On Broadway
| Directed by: Oren Jacoby | Origin: USAAs theatre goers prepare for the return of Broadway after an unprecedented absence of eighteen months, an all-star cast tells the inside story of the last time Broadway theatre came back from the brink. ON BROADWAY shows how this revival helped save New York, thanks to innovative work, a new attention to inclusion and the sometimes-uneasy balance between art and commerce.
Legends of the stage and screen, including Hugh Jackman, Helen Mirren, Christine Baranski, August Wilson, James Corden, Alec Baldwin, John Lithgow, Viola Davis, and Ian McKellen, take us behind the scenes of Broadway’s most ground-breaking and beloved shows, from “A Chorus Line” to “Hamilton.” Iconic performances by Lin Manuel Miranda, Patti Lupone, Bernadette Peters, James Earl Jones and Mandy Patinkin lead the way in a hurly burly ride through Times Square, once again the main street of American show business in ON BROADWAY, directed by Academy-Award nominee Oren Jacoby.
Synopsis
Synopsis:
As theatre goers prepare for the return of Broadway after an unprecedented absence of eighteen months, an all-star cast tells the inside story of the last time Broadway theatre came back from the brink. ON BROADWAY shows how this revival helped save New York City, thanks to innovative work, a new attention to inclusion and the sometimes-uneasy balance between art and commerce. Legends of the stage and screen, including Hugh Jackman, Helen Mirren, Christine Baranski, August Wilson, James Corden, Alec Baldwin, John Lithgow, Viola Davis, and Ian McKellen, take us behind the scenes of Broadway’s most ground-breaking and beloved shows, from “A Chorus Line” to “Hamilton.” Iconic performances by Lin Manuel Miranda, Patti Lupone, Bernadette Peters, James Earl Jones and Mandy Patinkin lead the way in a hurly burly ride through Times Square, once again the main street of American show business in ON BROADWAY, directed by Academy-Award nominee Oren Jacoby.
Today, New York City is facing an uncertain path forward in its recovery from a devastating pandemic. This documentary shows how Broadway led the way in the city’s last great rebirth and provides a model of how they can come back again. Back in the 1970s, there was another moment when the razzle dazzle that is Broadway almost came to an end. Broadway was on the verge of bankruptcy; there was talk of tearing down all the theatres and replacing them with parking lots. The plays seemed old fashioned, the Broadway audience had declined more than 50% in 5 years, most theatres were sitting dark, theatre owners couldn’t pay their bills, and the neighbourhood was so scary that the police department was warning people to stay away after sundown. This is the surprising story of how an industry and an art form on the verge of extinction, not only avoided collapse, but managed to reinvent itself and come back stronger, in astonishing ways.
Today, the story of that comeback can show us all a way forward. ON BROADWAY offers viewers an extraordinary chance to meet the actors, directors, producers and playwrights who are the heart and soul of the American Theatre. They tell the inside story of the remarkable changes that they helped initiate or witnessed over the past 50 years – a transformation that turned Broadway around. They track the breakthrough works and the artists who have made Broadway into a venue where you can find everything from the experimental and iconoclastic to the mainstream and commercial. More important, they tell how from the 70s onward Broadway started to more accurately reflect the diverse, complicated society in which we actually live. Despite the fact that it is constantly changing, Broadway somehow continues to attract the most passionately loyal and devoted fans in the world. As Ian McKellen says, trying to describe the force of Broadway pulling us all in... “Come on, come in, come here… I’m going to give myself to you and you’re going to come and love me…”
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