Original subtitles

[whimsical music]

I have to say, working on my first show on Broadway,

I remember so clearly coming to start rehearsals.

When you're approaching Manhattan,

and you can see it from a distance,

you look at it and you think, you know,

"Am I going to conquer it?"

You know, "Will I conquer New York?

Will I survive it even?"

The whole concept of Broadway,

it has this very romantic,

very heroic, very legendary

kind of feel to it.

New York is a place that, when 8:00 at night rolls around,

the curtain is opening on some of the greatest performers

around the world in one city.

[triumphant music]

It's almost incomprehensible the amount of talent

that is on display in that one moment

on Broadway.

As a performer, Broadway

is different than anywhere else

on the planet.

You feel the audience leaning in.

They're wanting to have a great time.

They are ready to enjoy it.

It's the most palpable I've ever felt

that connection with an audience.

Without the theater, New York somehow

would not be itself.

Broadway is a bunch of buildings.

It's a bunch of real estate.

But, periodically,

something incredible that resonates with people

ends up inhabiting those buildings,

and it creates a kind of strange,

wonderful, odd energy,

and all of a sudden those buildings become

kind of like a church that attract these devotees,

who find themselves empowered by what's on that stage.

But, at the same time, it's a commercial landscape,

and every day you have to pay your rent.

That's the key to Broadway.

The key to Broadway is every day you have to pay your rent.

[elegant music]

In our country right now,

we have to celebrate how Broadway reflects

who we are as Americans.

It's been a long process

of artists taking risks,

and it reflects us as a United States of America.

You just always gotta keep an eye on what's new,

what's fresh, what's this going to inspire.

The next kid who thinks, "Oh, my God,

I'm gonna write a play."

[pensive music]

[overlapping remarks]

[indistinct remarks]

Director.

The Nap is a very unusual play.

Paying the kind of money you have to pay

to put anything on a Broadway stage now

is almost foolhardy.

But, the excitement ain't about the money.

It's all about finding fascinating new work,

and taking that chance to put it before the public.

When I first read this script

and saw how funny it was,

that's when I wanted to help tell the story,

and it just so happened that it was on Broadway,

so I got lucky.

Opening night,

I tried it as best as I could

to be grateful

for the people that have paved the way.

[upbeat music]

[brakes squealing]

Because the Broadway journey has so much history

attached to it,

and we need to remember our history.

All of it is important, all of it has to be looked at.

The theater district in those days,

you just can't believe how different it was.

I--I mean, it was so down on its luck.

Times Square was a rat hole.

[siren blaring]

You didn't walk down 42nd Street after dark

for anything.

It was wall to wall junkies and hustlers.

It was like the Wild West.

When my mother came to visit me

in my first $55-a-month apartment,

I brought her up and she stepped in the room,

and she started crying

that her baby boy was living like that

in Hell's Kitchen.

[jazz music]

It's not the Times Square of the Lion King.

It's the Times Square of Midnight Cowboy

and Taxi Driver.

So, Broadway was stuck in a city

and a neighborhood, Times Square,

that was falling apart.

42nd Street, you didn't venture down there.

You peeped down from 7th Avenue,

and knew if you needed sex or drugs,

you could probably find them, but that was all.

There was no theater to be done.

[mellow music]

But, it was very exciting.

[siren blaring]

It used to be, basically, sort of brothels,

and, you know, strip clubs,

and I loved it like that, I have to say.

You know, what can I say?

I work in the theater, you know, they're my kind of people.

I remember, in the early '70s,

Times Square being scary.

[siren blaring]

[abrasive music]

New York was on a-- on a dark side.

Tourism was down,

shootings were up.

There were five to six reported crimes a day

on 42nd Street.

There were people being mugged on the streets.

You heard stories of people standing in line

to get into a theater in their finery,

and having a robber come from behind

and grab their necklace.

The police are out in Times Square

passing out flyers to passersby saying,

"Get out of this neighborhood by 6:00 at night."

That's gonna kill the theater business.

There were many, many dark theaters.

But, it wasn't always like that.

[energetic show tune music]

When I was a kid,

we would come into town on very special occasions,

and I remember it was magic seeing the bright lights

of all the theaters.

It was incredibly exhilarating.

In the '40s and '50s,

Broadway is front and center of the popular culture.

All the hits on the radio are coming from Broadway.

Hollywood wanted movies based on Broadway shows.

It's the era of great musicals,

but also the most important American playwrights.

[dramatic music]

It's the golden age of Broadway.

[applauding]

So, you have a robust Broadway into the '60s.

Welcome, im Cabaret, au Cabaret,

To Cabaret

[indistinct remarks]

But, from '68 to '72,

attendance plunges from 10 million to 4.8 million.

So, this is a business that loses half its audience

in four years.

[cars honking]

You would be in a situation sometimes

where every theater on 45th Street was dark.

- There wasn't product for them. - They put up these signs

on the marquees

of all the theaters that didn't have shows.

Then, it said, "See a Broadway show!

Just for the fun of it!"

People were running away from the city.

New York was careening towards bankruptcy.

Well, how many here would urge the--the Federal Government

to bail out New York City?

[laughing]

Here's one gentleman...

[rock music]

At the same time, there's a shift in tastes

in popular culture,

and all of a sudden Broadway became old fashioned.

It became something your grandmother listens to.

When popular music shifted,

that opened the door, almost inadvertently,

for musicals that were different,

and a new generation of great artists,

like Stephen Sondheim.

That's--that's the explosion, that's the flower bursting,

and that's where you can take rhythmic liberties.

Just what you're doing.

Hal Prince and Steve Sondheim

changed the American musical theater

with shows like Company, that were not just

happy people dancing, but about the problems

of New York City here and now.

About contemporary people.

Company was the first musical I saw on Broadway,

and I just thought, "Okay, this is the New York theater."

Listen, everybody, look, I don't know what

You're waiting for, a wedding, what's a wedding,

It's a prehistoric ritual where everybody promises

Fidelity forever, which is maybe the most horrifying word

I ever heard of, which is followed by a honeymoon

The whole rhythm of it was unlike anything

anyone had ever seen.

Go have lunch, 'cause I'm not getting married

The songs served the material differently,

and defined character,

and moved story along.

Don't just stand there, I'm not getting married

And don't tell Paul that I'm not getting married today

Steve was doing something that no one else had done before.

Creating a whole different view of what a musical should be.

[pensive music]

Here's to the ladies

Who lunch

Everybody laugh

They were more serious, they were cutting.

Lounging in their caftans

And planning a brunch

He challenges you.

He doesn't placate you.

He doesn't lick you, he doesn't rub up against you.

He makes a fist and says, "Pay attention."

