Latest news with #ForbiddenBroadway
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The big problem with Trump's takeover of the Kennedy Center isn't the possibility of ‘Cats'
When President Donald Trump announced that he was assuming control of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, he described the move as a triumph over "wokey" programming. He subsequently fired the 17 board members appointed by President Joe Biden and installed himself as chairman. Some critics have reacted to the move by suggesting Trump doesn't understand art. One protester declared that Trump has "no artistic bones in his body." Theater aficionados claim that he misinterprets his favorite musicals, Cats and Les Misérables. The New Yorker magazine's satirical description of the Kennedy Center's 2025 programming under Trump included a fictional show called Forbidden Branson. The title plays on the show Forbidden Broadway, replacing New York's storied theater district with the popular Ozarks tourist destination that has been maligned as a mecca of bad taste. To me, these responses play right into Trump's hands, reinforcing his claims that liberals are out-of-touch elitists. I've spent the past seven years researching and writing a book about Branson, Mo., a town that offers a plethora of live entertainment, including magic shows, country music performances and variety shows. Many of the productions have a conservative, Christian slant. In my view, a Branson-style show could belong among the offerings at the Kennedy Center. Rather than ridiculing the president's taste, I think responses to the takeover would be better placed focusing on more fundamental questions about the role of the U.S. government in the nation's artistic life. How can a national arts institution best reflect the country's diverse range of people and interests? Prior to Trump, how well was the Kennedy Center doing at that? Historical opposition to arts funding For most of U.S. history, government had a very limited role in the arts. European royals had long patronized the arts. In contrast, the founders of the United States, fearful of tyranny, created a weak federal government that could barely impose taxes, let alone establish a national theater. Instead, artists of the 18th and 19th centuries operated in a for-profit marketplace. Their audiences rejected elitist cultural norms and watched Shakespeare mixed in with minstrel songs and comedy acts on the same program. At the end of the 19th century, the Second Industrial Revolution created a class of ultra-wealthy Americans who sought to imitate European royalty and their tradition of patronage. New cultural distinctions emerged. Opera, ballet and classical music were designated as high art; variety shows featuring comedians, popular songs and acrobatics were designated as low art. Musicals eventually found an uneasy niche as "middlebrow." Performers who wished to avoid the grind of the commercial marketplace could now turn to private patrons. Nonwhite and working-class performers who lacked social connections to the upper crust had fewer opportunities to do so. The Great Depression compelled the U.S. government to fund artists for the first time. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established Federal Project Number One, which included visual art, theater, music and writing programs. Its primary goal was to provide work for the unemployed. Its secondary purpose involved creating art that would be accessible to ordinary Americans both in terms of location -- like murals in public buildings -- and content, such as plays like One Third of a Nation that spoke to housing concerns. Heated controversies over the program ensued. If the main criterion to receive a grant was need, not skill, would government funding churn out bad art? Conservative congressmen argued that Federal One artists were taking "unbridled license to ridicule American ideals and to suggest rebellion against our government." In 1938, the newly formed House Committee on Un-American Activities accused the head of Federal One's Theatre Project of supporting communism. Soon thereafter, the Federal One programs ended. The Cold War and the Kennedy Center The Cold War created a new opportunity for arts funding as the United States scrambled to counteract the Soviet Union's depiction of America as "culturally barren." Under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the State Department began to sponsor American artists and fund international tours of their work. Even this modest attempt at public arts patronage -- European nations were spending 20 to 40 times as much on the arts -- faced pushback from conservatives, who cast the tours as a waste of taxpayer money. Nonetheless, Eisenhower persisted. In 1958, he signed the National Cultural Center Act to authorize a national arts complex. The act failed to provide enough money to actually build the center. