ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway
The new DVD ShowBusiness is a “must have” for Wicked fans. In this blog post you’ll find many details about the DVD that may help you decide about buying it, or get more from your viewing once you have it.
To order the DVD at a discount price, go to: Show Business - The Road to Broadway
ABOUT SHOWBUSINESS: THE ROAD TO BROADWAY
This documentary offers a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes for producers, writers, actors, designers, marketing teams to develop and deliver Broadway shows. From the press release: “Allowed unprecedented backstage access, director Dori Berinstein casts a camera’s eye on rehearsals, backstage dramas, and the mysteriously wondrous creative process.” With its running time of 104 minutes, a full-length Audio Commentary, and over 60 minutes of extras, it will take you several sittings to savor everything.
You will feel like a Broadway insider by the time you
- watch the main feature’s back stage clips and interviews with actors and producers who speak about the 2003/2004 Broadway season as they make it happen,
- go back and play the Audio Commentary by director Dori Berinstein, actor Alan Cumming & Avenue Q co-creator Jeff Marx (especially note their comments about the New York Posts’ trouble-making columnist Michael Reidel as well as the other Broadway critics),
- watch the additional clips including over 60 minutes of Deleted Scenes, Tony Award® Promotional Spots, and a trailer,
- step into the recording studio with Stephen Schwartz, Kristin Chenoweth, and others as they record “Popular” for the Wicked cast album (that’s part of the main feature, chapter 10),
- listen to critics chatting on about their prejudices, likes and dislikes, and their often-wrong predictions for the Broadway season 2003/2004.
Note: this is not for the very young or faint hearted, as swear words are not withheld and it shows how really tough the Broadway life can sometimes be.
Wicked special feature: Stephen Schwartz allowed the filmmakers to come to Connecticut to record footage both in his home office and his upstairs studio. In the studio footage, Stephen plays some of the first chords he wrote for Wicked and then shows how they became the accompaniment for “No Good Deed.” [Read more about Wicked composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz] [Read more about No Good Deed]
THINGS TO NOTE ONCE YOU HAVE THE SHOWBUSINESS DVD AT HOME
For the section mentioned above in Stephen’s home, the photo at the piano is of his agent, Shirley Bernstein, who was Leonard Bernstein’s sister. Schwartz attributes much of his career success to the connections with producers that she made for him. The studio space you see there is where he wrote most of the songs for Wicked.
One of the best clips is easy to miss. It’s in the DVD Special Feature sections about Tony Awards. Play the part about “The Nominees” to hear funny stories about what the Tony nominees were doing when they found out they had been nominated. You will see Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwartz joking and laughing as they did during their work on Wicked. It’s a great mini-portrait of the cheerier side of show business. Their sense of humor certainly contributed to the success of the show. [Read more about the Wicked script and the playful vocabulary.]
In November 2003 after Wicked opened, Stephen Schwartz lead the cast and orchestra through three days of recording sessions at Right Track Studio for the cast album. This photo is from one session when some press and friends were invited into the control room. On the left is Stephen’s assistant Michael Cole. Next is me, Carol de Giere, in the white turtleneck. I’m busily taking notes for an article about the cast recording session experience (I’ll let you know when that’s available.) In front is Stephen Schwartz. The Berinstein film captures a moment when Wicked’s composer is catching a wrong note being played by one violinist. Schwartz was born with perfect pitch and is obviously highly sensitive to music, as this clip reveals. This Wicked recording session clip also shows how recordings are made, with Kristin Chenoweth singing in a separate sound booth from the rest of the orchestra.
The DVD includes several scenes with Wicked and Avenue Q’s music director Stephen Oremus. [Read more about Stephen Oremus]
This photo of Idina Menzel was taken in the rehearsal room at 890 Broadway before Wicked traveled to San Francisco for the out-of-town try out. Idina is piecing together the script, integrating changes that had just been written. Idina joined the cast as the original Elphaba in the fall of 2001, so she had seen many revisions of the script by then.
Idina Menzel fans: Be sure to listen to the credits all the way through to the end. As the second song running over the credits, Idina sings “Lullaby of Broadway” in a special arrangement written especially for her voice. Also enjoy the Special Features clip of a tour through her dressing room at Wicked. This and other sections of Showsbusiness give audiences a feeling for what it’s like to prepare for a Broadway performance eight times a week.
Note that the spray painted green make up shown in SHOWBUSINESS was an early attempt to get green. Shortly after the clip was filmed, she switched to using make up that is painted on with brushes.
Read more about Idina Menzel
MORE NOTES
Was Dori Berinstein biased in choosing shows and material? When she directed the film, she had no idea how the season would play out. She ended up creating the film from over 250 hours of footage. She said she was inspired by William Goldman’s book, The Season, which tracked Broadway shows from 1967 to 1968. [The Season is one of Stephen Schwartz’s favorite book about theatre. Read about the making of musicals http://www.musicalwriters.com/resources/books/making-of-musicals.htm]
She told a Los Angeles reporter, “I wanted it to be a celebration about theater and the incredible talent onstage and behind the curtain. I wanted it to be really, really honest. It was a particularly brutal season.” Watching the Tony Award section of the film towards the end, Showbusiness comes off somewhat as a celebration of Avenue Q. But there is still plenty of material for theatre enthusiasts who appreciate the other shows. Once you listen to the audio commentary by Berinstein, you’ll feel her love and affection for all parts of the business of show. –>
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