The Revival.

Fall is upon us.

The New York Shakespeare Festival production of Hair at the Delacorte Theatre proved to be the summer's biggest success, and it continues to fill out its extension in September. Rumors suggest a Broadway transfer is possible. Reviews were strong, and the line for tickets begins to grow by the early morning hours.

The second annual Encores! Summer Stars production, Damn Yankees! was not as strongly received as the inaugural production of the series, Gypsy (the transfer of which continues its run at the St. James). Reviews were somewhat divided over the cast though the majority seemed to indicate that Sean Hayes, previously of NBC's Will and Grace, made a successful transition to the New York stage playing the devilish Mr. Applegate and that Jane Krakowski, though obviously a Broadway pro, was somewhat out of her element recreating Gwen Verdon's magic and Bob Fosse's dances. Most critics echoed Christopher Isherwood in The New York Times who found the production "pleasant but a little pizazz-deficient." According to Isherwood, "Everyone involved performs his or her chores capably, but the show does not shimmy off the dust of 50-plus years truly to tickle us anew. It's a solid double, maybe, but hardly the grand slam that was last summer's "Gypsy," which subsequently transferred to Broadway and scored three Tonys. " In comparison to Gypsy, Linda Winer wrote in Newsday that Damn Yankees "is much more in the tradition of summer stock with TV stars."

Gypsy on Broadway has performed strongly throughout the summer, and Lincoln Center's revival of South Pacific continues to be the hottest ticket in town. Both productions fared well at the Tony Awards in June, with Gypsy winning for all three of its leading players, and South Pacific taking the award in four design categories, as well as Best Leading Actor in a Musical, Best Director of a Musical, and Best Revival of a Musical.

Perhaps somewhat in reaction to the strength of these two musical revivals, several more have been announced for the coming season. In the early 90s, the highly successful revival of Guys and Dolls ushered in a decade on Broadway dominated by revivals of classic (and sometimes, less classic) musicals and a new production of that musical has been announced for the upcoming season. Despite the announcement that planned revivals of Godspell and Brigadoon will not appear this season, in addition to Guys and Dolls, revivals of Pal Joey, West Side Story, and Dancin' are planned, and rumors of another Sondheim revival, Merrily We Roll Along, to be directed by James Lapine have been heard.

In the 90s, while Miss Saigon, Rent and Disney's Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King became the major new musical hits of the decade, revivals such as Cabaret and Chicago became bigger hits than their original productions and one season, 1995, saw only one new musical on Broadway, Sunset Boulevard (which was presented with a Tony for Best Musical despite its total lack of competition). The 90s had re-shaped what revivals of musicals looked like on Broadway. Revivals now attempted to make older shows look new to contemporary audiences. New productions of older shows with re-written books, re-written orchestrations and arrangements, and often parodistic, winking attitudes toward the original material were frequent. Such practices were not unheard of before the 90s, with the 1971 No No Nanette being an obvious example of a revival which totally revamped its material to great success. Revivals of Anything Goes on and off-Broadway from the 60s to the 80s had new books and interpolated songs. However, prior to the 90s, musicals from Broadway's Golden Age (roughly the 40s to the 60s) when presented in revival usually appeared in a form closely resembling their original productions, sometimes even being presented with their original stars.

Some 90s revivals tampered less with the actual text of the original shows but found a new approach in the direction, design, and overall attack of the material. Revivals of Rodgers and Hammerstein classics such as Nicholas Hytner's dark Carousel and Christopher Renshaw's King and I starring a Tony-winning post-Sondheim Anna in Donna Murphy were hailed by critics. Sam Mendes's Cabaret, one of the most successful revivals of the period, combined revisionist direction and approach with the altered text, tunestack, and arrangements which had become the norm when reviving even the most classic Broadway titles.

Perhaps somewhat in reaction to the new Broadway tradition of revising classic Broadway titles in revival, as well as the troubling trend in downsizing orchestras, the 90s also saw the rise of the concert staging of classic musicals, best exemplafied by the City Center Encores! series. Concert stagings of musicals had been seen in previous decades, but the genre has developed greatly in the last fifteen years. For instance, 1985's sell-out concert presentation of Follies at Avery Fisher Hall included an all-star cast performing the majority of the show's score accompanied by the New York Philharmonic, but only a few lines of connective dialogue were heard between songs, and staging was limited to minimal movement in front of microphones, mostly delivered directly to the audience. When Follies was staged by Encores! in 2007, though the tradition of the performers holding scripts was retained and sets and costumes were minimal, in addition to the full score, it was almost a complete new full staging of the show with a revised but fairly extensive book and full choreography.