Look into their eyes and you'll see what they know

Everybody dies

A toast to that invisible bunh

The dinosaurs surviving the crunch

Let's hear it for the ladies who lunch

Everybody rise

Rise

Rise, rise

Steve and Hal were doing sophisticated, ambitious,

adult musicals.

But, as brilliant artistically as these shows were,

very few of them made any money.

Success is a funny thing.

The exhilaration of theater

is challenging as well as entertaining.

What makes money and what represents

the craft at its highest art form

are not always the same thing.

The theaters were still empty,

and at the center of this business

is the Shubert Organization.

The backbone of the American theater.

Until the '60s, they had the monopoly

on theaters in New York and across the country.

Everybody who worked in the theater in America

at one time was on a Shubert payroll,

whether they were an actor, a director, a designer,

or usher, because the Shubert Organization

not only owned and operated 104 theaters,

they booked 1,000 theaters.

It was originally three brothers,

and they built the theaters that are the foundation

of Times Square.

That still exists today.

[mellow music]

It was in the '70s that Jimmy Nederlander

came in to New York.

He bought the Palace Theater,

and then Jimmy began to buy more theaters.

And then, Jujamcyn came in and they bought a few theaters.

So, Broadway is basically dominated

by the Shuberts, the Nederlanders,

and Jujamcyn.

And they have all of the great theaters.

But, Shubert, because of its scale,

was the really important player here.

1972, when they were going into bankruptcy,

Jerry Schoenfeld and Bernie Jacobs,

these two lawyers who'd worked for the Shuberts

are trying to keep this company together,

and they made a very important decision

in the history of the American theater,

indeed, in the history of New York City.

They staged a boardroom coup,

and they took control of this crumbling empire.

Jerry and Bernie became the Shuberts.

They became the Shuberts.

When we took over the organization,

it was in great distress.

[tense music]

We owned the theaters,

but out of our 17-and-a-half theaters,

12 or 13 were dark.

The Shuberts and the Nederlanders

had the same problem.

They were all desperate for product.

It was Jimmy who first started investing,

and then Bernie and Jerry,

they had to follow.

Jerry and I came to the conclusion

that the only way you're gonna get product

is to produce shows.

The first show we invested in was Pippin.

[peppy music]

We gave 'em $100,000, which was a lot of money to us

in those days.

Glory, glory

The reason they felt so positive

about Pippin

was Bob Fosse.

I don't look for applause so much

as something to move an audience,

to make 'em laugh, or cry, or feel something,

or even get upset.

Takes such guts to do a show,

and kind of--

I like to do what's just slightly risky.

Where is Billy?

Give us Billy

Bob brings sex to Broadway dancing

in a whole new way.

That makes Broadway more alluring.

...his

He's our...

Bernie Jacobs understood one thing.

Let's back the people who are gonna do the shows.

We may not be able to pick the show,

but if we pick the people who are gonna create the show,

might be a hit.

Bernie said, "I'm gonna commit to Sondheim.

I'm gonna commit to Fosse."

Which required a certain amount of chutzpah.

There are these certain people that have talent.

You want them to be the jockey

to ride your show.

You're not betting on the horse, you're betting on the jockey.

And Bernie was an immediate early champion

of Michael Bennett.

Michael Bennett was the choreographer on Company.

People were looking to Michael as a sort of wunderkind.

Michael Bennett had the idea that,

"Let's just get dancers together and talk about what it is

to be a Broadway dancer."

The gypsy life.

They recorded it all.

I just remember always jumping around.

I used to dance around in the living room.

I knew I was gay, and that didn't bother me.

And at the end of that, Michael had all these hours

of tapes, but he had no idea what he was gonna do

with this stuff.

As I was watching dancers just talk about Broadway

and their lives, I began to hear musical numbers,

and we spent a summer in my apartment writing.

Every other show that ever happened on Broadway,

you had six weeks of rehearsal,

and you were stuck with it.

Michael changed the face of Broadway

because he wanted to do a workshop.

No one has ever done a workshop of a show.

He went to Joe Papp of the Public Theater.

He goes, "I have some tapes here I'd like you to hear."

And I sat there, began to listen to this

over a period of days.

I just was absolutely thrown.

It was so moving.

Joe Papp said to Michael, "Go with it.

I'll give you space at the Public Theater.

Have your workshop."

A 5, 6, 7, 8.

The Public Theater basically funded the workshops

for about $100,000.

The reason the not-for-profit theaters

have subsidies was to give them a safe protected space

where they can do work that's bold, that's innovative,

that is not commercial,

where they can take chances.

I really need this job!

It opened Downtown off Broadway

at the Public Theater.

But, of course, people were still questioning

whether this was a Broadway show.

One singular sensation

Every little step she takes

One thrilling combination

Every move that she makes

When it moved to Broadway, it opened to rave reviews.

It was the show to see.

It was this smash, Pulitzer Prize,

everything, it won every award possible,

and that kicked up the excitement.

5, 6, 7, 8!

[upbeat music]

I don't think you can overestimate the impact

that A Chorus Line had on Broadway

and on the American theater.

Who am I anyway?

It also brought in stories

of gay men and women.

Stories of Black and Latino men and women.

This was new to the Broadway experience.

I need this job

Oh, God, I need

This show

[energetic music]

You couldn't get in to see A Chorus Line.

You had to wait, wait to get in.

Don't push me, don't push!

And the success of A Chorus Line

leaked into the rest of the street.

It was a sea change about how shows were developed,

to how they were rehearsed,

how they went on to make

millions and millions of dollars.

A Chorus Line, it was the first major musical.

It was entirely the property of a non-profit theater

that moved to Broadway,

and of course it ran for 16 years,

and created an enormous amount of revenue

for the Public Theater.

Joe referred to it once as

like having the GDP of a small country

flowing into the Public Theater.

Joe's success had everyone look again at,

"What was the role of a not-for-profit theater?"

Commercial producers started searching

for their Chorus Line.

Jimmy Nederlander, he's gonna be looking for his musical

that's going to save his company,

and he hears that up in Connecticut

at a non-profit theater, there's a show

based on little orphan Annie comic strip,

and it didn't get great reviews,

but Mike Nichols went to see it,

and he says, "I think you're sitting on a million dollars."

He saw the show had potential.

To Jimmy's credit, he said, "You know,

if Mike Nichols is saying it's gonna be great,

I'm sure it's gonna be great."

Jimmy bought it sight unseen,

and of course Annie became one of the most successful shows

of all time.

Tomorrow, tomorrow

I love you, tomorrow

You're always a day

Away

[applauding]

All of a sudden not-for-profit theater

became a nurturing breeding ground

for innovative work,

and then producers would go out and find these shows,

and they would find their way to Broadway.