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy embarked on a campaign to raise $30 million in private money. Part of those fundraising efforts involved reassuring donors that their high-art tastes would be reflected. The Kennedy Center finally opened its doors in September 1971. Given the need for constant fundraising ever since, philanthropists have dominated its board. Today, the Kennedy Center receives $43 million as a public subsidy, or 16% of its budget. Ticket sales, facility rentals and donations comprise the other 84%. No government funds go to artistic programming, which has blunted potential criticism about censorship or propaganda. But this has also precluded the ability of regular people across the nation to weigh in about what appears onstage. An uncertain future The Kennedy Center staff has attempted to work within the constraints of a philanthropy model to reach a broad audience and challenge high/middle/low distinctions. In its first year, the center appointed renowned choreographer Katherine Dunham as a technical adviser in intercultural communication. She aimed to "make the center more responsible to the community" and establish a model of local engagement in Washington that could be replicated throughout the country. It didn't materialize. Programming remained in the traditional high art category until Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter expanded into genres like hip-hop and comedy in the 2010s. In 2020, the center made progress toward Dunham's vision with its Social Impact initiative, which focused on free performances and transportation to arts events for local Washington communities. Trump has since dissolved it. By declaring himself chairman and personally overseeing the programming, Trump has followed in the footsteps of Russian czars or monarchs like Louis XIV of France, who established arts institutions as extensions of royal power. In effect, it realizes 18th-century Americans' fears about government involvement in the arts as a form of control. At the same time, the private philanthropy model has been far from perfect. It has left the Kennedy Center vulnerable to attacks of elitism. Perhaps future leaders can imagine more robust models of public support and stewardship that reflect America's diverse and multifaceted national landscape -- if they're ever given an opportunity to do so. Joanna Dee Das is an associate professor of dance at Washington University in St. Louis. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The problem with Trump's takeover of the Kennedy Center isn't the possibility of ‘Cats'
When President Donald Trump announced that he was assuming control of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, he described the move as a triumph over 'wokey' programming. He subsequently fired the 17 board members appointed by President Joe Biden and installed himself as chairman. Some critics have reacted to the move by suggesting Trump doesn't understand art. One protester declared that Trump has 'no artistic bones in his body.' Theater aficionados claim that he misinterprets his favorite musicals, 'Cats' and 'Les Misérables.' The New Yorker magazine's satirical description of the Kennedy Center's 2025 programming under Trump included a fictional show called 'Forbidden Branson.' The title plays on the show 'Forbidden Broadway,' replacing New York's storied theater district with the popular Ozarks tourist destination that has been maligned as a mecca of bad taste. To me, these responses play right into Trump's hands, reinforcing his claims that liberals are out-of-touch elitists. I've spent the past seven years researching and writing a book about Branson, Missouri, a town that offers a plethora of live entertainment, including magic shows, country music performances and variety shows. Many of the productions have a conservative, Christian slant. In my view, a Branson-style show could belong among the offerings at the Kennedy Center. Rather than ridiculing the president's taste, I think responses to the takeover would be better placed focusing on more fundamental questions about the role of the U.S. government in the nation's artistic life. How can a national arts institution best reflect the country's diverse range of people and interests? Prior to Trump, how well was the Kennedy Center doing at that? For most of U.S. history, government had a very limited role in the arts. European royals had long patronized the arts. In contrast, the founders of the United States, fearful of tyranny, created a weak federal government that could barely impose taxes, let alone establish a national theater. Instead, artists of the 18th and 19th centuries operated in a for-profit marketplace. Their audiences rejected elitist cultural norms and watched Shakespeare mixed in with minstrel songs and comedy acts on the same program. At the end of the 19th century, the Second Industrial Revolution created a class of ultra-wealthy Americans who sought to imitate European royalty and their tradition of patronage. New cultural distinctions emerged. Opera, ballet and classical music were designated as high art; variety shows featuring comedians, popular songs and acrobatics were designated as low art. Musicals eventually found an uneasy niche as 'middlebrow.' Performers who wished to avoid the grind of the commercial marketplace could now turn to private patrons. Nonwhite and working-class performers who lacked social connections to the upper crust had fewer opportunities to do so. The Great Depression compelled the U.S. government to fund artists for the first time. