In late April the 2009-10 New York Theater season came to a close with a whimper. All in all, it was a rather lackluster Broadway season. Although there were some good new plays ("Red" chief among them), and some good new musicals (namely, "American Idiot" and "Memphis"), there was nothing great in the way of new work on Broadway as was the case last season. In terms of revivals, none of the musical revivals did much for me except "Ragtime," although I will confess that there was one terrific play revival ("Fences").
The real action over the past New York theater season was off-Broadway, which featured an amazing new play trilogy ("The Brother/Sister Plays" at the Public, which was further improved in the later run at Steppenwolf in Chicago) and a breathtaking new musical by Kander & Ebb ("The Scottsboro Boys"), which is headed to Broadway in the fall. Although I would not expect to see "The Brother/Sister Plays" on Broadway anytime soon (which is fine - off Broadway is where that jewel belongs), there is an undeniable trend to move off-Broadway successes to the sometimes harsh lights of a largely tourist dominated Broadway. This season saw moves of "Next Fall," a rather weak play in my view, to Broadway, but confirmed or rumored to be moving to Broadway next season, in addition to "Scottsboro Boys," are "Brief Encounter," "Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson," and "The Kid." Quite frankly, I am not sure any of these shows will work on Broadway, and the last two named musicals are simply not good enough in this writer's opinion to justify that move. But if enough investors are found, I suspect they will make the move.
My Tony predictions were correct in 17 of 26 categories. Not a great percentage, but it was a tough year to predict due to overall lack of quality this year.
