Show Business - The Road to Broadway |  | Actors: Boy George, Alan Cumming, John Lahr, Joe Mantello, Jason Moore
Studio: Liberation Ent
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $11.92
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Rating:  39 reviews
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 104 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 80543
UPC: 796019805438
EAN: 0796019805438
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: October 16, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | The real drama happens behind the curtain in this fascinating and rare look at four high-profile Broadway musicals (Wicked, Taboo, Caroline, Or Change, and Avenue Q) and their fearless journey to the Tony Awards®. Including a star-studded cast, this entertaining film takes viewers on an unprecedented behind-the-scenes view of the creative process that captures all the heartbreak and hilarity |
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Product Description
The real drama happens behind the curtain in this fascinating and rare look at four high-profile Broadway musicals (Wicked Taboo Caroline Or Change and Avenue Q) and their fearless journey to the Tony Awards®. Including a star-studded cast this entertaining film takes viewers on an unprecedented behind-the-scenes view of the creative process that captures all the heartbreak and hilarity of trying make it big in Show Business!System Requirements:Run Time: 104 minutes Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. Rating: PG UPC: 796019805438 Manufacturer No: 80543
Amazon.com
The playful but intense and vastly informative Show Business: The Road to Broadway is a documentary about four musicals that were contenders for top Tony Awards prizes in the 2004 Broadway season. Following the parallel action between the quartet--"Wicked," "Avenue Q," "Taboo," and "Caroline, or Change"--from concept through casting, rewrites, rehearsals, opening nights and the relative box-office fortunes of each, the film dazzles a viewer by seeming to be everywhere at once. Along the way, one encounters cascades of neuroses and anxieties from the creative community involved in these shows, but there is also tremendous insight shared by the various playwrights, composers, lyricists, producers, directors, and stars who get these productions up and running. There's sundry drama, too, especially concerning the brief run of "Taboo," the financially disastrous musical about Boy George that was largely bankrolled by Rosie O'Donnell and ran into a variety of problems. Excellent fly-on-the-wall moments include a dinner sequence involving a handful of well-known theatre critics, whose tastes vary and who often champion shows no one else seems to like. Everything leads to highlights from the 2004 Tony Awards show, which was full of surprises. A final sequence in which one catches up with the many talents involved says everything about how success and failure is often a mere roll of the cosmic dice. --Tom Keogh
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 39
 There's No Business Like it November 23, 2009
R. Swanson (New Mexico)
This is a very entertaining behind-the-scenes look at four Broadway musicals that opened the same season. If you love Broadway, you'll adore this film. If you don't there is still a lot of human interaction to engage you. It doesn't quite attain the magic of a real show but it points you in that direction.
Like no business I know! July 23, 2009
John S. Harris (Memphis, TN)
The competition for Broadway's coveted Tony Award has a unique feature that separates it from, say, the Oscars, Emmys, or any other showbiz award. In many seasons the number of eligible competitors is SO SMALL that practically every show gets nominated for SOMETHING. One recent year there were only two shows eligible for the Best Musical award. Hardly makes for thrilling competition, does it?
Also, the community of major NY theatrical critics is comparatively small too. There are relatively few critical voices to be heard or read in the mainstream press, and thus those views can carry a disproportionate amount of weight. Readers of Broadway critics' reviews don't get a very large statistical sampling of views from which to reach an informed opinion. Want to know if a new book is any good or well-received? Log onto the Amazon website and you may see 400-500 reviews, a healthy and generous sampling. Want to know if how movie reviews stack up for a new film in the theaters? There are hundreds if not thousands of professional reviews available online. But when it comes to Broadway shows, the voices are relatively few in number. A personal or professional bias will therefore loom larger with fewer counterpoint opinions weighing in.
This matter is not directly addressed or even hinted at in this DVD, but one can infer that from the informal critics "roundtable" discussions that are captured for this presentation. All of them take place in (no doubt expensive) restaurants courtesy of the critics' respective expense accounts. One gets the sense from watching these roundtables, which took place at various points before, during, and after that year's Tony competition season, that each critic knows precisely how much influence their reviews have, how "important" their opinions are, and that some of them may be predisposed to favoring certain shows or talent.
"Taboo" might have been an example of that. "Taboo" was a musical co-created by and starring Boy George. Its London incarnation was well-received and successful, so Boy George's friend Rosie O'Donnell decided to bankroll it for its $10 million transfer to Broadway. It wasn't a smooth transition. Preview reactions were mixed, one key cast member nearly left over creative differences, the target audience was anything but mainstream, and the concurrent press coverage of Rosie's legal problems at the time cast a pall over the public and critical perception of the entire undertaking. Key to the show's demise, according the DVD, was a scathing review by the New York Times theater critic, though some other critics were more enthusiastic and the audience exit polls seemed positive. One fan confessed to having seen 52 performances of the show, which accounted for about half of the show's run. "Taboo" failed to garner a Best Musical nomination. Whether that was due to the a key poor review or to other factors is a matter of debate, though Boy George has definite thoughts on the matter.
