Current Musicals on Broadway

It has been said that familiarity breeds contempt. Apparently on Broadway familiarity breeds ticket sales because most of the current musicals (and non-musicals) on Broadway are stories we've already heard and songs we've sung. I suppose that with the price of tickets people would rather know what to expect. But what would Cole Porter think about the state of the Broadway musical?

Mama Mia, Jersey Boys, Grease, Xanadu, and Hairspray are all about music from the fairly recent past. Three of these productions have already been movies at one time or another. Disney is filling Broadway with movies turned stage productions with The Lion King, Mary Poppins, and The Little Mermaid. Gypsy and South Pacific both started on Broadway and were made into movies when most of the Baby Boomers had yet to be born.

Original musicals are expensive risks for everyone involved from producers to theater attendees. In the Heights opens on March 9, 2008. It is about two days in the lives of residents in the Latino community of Washington Heights. David Hyde Pierce stars in Curtains, about a Boston murder investigation where all the likely suspects are in a musical comedy. Passing Strange is about a rock n roll artist's search for self, it is the only original musical currently receiving a New York Times critics pick.

Original doesn't always mean talent or greatness in musical theater or anywhere else. There also needs to be a place for the occasional revival to remind everyone what greatness was. But how many movies need to be made into musicals before we forget what a musical theater can be?