Well, there are worse things than staring at the water

On a Sunday

There are worse things than staring at the water

As you're posing for a picture after sleeping on the ferry

After getting up at seven to come over to an island

In the middle of a river half an hour from the city

On a Sunday

The not-for-profits give you the freedom

to try new, untested material.

In the park with--

Don't move the mouth!

There's a lot of money at stake.

People are putting up a lot of dough

to bring these things to the Broadway stage.

So, the not-for-profit world

serves a vital function.

[applauding]

Something was in the air that said, "We want to hear

new voices."

- We're gonna shimmy - Yeah!

- We're gonna shammy - Yeah!

We're gonna shim, sham, jump, and slide

The Manhattan Theater Club sent a musical

called Ain't Misbehavin' to Broadway,

which ran for many, many years.

[indistinct singing]

Broadway simply could not take the risks

that you could take in not-for-profit theaters

that didn't have to pay back investors.

[applauding]

[ambient music]

Manhattan Theater Club was committed to new voices

and we exist to take chances.

White is not a good idea.

Right, so this'll be...

With The Nap, we were doing a new play

that no one had ever seen.

It was a play set in England.

It was about a sport called snooker,

which I had never heard of,

and there's not a single star in the play.

It's very risky, but it's also very exciting.

We wanna welcome you to the first rehearsal of The Nap.

[applauding and cheering]

[mellow music]

Lock your shoulder back and fire.

Only here.

Can it work on Broadway?

Does anybody on Broadway care what snooker is,

or know what snooker is?

I have no idea, it's completely bonkers.

Have they changed the sheets?

You don't care, do you?

- What do you mean? - You're flirting.

Wash your mouth out, you think I'm flirting?

Yeah, you're a right flirt.

- I've got my coat on. - And yeah, that's coming

clean through the material.

You don't know when you flirt.

With read-throughs on the first day,

we'd pretty much want the play to be perfect,

because if the readings are all right,

the play will be all right.

You know, and then the readings are never all right.

You're--oh.

Bring him in.

The first day, ugh, it was awful.

It was terrible, I wish I could tell you that it was joyous.

I should-- probably should say that.

It was joyous--it wasn't, it was a nightmare.

[pensive music]

I think the first day of a rehearsal,

wherever you are,

has a kind of excitement and dread

in equal portions.

But, if you're having your first rehearsal on Broadway,

that's really scary.

[whirring]

In the late '70s,

Broadway was starting to come back.

At that point, people were really excited

about what was on Broadway.

And in a rare moment of accord,

the city and the state decided to put some money

into advertising New York City.

[triumphant music]

The very first I Love New York commercial

begins with a conductor in the orchestra pit

of a Broadway show, and the narrator says:

There's only one Broadway.

- It's in New York. - Cut to A Chorus Line

coming at you in the famous V formation

that Michael Bennett directed,

and then you show Annie and The Wiz,

and other Broadway shows.

The final image was of Frank Langella

- as Dracula. - I love New York,

especially in the evening.

Grosses for Dracula went right up,

and went up for all the shows on Broadway.

People were now being told across the country,

"Come to New York, and what you come for

is Broadway."

But, what Bernie Jacobs and Jerry Schoenfeld understood

running the Shubert Organization was that, if Times Square

is falling apart, it's gonna destroy their business.

So, Jerry, who'd been working in this neighborhood

since the '50s,

begins pushing to try to clean it up.

[mellow music]

To have obscenity laws that have to be enforced

with respect to prostitution

that will go a very long way.

Jerry went to Abe Beame, who was the mayor then,

and Abe Beame appoints this ex-marine lawyer,

really tough guy named Sidney Baumgarten

to clean up Times Square.

We are very concerned about the establishments,

for example, which breed the street prostitution

or prostitution oriented.

We had the location of the most notorious

prostitution and porno establishments

in and around Midtown.

[tense jazz music]

People used to refer to the prostitution business

as "victimless crime,"

but the FBI index crimes--

that's murder, rape, robbery--

the crimes emanated in and around

these sex establishments.

We're using whatever means we have at our disposal

that are legal and proper to close the premises down.

But, a lot of the cops were corrupt.

They were taking money from the people

who ran the whorehouses not to close down

the whorehouses.

We had corrupt police.

We had the mafia against us.

We had the real estate guys who were profiting

from the sex business.

All of them were against us.

But, bit by bit and slowly...

[photos snapping]

...with the support of Jerry Schoenfeld

and the Shuberts,

things begin to change.

[siren blaring]

[indistinct remarks]

When I left office,

we had closed 200 illegal establishments,

and that dramatically affected

the neighborhood.

All of the theaters and restaurants reported

an increase in business.

So, everybody's making money.

But, the Shuberts felt that you needed something on Broadway

that made an artistic statement.

It just wasn't all gonna be musicals.

[mellow music]

At night, I heard Mozart's music for the first time.

Amadeus had been a huge hit in London.

Oh, what is the need in the sound?

But, Paul Scofield, who had played

the leading part of Salieri,

didn't want to go to New York,

which gave me my opportunity.

When it transferred to Broadway,

there was a lot riding on the success

of Amadeus.

Because there were fewer plays around

than there had been,

it was important to everybody,

the Shuberts and Broadway itself,

that this should be a hit show.

A play.

It was a very important play for the Shuberts,

because it was one of those rare plays

that was a big, big hit.

And then, it became a thing

that we all started to go to England

to get the good British plays

and the good British stars.

English accents signified class,

and these big stars coming in from London,

they could draw audiences.

[peppy music]

- London, at last. - The play Nicholas Nickleby

was based on Charles Dickens's novel,

and it hit London like a ton--

it was just an instant success over there.

The play, in two parts, lasts eight-and-a-half hours.

Tickets cost $100 each.

The price and the length are records for Broadway.

It was $100.

And people thought that was

outrageous in those days.

We were warned that American audiences

wouldn't take so kindly to the idea

of sitting in the theater for that length of time.

- And paying that kind of price. - And paying that kind of price,

and that Britons are more stoic,

but it turned out to be the opposite.

People bought tickets like crazy.

They bought it in two parts.

They did all sorts of things

that they're not really supposed to do.

I mean, in the real world, you find out

what the customer wants, and then you give it to them.

Broadway isn't like that.

We're gonna give you what we wanna give you.

It's gonna start at 8:00.

I don't care if that's not convenient for you.

It's in Times Square.

I don't care that that's not convenient for you.

It won't get out till 11:00, and then you'll have

a very hard time getting a taxi.

It will be expensive.

It has so many downsides.

But, it has that one thing,

that gasp-inducing moment.

[panting]

- No, no. - Just stop.