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established Federal Project Number One, which included visual art, theater, music and writing programs. Its primary goal was to provide work for the unemployed. Its secondary purpose involved creating art that would be accessible to ordinary Americans both in terms of location – like murals in public buildings – and content, such as plays like 'One Third of a Nation' that spoke to housing concerns. Heated controversies over the program ensued. If the main criterion to receive a grant was need, not skill, would government funding churn out bad art? Conservative congressmen argued that Federal One artists were taking 'unbridled license to ridicule American ideals and to suggest rebellion against our government.' In 1938, the newly formed House Committee on Un-American Activities accused the head of Federal One's Theatre Project of supporting communism. Soon thereafter, the Federal One programs ended. The Cold War created a new opportunity for arts funding as the United States scrambled to counteract the Soviet Union's depiction of America as 'culturally barren.' Under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the State Department began to sponsor American artists and fund international tours of their work. Even this modest attempt at public arts patronage – European nations were spending 20 to 40 times as much on the arts – faced pushback from conservatives, who cast the tours as a waste of taxpayer money. Nonetheless, Eisenhower persisted. In 1958, he signed the National Cultural Center Act to authorize a national arts complex. The act failed to provide enough money to actually build the center. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy embarked on a campaign to raise US$30 million in private money. Part of those fundraising efforts involved reassuring donors that their high-art tastes would be reflected. The Kennedy Center finally opened its doors in September 1971. Given the need for constant fundraising ever since, philanthropists have dominated its board. Today, the Kennedy Center receives $43 million as a public subsidy, or 16% of its budget. Ticket sales, facility rentals and donations comprise the other 84%. No government funds go to artistic programming, which has blunted potential criticism about censorship or propaganda. But this has also precluded the ability of regular people across the nation to weigh in about what appears onstage. The Kennedy Center staff has attempted to work within the constraints of a philanthropy model to reach a broad audience and challenge high/middle/low distinctions. In its first year, the center appointed renowned choreographer Katherine Dunham as a technical adviser in intercultural communication. She aimed to 'make the center more responsible to the community' and establish a model of local engagement in Washington that could be replicated throughout the country. It didn't materialize. Programming remained in the traditional high art category until Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter expanded into genres like hip-hop and comedy in the 2010s. In 2020, the center made progress toward Dunham's vision with its Social Impact initiative, which focused on free performances and transportation to arts events for local Washington communities. Trump has since dissolved it. By declaring himself chairman and personally overseeing the programming, Trump has followed in the footsteps of Russian czars or monarchs like Louis XIV of France, who established arts institutions as extensions of royal power. In effect, it realizes 18th-century Americans' fears about government involvement in the arts as a form of control. At the same time, the private philanthropy model has been far from perfect. It has left the Kennedy Center vulnerable to attacks of elitism. Perhaps future leaders can imagine more robust models of public support and stewardship that reflect America's diverse and multifaceted national landscape – if they're ever given an opportunity to do so. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Joanna Dee Das, Washington University in St. Louis Read more: The Trump administration says Tren de Aragua is a terrorist group – but it's really a transnational criminal organization. Here's why the label matters. No, that's not what a trade deficit means – and that's not how you calculate other nations' tariffs What's it like to be showered with Trump dust? Election special podcast Joanna Dee Das does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Boston Globe
05-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
‘Forbidden Broadway' is back with new Broadway targets to spoof
