Showbusiness

Source: Imbd.com

As a theater enthusiest, it isn’t always as easy to get an inside look at things as it is with TV and movies. That is why when a documentary like Showbusiness: The Road to Broadway comes around, it is like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Showbusiness follows four musicals in the year leading up to their Broadway opening and the Tony Awards during the 2003 theater season. The four shows featured in the movie are Wicked, Avenue Q, Caroline or Change, and Taboo. Each hopes that they will receive the coveted Tony Award for Best Musical as well as have a commercially successful run. The movie gives an inside look into what it takes to get a Broadway musical from the page to the stage, as well as what the tenacious and ruthless world of commercial theater is like.

A Rehearsal of Wicked - Source: Fandango.com

What’s great about this documentary is that it plays with the intensity of a sports documentary, as if we are following a team from the preseason all the way through to the championship. I was so invested in all three shows by the end, that it was as heartbreaking as it was thrilling to see only one take home the Tony. What is shocking is the amount of blood, sweat and tears that go into creating a Broadway Musical. Creative teams spend years, sometimes over a decade writing, rewriting, and raising the money to see their dream of getting their show to the stage come to fruition.

Where Showbusiness really gets interesting is that it shines a bright light on critics and how they are having a negative effect on the industry. Boy George, whose life is the inspiration for Taboo, has the best quote of the movie when he says, refereeing to critics, “those who are supposed to be the biggest champions of the art are the ones who are destroying it.” I have thought for a long time that critics are moving in the wrong direction and are causing serious damage to the industry with their constant negative reviews. It is one thing to offer criticism, but it’s another to try and destroy a show with their words. Critics should remember that without Broadway, many of them would be out of a job. It was superb to see this pointed out by someone in such a prominent position.

Even if you have no interest in theater, Showbusiness is entertaining for everyone. It offers just the right amount of behind-the-scenes, history, and criticism to make it a quintessential documentary. I have no doubt that you’ll be on the edge of your seat.

To watch the trailer, click here.