Who said that, who said, "Stop"?

I did, I said it will stop, and stop it will I.

I--I--I've tried to intercede.

I begged forgiveness for the boy.

Now, leave, sir, and let me to my work!

[panting]

[grunting]

[indistinct shouting]

[applauding]

- It was absolutely marvelous. - But, $100?

Oh, I'd pay $200 to see it.

- Just fantastic. - Was it worth your $100?

It was worth more.

Nicholas Nickleby just raised the profile of Broadway.

It told people that Broadway's a place

where exciting, important cultural events

are taking place, so pay attention

to what goes on on Broadway,

'cause we're gonna surprise you.

All the posters that season

had their arms outstretched.

Yeah, that's Broadway.

Come on, come in here, come here!

I'm gonna give myself to you and you're gonna

come and love me.

[whirring]

Even though Times Square and 42nd Street

were beginning to get better,

some of the problems still existed.

I was there when it must've been decided

in the smoke-filled rooms.

We gotta do something about Times Square.

It's too--it's too strange.

It's--it's not welcoming.

It's not glamorous enough.

Times Square hadn't had any new development

in decades, because people were afraid to invest money here.

Carl Weisbrod took over the Midtown Citizens Committee,

and he had this idea

that you have to, in a bad neighborhood,

put something that's gonna attract law-abiding citizens.

Among the early steps that we took

was a commitment to build the Marriott Marquis Hotel.

A hotel with 3,000 people a night staying there.

Customers.

But, there are buildings in the way

that have to be torn down to build the hotel.

Three legendary Broadway theaters,

including the Morosco, where Death of a Salesman premiered,

and the beautiful Helen Hayes Theater.

Lauren Bacall, Jason Robards, Harry Guardino,

Arthur Miller, Christopher Reeve.

They're all right outside the theater.

Help save the Morosco Theater.

[applauding]

I'm gonna read one section of a play of mine.

It's a business, kid, and everybody's

gotta pull his own weight.

Stars like Jon Voight and Ellen Burstyn

are part of the big cast crying to rally public opinion.

Many performers believe that saving such theaters

is crucial to the future of serious drama,

usually produced in smaller houses,

rather than the huge theaters that book musicals.

At the 11th hour, street action has intensified,

orchestrated by Joseph Papp.

We're here to stop the demolition.

Save the theaters!

[applauding]

Those theaters were-- well, they were temples.

They were where great performers performed,

and they're full of ghosts.

You can't eat the orange and throw away the peel!

A man isn't a piece of fruit!

Well, I'm taking no chances.

I'd rather stay on this hot tin roof.

I gotta take revenge on everyone else,

especially you.

The dead part of me hopes you won't get well.

Once you tear something down, you lose something mystical.

[somber music]

Before one matinee on a Saturday,

I joined other actors on Broadway,

collecting signatures,

and consequently arrived a little bit late

for the half hour call, which is the time

you have to be in the theater, and there in my dressing room

was Jerry Schoenfeld of the Shubert Organization.

"Where have you been?"

I said, "Look, I've been collecting signatures

to save those theaters."

"That's not your responsibility, you're here to do the play."

"I--no," I said, "I'm here to be part of Broadway."

[thudding]

[crumbling]

People watched that claw of the bulldozer

tear in to the Morosco Theater

and rip it down brick by brick.

They were holding each other up, and they were weeping

because the wrecking ball had just ruined

a Broadway theater.

It was just so tragic.

Ultimately, the Marriott Marquis Hotel

got built,

and it's among my least favorite buildings in New York.

But, I do think it was an important building

to get built.

It was the catalyst that really started development

in Times Square,

and it was very important to the city's growth.

I love this city,

through all of its ups and downs,

it's--it's cyclical,

and Broadway's cyclical, too.

[melancholic music]

It's been a lackluster season for New York theaters,

and the audiences have slumped.

Broadway hasn't really had a top flight musical,

and theatergoers are starved for musical excitement.

Musical theater is an American art form.

But, except for a few shows like A Chorus Line,

Annie, and 42nd Street,

it lost its way

into the '80s.

Broadway was down for the count.

But, once again,

it was really helped by the British.

Don't cry for me, Argentina

It was supposed to have been immortal

Well, I'm in love with musical theater.

I mean, if you really asked me what I was in love with.

I'm afraid it's not marriage,

or anything like that, it's musicals.

I mean, it's--it's musicals.

I--I live for musical theater, I just--just love it.

In 1979,

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh

get together, and Andrew says to Cameron,

"I have this crazy idea about doing a show

based on T.S. Eliot's nonsense poems about cats.

Andrew proceeded to ask

everybody he ever knew

in the theater, all his great collaborators,

um, to get involved with him,

and every single one of them said, "This is the worst idea

that you've ever had in your life."

We went for now a legendary drunken lunch,

which ended up back in his house.

You see it starts in B flat.

And he played me 8 or 10 of the numbers.

[cheerful piano music]

And there's only one place it could go.

It could go back to G flat, and just do as it does

in the--like that, but of course...

And I went, "You know, I think you're right, Andrew,

there is something there."

But, she's actually saying, "Touch me,

- for God's sake, touch me." - I think he's just

unbelievably brave.

So many people must've been telling him

he was crazy when he was doing Cats.

It was a blind leap into the dark.

None of us knew what we had.

All we knew was that the moment a cat first came on stage

in the first preview, it was either going to be

the worst moment anybody had ever seen

in the history of the theater, and all our friends

would be laughing all the way,

or it wasn't.

Can you imagine being in Cats the first time around

and telling your friends what you were doing?

"What are you up to at the minute?"

"You know the guy who wrote Evita?

He's written a show based on T.S. Eliot's poems,

and we're all playing cats."

"What?"

Bernie Jacobs went to see Cats in London.

The next day, Bernie's grandson asked

if he could go back to see it again,

and Bernie said, "Well, if the kids like it,

maybe there's something in it."

Bernie and Jerry were prepared to do anything

to have it.

They smelled the coffee.

They smelled there was something new and different

that would bring audiences flooding back to the theater.

The Shuberts had just restored the Winter Garden Theatre,

painting everything gold leaf and it was beautiful.

Trevor Nunn said, "I want it all black."

Like, "What, we just restored this theater

for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and now you wanna

paint it all black?"

It has to be black, because Cats begins in the dark.

"Can you see in the dark?" is the opening line.

Can you see in the dark?

Because Jellicles can and Jellicles do

Jellicles do and Jellicles can

Jellicles can and Jellicles do

So much of it was physical.

This was a complete transformation

of the Broadway theater.

It was environmentally completely changed.

The walls were covered and the actors

were all running up and down the aisles.

So, it had enormous, enormous impact.