*** Watch for the scene in the DVD that shows footage of Rosie O'Donnell leaving a US Courthouse. Take note of the officers in front of her on the steps. Interesting, to say the least ***
What is also addressed in this DVD is that the Tony Awards are really regarded perhaps more as marketing tools than as legitimate achievement awards. Not that the achievements themselves aren't often spectacular, but Tony Awards (and to a slightly lesser degree, nominations) are the publicity hook that shows wear as a badge of respectability to sell tickets and hopefully secure a long life on Broadway or on tour. Whereas a film will usually have ended its initial theatrical run well before the Oscars are awarded, a Broadway show may well rely on a major Tony Award to kick the show's awareness factor and "must-see" element into high gear for the general public.
Broadway shows are quite the unique animal. A show really has to prove to be successful and/or popular to a relatively small number of people before it is given a chance to be seen by a larger number of people (courtesy of an extended run, open-ended run, or National Tour). Usually that initial boost comes courtesy of the Tony Awards it may have won. In other words, it doesn't necessarily win a Tony because it catches the attention of the mass public -- often it catches the public's attention because it won the Tony. Winning the Tony is often the beginning of a show's chances for a long(er) run, so there is much more at stake for a show come Tony season.
Thanks to multiplexes, cable, Netflix, DVD releases, and the Internet, practically anyone can see pretty much any movie they want, even the new releases, at their leisure and often without ever leaving the house. The initial success of a Broadway show, however, depends on patrons making the trek to a specific theatre in a specific city (NY) and paying often exorbitant sums for a ticket. Taking a family of 5 down the street to see a new movie might cost anywhere between thirty and eighty bucks. Taking a family of 5 to NYC to catch a new Broadway show can run the tab into well over a grand after airfare, hotel, tickets, souvenirs, etc. MUCH cheaper to wait for the National Tour to come to your town. How likely is that to happen? Not very likely unless a very select and very small set of critics and theatergoers determine many months or years in advance of that National Tour that the show deserves to have legs.
Big-budget Broadway shows require a significant financial investment just to get staged in the first place. Often, the bigger the spectacle the bigger the anticipated payoff (think Andrew Lloyd Webber). As is made clear in this DVD, "Wicked" was thought to be the prohibitive favorite for a slew of Tony Awards, including the only one that really counts -- Best Musical. It had all the necessary ingredients: the renowned composer/lyricist, a huge budget, plenty of spiffy costumes and effects, a marquis theatre in which to premiere, and it was based around much-beloved and universally-recognized source material. In the minds of the critics it was a foregone conclusion that it would grab the Best Musical Tony. Only it didn't. In fact, it missed out on several of the major awards that were thought to be a "lock". "Wicked" had an out-of-town preview and was significantly re-tooled before opening on Broadway in 2004. It lost the major awards to "Avenue Q", the Little Show That Could.
I'm getting way off target again. This DVD spotlights the "business" of Broadway show business. Worth watching, for sure. We get to see a lot of what goes on into creating, rehearsing, staging, and performing a Broadway show.
 good for those in or interested in the business July 2, 2009
Nathan K. Lee
Quite an interesting look into the business of Broadway. It looks at the 2003-4 year and a handful of shows of that season. Don't be swayed by the Rosie/Boy George drama.
Curtain Up! November 30, 2008
Amos Lassen (Little Rock, Arkansas)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
"ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway"
Curtain Up!
Amos Lassen
We love theater and we love Broadway but seldom do we get to know what goes on behind the scenes. Here! TV is screening the documentary "ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway" and it is an in depth look behind the scenes of four major Broadway shows--two successes, one bomb and one that almost became a hot ticket. All four shows--"Wicked", "Taboo", "Avenue Q" and "Caroline, or Change" were nominated for the Tony Award (Broadway's highest award) as best musical of 2004. The documentary takes us behind the scenes from the initial casting to the out of town previews and to the awards ceremony and gives us a look at the inner workings of the Broadway Theater. We have interviews with the principals, the actors, the creators, the critics. We have film of rehearsals and opening nights and we get an all around look at the world of theater.
Many feel that musical theater is as American as apple pie and mom. But musicals do not appeal to everyone as we have seen with the demise of musical motion pictures. But for me, there is nothing better than a Broadway musical. When the overture begins, I feel as if I am transported to another world and for the next two hours, I am on the stage with the show. Of course the Broadway Theater is not what it once was and the glorious musicals of yesteryear are not around any more except in revivals. However, there is still a life left in the theater as this movie shows us. Dori Bernstein has assembled a beautiful homage to theater after whittling down over 250 hours of film and we go where the action is--backstage, where creativity reigns. The documentary moves quickly and jumps from show to show. Nonetheless, we get a beautiful movie and a look at the theater we rarely see. Let's face it--the days of "My Fair Lady", "Showboat" and "Oklahoma" are no more but we have something else--a youthful creativity that is trying to revive a theater that is so important to all of us.
Here is an alterative look at theater. The shows features here are unique in their own way--one deals with racial relations in the South, one with the land of Oz. one with club kids and one is a glorified puppet show. We see how people finance the activity, how actors interpret the material and how changes are made. This is a fun movie and its intentions are noble and the documentary is at times highly emotional. I unquestionably love this movie but then I love theater.
To me going to the Broadway Theater is akin to going to a temple for prayer and I revere it and honor it. So does this film.
Fun! October 12, 2008
Brittany Kaufman (NJ)
I have wanted this for a long time, just didn't have the money. I finally got it and I am so glad I did. Although it is from a few years ago it was such a fun look behind the scenes, and a great look at how Wicked started out! I will watch it again and again and I definitely recommend it to Broadway and theater lovers!!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 39
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