book -- is an actual journalist who appears to value the concept of objectivity, which made for a professional, informative and interesting but relatively non-juicy depiction of the concept-to-stage process of musical creation. Was Big a promising musical whose success was sabotaged by bad timing, a mediocre work that sacrificed artistic integrity for cheesy capitalist values, or a trainwreck that never came together at all? Barbara Isenberg is not an art critic and declines to comment. She is here to report the facts.
(Many years ago I was actually in a middle-school production of Big. I don't remember it being ... good ... but, I mean, this was the same middle school where we swapped out the ending of Pippin for "STEP INTO THE BOX! THE BOX represents THE UNKNOWN!" so it's not like we were going to turn out a heartbreaking work of staggering work of genius regardless. Also, the premise of Big itself is SO WEIRD. "Twelve-year-old boy becomes an adult overnight, lands a job as major toy executive, hooks up with adult woman, becomes twelve-year-old again having learned valuable life lessons about ...something... IT'S FINE." I'm not actually sure that it's fine.)
The juiciest part about the book is the TONY AWARDS SCANDAL that comes towards the end, during a year that includes Rent, Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk, Big, Victor/Victoria, and ... a couple of other things nobody has ever heard of, two of which were nominated instead of Big and Victor/Victoria, both of which were basically shunned. I actually found myself caring about this because I kind of love Victor/Victoria. (Actually, reading this book made me really want to rewatch the film version of Victor/Victoria. Sometimes singing, dancing, cross-dressing Julie Andrews is all I need in this life.)
Anyway, the casts of Big and Victor/Victoria both threw hissy fits, and Julie Andrews (as the only person nominated from Victor/Victoria) refused to accept her award, and someone involved in Big tried to make a case for the voting being SKEWED UNFAIRLY by some people who HAD IT OUT for big-budget musicals, and meanwhile Rent sat around smugly raking in awards, because this was the nineties and "Seasons of Love" was going to be on the radio nonstop for the next five years and we were ALL JUST GOING TO HAVE TO COPE.
The book ends, full circle for me, with the show about to close but everyone trying to be peppy about the fact that it's probably going to have a great future being revived by various middle school and high school drama groups! Well, yes. Yes it is.