[singing indistinctly]

Cats took off in this extraordinary way.

[mellow music]

Cats, which was a big hit in England,

is more than a show biz story,

it's a business story, for big bucks are involved.

We had an advance sale today of approximately $6 million,

which I'm sure, in dollars, is the biggest advance ever.

Customers wanted the feeling

that they were getting from the movies.

They wanted extravaganza,

they wanted spectacle.

Even with all the ballyhoo,

all the expensive costumes and lighting,

the advance sales, no one can be sure of a hit

until the opening night reviews are in.

Bernie Jacobs hated the critics,

and they weren't particularly kind to the show.

The show drove a lot of Broadway people crazy,

particularly Frank Rich at the New York Times.

The New York Times had the power,

and if they didn't like a show, that was it.

Until Cats.

Cats ran 18 years on Broadway and had countless tours

all over the country,

and made even more money than A Chorus Line.

Cats instituted changes on Broadway

like merchandising shows.

They probably sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth

of Cats T-shirts over the years.

Cats was the new beginning of theater

as part of popular culture.

And I mean world popular culture.

Also, Cats was the beginning of the end, in my opinion,

because Broadway began to be priced out of existence.

One more day.

One day more.

It was a whole new take from the British

of what the Broadway musical could be.

And that carried into Les Misérables,

Phantom of the Opera...

[dramatic music]

Miss Saigon.

These were massive productions

just for the pure spectacle.

They had rock music and they were visual.

Tourists didn't need to really understand

a lot of English to get those shows.

Come, everyone, come and share the American Dream!

I did Miss Saigon

in complete innocence.

I had no idea how high the stakes are,

how intense Broadway is.

The pressures are exponentially greater.

Come and get more than your share,

the American Dream!

Some of these shows I would go see,

and I felt like they were pageants.

I didn't feel like I was witnessing

that wonderful, fragile thing

of a human being standing center stage

opening their heart and inviting me inside.

I felt like I was watching something parade past me,

and it required nothing of me.

The era of British spectacle

coincided with a time on Broadway

when AIDS hit the industry.

When AIDS hit, and you know,

we didn't know what it was,

and people just started dying,

and everyone was terrified of everybody and everything.

Do you breathe the air and then you get AIDS?

What is it, what is it?

It was terrible.

And there was a high concentration

on Broadway.

[mixed shouting]

The ascent of the British musical

coincided with AIDS, because all these artists

that should have been making shows at the time

were dying.

[somber music]

And all of a sudden, there's a vacuum.

When the AIDS tragedy hit,

the theater community was particularly hard hit by it.

In the late 1980s, I was diagnosed with AIDS,

and at that time, we weren't living very long.

We lost a lot of artists during that time,

and I was lucky to have been around

and known them.

It's a tight little family group,

and you couldn't pick up The New York Times

without seeing an obituary for a young man.

The AIDS epidemic was a devastating moment

in an American theater history.

We lost some of the greatest talents

that we've ever had,

and we lost other talents who never had a chance to prove

how great they were gonna be.

Michael Bennett was just getting started,

he was younger than me.

Imagine what he could've done had he not succumbed to AIDS.

[sighing]

It was...

It was devastating.

It was writers, composers, directors,

choreographers, dancers,

actors, designers gone.

I don't know if we've ever really recovered.

While Broadway was, for lack of better words, grieving,

this invasion happened.

Quite a lot of the Broadway theater community

didn't like what we were doing, and why should they?

Why would they?

They had their own stories to tell,

and if they resented the commercial success

of the Andrew Lloyd Webber, Cameron Mackintosh musicals,

that can only have been healthy.

Resent it and do better, and they did.

I love it when ya tell me about the old days.

The old days?

I don't even remember them anymore,

they were such a long time ago.

American plays give us back ourselves

and give us back our stories

in a very, very, very intimate way

and empower us to go forward.

What was your grandmother like?

Hm.

Tiny.

My grandfather had to pick her up

to see the Statue of Liberty.

[audience laughing]

That must've been some day.

It was what they dreamed of all their life

to get to America.

And when they saw that statue,

they started to cry, the women were wailing,

the men were shaking, everybody praying,

you know why?

Because they were free.

Because they took one look at that statue and said,

"This is not a Jewish woman,

we're gonna have problems again."

[applause]

People who write about the fragility

of the human condition

in a way that is meaningful and moving,

those are the people who give the theater

its true body and spirit.

They are what makes the theater

different than an amusement park.

[soft music]

August Wilson had a vision about what he wanted to say

about African American history,

and he wanted to say it through the medium

of live theater.

My plays, the ideas and attitudes of the character,

first of all, they come out of the Blues.

For me, the music was a way into the culture.

I said, "This is mine, this is me."

It was like I was a part of something

that was larger than myself.

I go, "How can I use this?"

If I could make the plays out of this material,

then I would be doing something.

In August's work,

I found a sense of poetry.

I found unique characters who I immediately recognized,

and they jumped off the page to me.

I knew those characters,

because I had encountered them personally.

All his plays started at the Yale Repertory Theatre

where he could develop the work before it opened on Broadway.

Black is beautiful, see?

Yale and Lloyd Richards

created a partnership with August.

They realized his plays needed to be nurtured,

because they were rich, detailed, complex plays

that often ran three and a half hours.

How come you ain't never liked me?

Liked you?

Who in the hell ever said

I got to like you?

What law is there to say I got to like you?

Do you want to stand up in my face

and ask me some damn

fool-ass question like that?

Talk about liking somebody.

Come here, boy, when I talk to you.

He wrote the play Fences.

And it won the Pulitzer,

and then it went on to win the Tony,

it won the Drama Critics' Award.

It still today is one of the most commercially successful

straight plays, dramatic plays

ever to be on Broadway.

It is my responsibility, you understand that?

A man got to take care of his family.

You live in my house,

you sleep your behind on my bedclothes,

you put my food in your belly,

because you are my son, you are my flesh and blood,

not because I like you.

It is my duty to take care of you.

And don't you try and go through life

worried if somebody like you or not.

You best make sure that they are doing right by you.

How unusual was that play at that time?

A Black play about a Black family

on Broadway, are you kidding?

And then August Wilson said, "By the way,

I'm gonna write a cycle

of the African American experience."

Ten plays take place in all the decades

of the 20th century.

We made it clear to August Wilson

that we were gonna produce all his plays on Broadway

no matter what.

We didn't care if it made money,

we had a commitment, and we did everything he wrote.

And the Black audience discovered Broadway.

It's important to support American playwrights

because no one else is going to give language to our stories.

There is nothing quite like

sitting inside of a theater

and watching your world be revealed to you.