Advertisement 'He wasn't a celebrity. He wasn't Sondheim yet! So people left him alone,' Alessandrini said. 'He was very approachable and I think genuinely flattered that somebody wanted to talk about the show and the writing process, that somebody was paying attention to the writing at all, not just the sets and the stars.' Now, more than five decades later, Alessandrini is back at the Colonial with his indestructible musical parody revue 'Forbidden Broadway,' which he launched in 1982. The latest iteration Sondheim spoofs are woven throughout the show, including sendups of 'Merrily,' 'Old Friends' ('Old Show'), 'Sweeney Todd' ('The Worst Shows in London') and 'Company' ('Bump-a-Knee'). It also features a parade of mocking parodies of recent shows like 'The Outsiders,' 'Hell's Kitchen,' 'Suffs,' and 'The Great Gatsby' and revivals of 'Sunset Boulevard,' 'Cabaret,' 'Gypsy,' and 'Cats,' while also skewering self-aggrandizing stars like Patti LuPone, Bernadette Peters, Jeremy Jordan, and Ben Platt. Led by musical director Fred Barton (a Boston-area native), the cast features 'Forbidden Broadway' veteran Jenny Lee Stern, Nicole Vanessa Ortiz, Chris Collins-Pisano, and John Wascavage. Advertisement "Forbidden Broadway" plays the Emerson Colonial Feb. 8 and 9. Carole Rosegg While the show is ultimately a revue, Stern, who's pitched in with ideas over the years, explained that there's a Sondheim narrative arc that involves Marty and Doc from the musical version of 'Back to the Future' traveling back in time in the Delorean and mistakenly altering the course of Broadway history. 'Somehow they keep Steven Sondheim from meeting [his mentor] Oscar Hammerstein, and that misstep changes the course of musical theater forever,' Stern said, 'and we have to go back in time and rectify that. With Doc and Marty leading the way, we revisit classic musicals and we go ahead in time and see where Broadway might be in the future.' Alessandrini has made a career out of borrowing show tunes from Broadway musicals and creating parodies using their familiar melodies and riffs. The lyrics spoof aspects of the shows, their plot points, and stars, while also paying homage to what's great about them (or at least some of them). They also sometimes dive into the backstage scuttlebutt and acerbic commentary about the shows online, but always with love at heart. 'That's the thing — we're fans first,' Stern said. 'We're not here trying to be mean or tear down Broadway. We're here to build it up through comedy. So we 'shove with love,' as we say.' Advertisement For Alessandrini, writing parodies came naturally, even going back to his teenage years. 'I would do satirical turns on movies and shows, just to amuse friends in high school.' That penchant for healthy criticism could be traced to his upbringing in Needham. His mother and aunts loved opera and music, but they weren't afraid to jokingly chastise sacred cows, including legendary opera diva Maria Callas, he says. 'No matter how good something was, they always found something that was wrong with it that could be improved,' he remarks with a laugh. Parody has always appealed to Alessandrini because of its mocking irreverence. 'It's turning something inside out, especially something that's respected. That's why the spoofs of more serious shows like 'The Outsiders' or 'Les Misérables' play the funniest, because those shows lack irony, so it's naughty to turn them into something silly and knock them down a peg.' he says. Today, parodies are a staple of YouTube and social media sites like TikTok. But at the time, 'Forbidden Broadway' was something of a pioneer. 'Originally, nobody was saying these things,' Alessandrini says. 'We were gossiping and saying things that people thought but weren't expressing publicly.' When Alessandrini arrived in New York after graduating from the Boston Conservatory, he would write little parody songs and 'sing them to friends to make them laugh' or leave them as messages on their answering machines. Soon, Alessandrini and his Advertisement The idea for a show soon emerged, and they performed an early version at the apartment of some friends from Boston. The group loved it and suggested they pitch it to Palsson's Supper Club on the Upper West Side. 'Being very scatterbrained and oblivious, we forget to even put out fliers or promote it,' he said. 'But the word got around immediately.' Before long, they were performing for big crowds, including celebrities and theater royalty like Sondheim, who would come and check on the show regularly. 'Forbidden Broadway' ran for five years at Palsson's, and Alessandrini has continued to write new editions that have played venues around New York. The show, which was honored with a Tony Award in 2006, has also toured across the country and overseas. Alessandrini's hit 'Hamilton' spoof, ' The lessons Alessandrini learned from Sondheim, watching him rework pre-Broadway shows at the Colonial including 'A Little Night Music' in 1973, have continued to stick with him decades later. During the 1971 run of 'Follies,' he noticed that Sondheim had discarded one of the songs, 'Can That Boy Foxtrot,' for star Yvonne De Carlo. 'I thought, why did they take that out?' he recalled. 'Then about 10 minutes later, she walked over to the piano and started singing [ It was a lesson in the necessity of rewriting. 'What I realized was that just because something works doesn't mean there isn't something better than you can do,' Alessandrini says. 'I admired that and learned early on that shows aren't written — they're rewritten.' Advertisement 'I still believe that. I'm always like, 'Hey, maybe we should do this instead?'' Alessandrini adds with a laugh. 'And I drive my cast absolutely crazy!' FORBIDDEN BROADWAY Written and directed by Gerard Alessandrini. At: The Emerson Colonial Theater, Feb. 8 and 9. Tickets from $39. 888-616-0272,