However, Encores! did not always look like the 2007 Follies. When the series began in 1994, stagings looked more like traditional concert stagings of musicals, with actors in evening-wear reading from scripts and using minimal staging and edited books. As the series developed however, stagings became more fully realized. 1996 saw a major turning point when Encores! staged Bob Fosse's 1975 show, Chicago. Up to that time, Encores had specialized more in shows like Call Me Madam, Fiorello!, and Allegro. Before Chicago, Encores! had presented earlier musicals dating from 1939 to 1950, and staging had been highly minimized. Chicago was only twenty years old, and relied heavily on dance staging. Because of this, the decision was made to have Ann Reinking, a frequent Fosse dancer who had been a replacement for Gwen Verdon in the original production, create new choreography in the Fosse style, effectively making it the fullest staging of a show presented by Encores! at that time. The result, of course, was such a success that the production was quickly picked up by commercial producers and brought to Broadway where it has played ever since.

Chicago changed Encores!. Soon after, other similar concert stagings such as Los Angeles's Reprise and Chicago's Ravinia concerts became a regular occurance, and took on the Encores! tradition of presenting almost fully-staged productions with minimal sets and costumes and edited books. In addition to the more fully-realized stagings, the success of Chicago on Broadway may also have encouraged the series's presenters to use Encores! as a tryout for Broadway, though Encores! has denied that this is the case. Still, two other Encores! productions made it to Broadway (in altered forms): Wonderful Town had a mildly successful commercial run on Broadway, though it was somewhat marred by illness which caused acclaimed star Donna Murphy to miss many performances. In the last months of the run, she was unceremoniously replaced by a game Brooke Shields. The critically acclaimed Encores! staging of The Apple Tree starring Kristin Chenoweth was picked up by Roundabout for the 2006-2007 season, and it played a limited three-month engagement, once again receiving glowing reviews, mainly for its star. At this point, it looks unlikely that Damn Yankees will follow Gypsy's route from Encores! Summer Stars to Broadway.

Despite the changes in Encores! approach to their selection of shows and their execution of them, the series has remained an interesting opposite to more commercial Broadway revivals. Rather than change older musicals to appear relevant to a contemporary audience, Encores! has usually attempted to present the material more as it may have originally appeared, particularly with regard to its use of original orchestrations and arrangements where available, which are played by a full-sized orchestra. On Broadway today, we seem usually to have to choose between either a full orchestra with minimal sets and costumes, or a reduced orchestra with a more fully realized physical production or some compromise in between. This is one thing that sets apart the current production of South Pacific, which both boasts a full orchestra, and a luxurious physical production. This comes after something of a slow-down in interest in musical revivals on Broadway, which dominated much of the previous decade.

Though the 2001 revival of 42nd Street lasted almost four years on Broadway, it still closed in the red. The same season, The Producers was showered with Tony Awards and became a Broadway phenonomen. In 2003, Hairspray became another major success, as did the Tony Award winner of 2004, Avenue Q, which despite its continuing success has not reached the level of phenomenon that is enjoyed by Wicked, from the same season. Other hit musicals from the last eight years include Mamma Mia, Movin' Out, Spamalot, and Jersey Boys. Since the revival of 42nd Street, the subsequent winners in the category, Into the Woods, Nine, Assassins, La Cage aux Folles, The Pajama Game, and Company all closed within six months of winning the Tony. (Granted Assassins and Pajama Game, which closed within weeks of the awards, were limited engagements.)

A revival of Fiddler on the Roof which did not win the Tony was perhaps the longest run of a revival in this period after 42nd Street, running for 781 performances. Two revivals which lost the Tony to Company in 2007 were somewhat dismissed by critics for going back to an older tradition of reviving Broadway musicals in that they were recreations of the original stagings. Les Misérables returned to Broadway late in 2006 and was not even nominated in the Best Revival of a Musical category, likely because it was seen less as a revival and more as an extension of the original production, but it ran for over four hundred performances. The revival of A Chorus Line slavishly recreated not only Michael Bennett's original staging, but original costumes and design. This revival, which just closed in the last few weeks, was one of the most successful revivals of the decade, running for 759 performances.

Last season saw an extraordinary number of play revivals, and this season appears set to continue in that tradition with such revivals as the highly anticipated Equus, the transfer of a London production of The Seagull, two David Mamet revivals, Speed the Plow and American Buffalo, as well as revivals of A Man For All Seasons, All My Sons, Dividing the Estate (a transfer of the off-Broadway production) and Hedda Gabler.