You're seeing a play that is about who you are

and that is about your country and your culture.

You done went down to the place

to get an abortion without telling me.

You can't just go get rid of it!

Why?

Look at Natasha!

I couldn't give her what she needed.

Why do I wanna go back and do it again?

I ain't got nothing else to give.

I can't give myself, how I'm gonna give her?

I don't understand what to do, how to be a mother,

you either love too much or don't love enough,

don't seem like there's no middle ground!

August is the keeper of history for us.

He was a great poet,

but he also had the uncanny ability

to speak the truth.

You need an August Wilson to come along

to discuss the majesty of these men and women

who are trapped inside of this block

called American racism

and how do they hold on to their dignity

and their sense of self-worth.

The theater, for some of us,

is where you went instead of going to church

or the synagogue.

We felt that you had a social,

political responsibility.

Plays had to be about something.

There's another kind of attraction

to doing something that you feel is truly new,

truly challenging to an audience,

and is about something that's important.

There's just such a feeling of risk and danger

in giving people something they have never seen before.

It moves the goal posts a little bit.

In the '80s and '90s,

you had plays dealing with important issues.

That opened up a way for more plays

that had immediacy.

And because of the AIDS crisis,

you have people in the theater who have to address something

that is of immediate concern to them,

because they and their friends are dying.

It afflicts mostly homosexuals and drug addicts.

Mostly--hemophiliacs are also--

Homosexuals and drug addicts.

Angels in America began with the AIDS crisis,

because we were in the center of the hurricane,

and it demanded a response.

So at the Eureka Theater in San Francisco,

we applied with Tony Kushner

for a commissioning grant for a new play,

and we began a six-year odyssey

developing that play.

And then someone called me up and said,

"Tony Kushner wants to come over and talk to you."

And so, through a series of wonderful circumstances,

I ended up directing it on Broadway.

It was unapologetically political

and unconditionally human.

It was this expansive, complicated vision of America.

Greetings, Prophet!

The great works begins.

The messenger has arrived.

[dramatic music]

This was more than a play.

Once you have a big hit on Broadway,

it becomes something that people talk about

at dinner parties and in their living rooms,

and what Tony did was he brought this discussion

into the mainstream.

People were talking openly about gay culture,

and there was a kind of discussion

that you hadn't had before.

You can't say that Angels caused the openness to gay life

that occurred over the '90s and through today,

but it was the leading cultural indicator

of the fact that gay people were claiming center stage.

- I'm a Mormon. - I'm a homosexual.

This is what Broadway is about.

Great theater is a mirror to the human condition,

to us, to people,

and how we're really all the same

despite our differences, our perceived differences,

be it if we're from a different race,

a different gender, different sexual orientation,

we're really all the same,

and that's what theater shows us.

[rock music]

Broadway audiences want shows about the here and now.

In the '90s, Jonathan Larson was working on Rent,

because he wanted to write a show

about what was going on in the city then.

Rent was about 20-somethings

living in New York City trying to figure out

how to make their dreams come true

in a world that felt like

it was ripping apart at the seams.

Rent opened at the New York Theatre Workshop

down on East 4th Street.

It's this gritty, gritty story that involves drugs and AIDS

and all of these issues,

managing to strike a chord in a way

that was bigger than anything that was going on on Broadway.

All of our advisors were telling us,

keep that show off Broadway.

Nobody on Broadway wants to see a musical

about drug addiction, HIV, and death.

There really hadn't been a contemporary musical

that was capturing the spirit of our times

since A Chorus Line.

La vie Bohème,

la vie Bohème.

Rent moved to Broadway,

and it's on the cover of the news weeklies,

and it's in the windows of Bloomingdale's.

The impact is felt everywhere throughout the culture.

We sold the first two rows in the orchestra section

for 20 bucks.

We would have kids sleeping overnight on West 41st Street

to get those $20 tickets.

The process of bringing young people back to Broadway

started with Rent.

525,600 minutes.

How do you measure, measure a year?

Jonathan was writing Rent

because he wanted to write a show

that used the musical vernacular of his generation.

Love.

Measure in love.

Measure, measure a life in love.

Seasons of love.

Jonathan used to say, "I want to write a musical

for my people."

[soft singing]

One of the things that Broadway does at its best

is focus on how the culture is changing

and work to move it forward.

[soft music]

As a playwright, you're always looking for

how to make a character original,

and I thought, wouldn't it be fun

to have a tough gal gangster?

And then, when I was writing The Nap,

a friend of mine had just transitioned.

And that's what you're looking for

is just that little extra twist.

And that's where Waxy came from.

I wanted to be an attractive young woman.

I became a woman just in time for a hysterectomy.

Of course, you write a character like that

and then you have to cast them.

So where are you gonna find a transgender actor

who's transitioned to become a woman

who has a great comic sensibility

and you could also believe could kill someone

with their bare hands.

[laughing]

Are you all right?

I don't know what's going on, dear.

I wanted to do this particular show

because Waxy's transgenderism

isn't the crux of who she is,

nor is it the crux of the play.

She's funny just because she's funny,

not because she's transgender.

The Filipinos lost five million.

Who are they?

Filipinos are people who live in the Philippines.

I know that, but who are they?

A betting syndicate.

It was very clear that in 2018,

one was not going to cast somebody

who was not transgender to play a transgender role.

From the top, everyone.

Broadway now represents

so many different parts of who we are

that have never been put on stage.

[bass music]

It had taken decades for the city and the state

to finally realize that eminent domain

is the only way they were gonna clean 42nd Street up.

Basically, what you do is you dispossess everybody there

of their rights.

The 42nd Street Development Project,

we moved 400 businesses, including the theaters,

which were porn places.

We would be responsible

for eight of the theaters on 42nd Street,

and the mission was to get these theaters restored

to help cultivate passion for the arts in the city.

And then it really took off when Michael Eisner,

who was running Disney,

noticed how much money was being made on Broadway.

What happened is I saw the world changing.

I saw Andrew Lloyd Webber creating musicals

that were now worldwide events.

They were more than just Broadway,

and I said, "You know, this could be a business."

[soft music]

So Michael Eisner came to see the New Amsterdam Theatre,

which was the most beautiful theater on Broadway,

even then in its complete deterioration.

We tried to tidy up as much as we could,

but the whole theater was really falling apart.

It was a disaster.

It had mushrooms growing in the seats

and it had a hole in the ceiling.

It was like raining inside.

There were birds inside,

there was bird doo all over the place.

And then we went up the back stairs

and we got to the top step, and there was a dead cat.

But you could see the skeletons of something great.

The only way I could justify it

to our shareholders and everybody else

is that it really didn't cost the Disney Company that much.

Disney received large tax breaks from the city,

but city officials believe

the economic boost it'll generate

will more than make up for the loss in tax revenue.

The Disney Company pretty much insisted

they would go ahead if we imagine,

we the City and the State,

would give the Disney Company money

to restore the New Amsterdam.

We were roundly criticized,

but we needed to get a real blue chip tenant.

This is gold for us, getting Disney.

It tells the world that this is a safe place to come

and the entertainment spot in New York City.

We couldn't have asked for more.

Now Disney has the biggest theater on 42nd Street,

so it's totally changed.

It's garish as hell, but so is Times Square,

and people love that.

Only Disney could turn your favorite video

into a real live Broadway show.

Before the New Amsterdam Theatre,

Disney came to town with Beauty and the Beast,

which, frankly, theater people didn't like.

Everyone's terrified that Disney was gonna turn Broadway

and Times Square into Disneyland

with these musicals based on cartoon movies.

It's on Broadway!

Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

I can't wait to go.

But nobody going to the theater

had ever seen anything like The Lion King.

Nants ingonyama bagithi baba

Sithi uhm ingonyama

Ingonyama nengw' enamabala

Ingonyama nengw' enamabala

This was family entertainment,

something that you could bring your children to.

That was a huge change.

The circle of life.

If you're going to get this huge audience

of young people seeing this kind of theater

for the first time, and it's meaningful to them,

they will understand the power of live theater.

Disney did take a huge risk by hiring Julie Taymor,

who was an avant-garde mask maker, director,

and a woman.

There was no reference point

to what Julie Taymor was doing.

Brilliant, but kinda out there.

Things with masks, puppets.

It is purely theatrical.

People want to be surprised,

they want what circus gives you.

Disney knew betting on Julie Taymor

to come up with something

that you couldn't even have imagined

was the key to success.

The circle of life.

When you could create a musical which behaves like a movie

and generate huge profits into the hundreds of millions,

then Broadway became interesting to corporations.

You are the dancing queen,

young and sweet...

So that is why you're seeing the rise

of all these movie adaptations

and these jukebox musicals.

You have to get audiences to show up.

They want to see something familiar.

Walk like a man, fast as I ca,

walk like a man from you.

Big Broadway musicals got so expensive to produce,

they need to run for a very long time

to make their money back.

And once they're established as hits,

they're gold mines for everybody.

As blockbusters began to bloom,

it changed the whole dynamic.

Hello.

As the prices went up, the stakes went up.

Did you know that Jesus lived here in the U.S.A.?

We're like Las Vegas now.

You need a bankable star.

If you do a show without a big star, mm, don't know.

The producers are nervous about it.

It's a bit of a gamble.

Tennessee Williams once said

that theater is the purest form of religion.

But when the checkbooks came into control,

I began to think, has Broadway lost

what I would call its soul?

Where are the new American voices

going to get their chance?

Or is Broadway just going to become big jukebox musicals,

big revival of play with movie star,

or play we take from London that's been a smash?

That's the thing that I think Broadway

has to keep an eye on.

There is no magic formula.

Every five years, maybe, a show comes along

that defies all the rules.

It doesn't follow any particular pattern.

A good storyteller is the secret.

I'm thrilled the White House called me tonight,

because I'm actually working on a hip-hop album.

It's a concept album about the life of someone

I think embodies hip-hop,

Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton.

You laugh, but it's true!

I saw Lin-Manuel performing the first song of Hamilton

in front of the First Lady and President Obama,

and like many other people, I went nuts for it.

How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore

and a Scotsman dropped in the middle of a forgotten

spot in the Caribbean by providence,

impoverished, in squalor

grow up to be a hero and a scholar?

And he wrote his first refrain, a testament to his pain.

Well, the word got around,

they said, "This kid is insane, man."

Took up a collection just to send him to the mainland.

"Get your education,

don't forget from whence you came,

and the world is gonna know your name,

what's your name, man?"

Alexander Hamilton.

He continually said to me, "No, no, no, Oskar,

it's an album, it's not a musical,"

but just singing that song, it was clear to me

this was a great musical in the offering.

We needed to start Hamilton in a not-for-profit theater,

so we thought, "Let's do this in the same very place

that A Chorus Line started in 1975.

Let's do it at the Public Theater."

This is one of those nights

where you feel the earth shake a little bit.

You feel the world start to change.

This is opening night of Hamilton.

And I am not throwing away my shot,

I am not throwing away my shot.

We're gonna rise up...

The Public Theater did its production of Hamilton,

and then it moved to Broadway.

I am not throwing away my,

not throwing away my shot!

His ability to both move and agitate through his lyrics,

and then with these melodies, which just--

you don't know how he's done it.

I mean, I'm sitting here now talking about it

and the music is drumming in my brain.

I've been reading Common Sense by Thomas Paine,

so men say that I'm intense or I'm insane.

He's done for musical theater

what Sondheim has done for musical theater.

He's changed it forever.

...that all men are created equal.

And when I meet Thomas Jefferson,

I'ma compel him to include women in the sequel!

Work!

It makes theater relatable to the hip-hop generations.

It exposes them to the theater, the power of theater.

This is stuff I can relate to and be moved by.

You know, this is New York City.

In the greatest city,

in the greatest city in the world.

In the greatest city in the world.

[mixed chatter]

Hamilton plays once a month

for inner city public school kids for $10.

I went one time,

and it was breathtaking

how inspired they were.

It brings you back

to what the theater is supposed to be.

It was one of the most amazing things

I've ever experienced!

I relate to them, like,

they look like me and my classmates.

[mellow music]

Hamilton is about the Founding Fathers,

and yet all the Founding Fathers are played

by Black and Hispanic actors.

And there is suddenly this explosion

of Black faces on Broadway in a way

that was really starting to reflect America.

Hire the most brilliant people that you possibly can

and put 'em center stage.

I think that there's the recognition on Broadway

that things need to change.

Broadway has always been sort of a shotgun marriage

between art and commerce.

Fortunately, on the commercial side,

there's the sense that diversity is good business.

But we need to just tap ourselves on the shoulder

and say, "Are we doing enough?"

With Hamilton and now Harry Potter,

we have helped develop

a whole new generation of theatergoers

who would never have gone before.

Hopefully they fall in love with the art form,

fall in love with using their imagination

in that way.

In our first year,

over 60% of our audience were first-time theatergoers.

Of that 60%, 15% have gone on

to see other pieces of theater.

So what J.K. Rowling did for reading,

we might be able to do

a little bit of the same for theater.

[upbeat music]

But in the heyday of Broadway, it was so much cheaper.

People went to the theater all the time.

When I first arrived in New York,

the top price for a theater ticket,

the best seat in the house, was $9.90,

9.90, that was the best,

and it went all the way down to like two bucks.

Now there are tickets for Broadway shows

being sold at the box office for $800, $1,000.

It's ultimately self-destructive,

because young people certainly are not gonna go.

I find gauging people unappealing,

and I think people are being gauged.

The amounts of money that people are being asked to pay

to see things are insane.

But it's not called show charity,

it's called show business.

[piano music]

In the '70s,

out of every four people that went to Broadway,

only one was a tourist.

And now, of every four people, three are tourists.

So we are now evolving into something

that looks much more like a theme park

than a cultural center.

There's a bit of me that regrets

that Broadway has become so commodified.

There's a bit of me that walks through Times Square now

and it's so bright and it's so shiny,

and I think, you know, where have all the rats

and the hookers gone?

But I know that is a bad thought,

but a bit of me thinks it.

The thing that I never fail to absolutely love

is Times Square.

It's always full of people.

Doesn't matter what time of the day it is,

it doesn't matter what the weather is,

there's just always people there.

I love the razzmatazz of it, I love the circus feel of it.

I love the show biz feel of it.

It always makes me feel overwhelmed

and full of love, actually.

I absolutely love it.

We've got shows on Broadway like Phantom

and like Hamilton or Harry Potter

that will probably be running when I'm dead.

I don't have anything against that.

As long as we've got a healthy mix

of different kinds of work.

If we don't have a big tent,

we're not gonna have a theater that matters to America.

[clearing throat]

Yorkshire, Sheffield, cuppa tea.

Tetley's.

[laughing]

Anybody who says, "I know what I'm doing,"

is lying to you.

[mixed chatter]

I cannot tell you the amount of shows I've had

that I've really loved and believed in

that didn't do very well.

You may have all the confidence in the world,

and suddenly it opens and it's terrible.

It takes every bit as much blood, sweat, tears,

and nerve to get a flop show on

as it is to get a hit show on.

What makes it work?

Risk.

When the element of risk is there,

when you can smell it in the air,

when that's there, you probably got a good shot

at making something happen.

Thought you'd be out there, you know, like operating.

You can take your coat off if you want.

I'll keep it on, thank you, I've been out.

- You've been out? - I enjoy doing comedies.

There's something very honest about the process.

If they're not laughing, it's not working.

[laughing]

Well, I guess she's a woman now.

Women can be violent.

Joan of Arc, Medea, Naomi Campbell.

You have to be able to gamble with other people's money

with enough force, with enough confidence

to push that little sucker over the top.

Opening night, I was thinking to myself,

"I'm 56 years old,

I'm mixed race and transgender.

I've survived addiction, homelessness, and sex work,

and here I am, sitting in a dressing room,

opening a play on Broadway."

I wanted to be an attractive young woman.

I became a woman just in time for a hysterectomy.

[laughing]

You don't care, do you?

What do you mean?

Flirting.

Wash your mouth out, you think I'm flirting?

Oh, yeah, you're a right flirt.

I've got my coat on!

Well, it's coming clean through the material.

I was nervous opening night.

I'll stop being me and just do my job.

I'm cool with the flirting.

No, man, you blew it, that's gone.

But when I heard the audience laugh,

I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Incredible, this is going to be a challenge.

Yeah!

[cheering]

[soft music]

[shouting]

[applause]

[mellow music]

We're having a ridiculous amount of fun.

There is a real historical significance

to what's going on tonight,

because the transgender community

is represented on Broadway this season

like it's never been represented before.

We need the voice of the marginalized.

Right now is the time.

Our responsibility as human beings

is to find ourselves in other people's stories.

I want Broadway to be reflective

of the world that I live in

and the world that we all live in.

It's no surprise to me that Broadway is having

record-breaking years,

and I believe that will only grow

and grow and grow.

'Cause you started it!

Ah, ahhh!

I'm absolutely convinced that the more time

we as a people and certainly a younger generation

spend sort of living here,

there will be a greater premium on a live experience,

an experience that is happening now.

Where is the devil in Evelyn...

In the theater, you have to be present.

You have to be present as an artist

and you have to be present as an audience member

for the experience to really happen,

and when you see a great performance,

it is a spiritual experience.

Broadway is like some old 42nd Street hooker.

She just keeps plugging,

just keeps plugging.

Sometimes she has new shoes on

and sometimes they're old broken down shoes,

but I think the things that I love remain with me.

I have these shows that I've seen

that I've purposely moved into the apartments in my mind

so I can go up there and visit them

from time to time.

Theater is not about making money,

it's about putting on a show and entertaining people

and grabbing their attention

and telling them something that you think is important.

At times I go, "It's all doomed,

New York, Broadway,"

but then somehow, periodically,

things sprout up that are miraculous

and wonderful and startling and intimate,

and so one just has to hope and pray

that that keeps happening,

because that's what's great about it.

On Broadway, you can walk out on stage

and there's 1,600 people

you've never met in your life before,

and by the end of that time,

you feel intimate with them.

I mean, it's ridiculous when you think about it.

I mean, why are all these people quiet?

Why do they shut up and quietly listen?

Why?

It's like, what a weird thing to do,

but they do, and it's something they've been doing

for thousands of years.

Listening to someone telling a story,

a story that teaches you something about you,

about the way life is.

It reverberates with you and on such a deep level

for a long, long time, maybe your whole life.

Live theater can change your life

or your perception, even if it's only that much.

That'll do.

I just think it'll keep going.

It always takes on different forms,

and sometimes a play comes along just in time,

just before you've given up hope,

but they do come along.

[upbeat music]

Walking down Broadway,

head up high.

Checking out the people, yeah,

as they pass by, y'all.

The lights so bright,

you know, they hurt my eyes.

But I don't mind, I don't mind,

'cause I'm hypnotized.

'Cause I'm up on Broadway, yeah.

Doing the Broadway walk.

I'm up on Broadway, yeah.

I'm doing the Broadway walk.

Walking down Broadway.

You know, I'm just a face in the crowd.

But I got a groove, and I'm walking proud.

'Cause I'm up on Broadway, yeah,

and I'm doing the Broadway walk.

I'm up on Broadway, yeah,

doing the Broadway walk.

Hey, man, what you doing up there on Broadway?

I'm doing the Broadway walk, man.

Doing the Broadway walk.

Doing the Broadway walk.

Lord have mercy, doing the Broadway walk.

[indistinct shouting]

I feel good.

Doing the Broadway walk.

I'm up on Broadway, yeah,

doing the Broadway walk.

Listen good, y'all.

I'm up on Broadway, yeah,

doing the Broadway walk.

I'm up on Broadway, yeah,

doing the Broadway walk.

[lively jazz music]