Conservative's Conscience

Closed Music Theater, victim of a changing culture

The generation gap and its impact on American culture
Hip Hop, I-Pods, MTV, changing tastes end a half century old tradition

The 1,800-seat, in-the-round style theatre, reached almost 400,000 people annually with its musical theatre performances, celebrity concerts, Shakespearean plays, and children's programming. Its 24,000 subscribers once made it the largest such theatre in New England, and placed it among the top ten of its kind in the nation.  

Beverly's North Shore Music Theater announced recently that its fifty-four year run is over.  An operation devoted to youth education and to the staging of original as well as famous musical shows, the theater will be missed by the thousands who supported it for a half century.

Various reasons are given for the inability of NSMT to continue.  The practical one, of course, is that it has debt up to its hips with not a chance to pay it off.  This includes $2.5 million owed to subscribers who paid in advance for the upcoming season that will never arrive.   

But the real reason for the closing, the one that has been eroding the revenue base for years, is never discussed - the generation gap and its impact on American culture.

The theater was best known for its re-creation of famous Broadway hits into a format that fit its stage-in-the-round.  Regardless of the content of the show itself, the production values (costumes, staging, musical accompaniment, etc.) were dependably imaginative and expertly presented.

No musical theater from Cape Cod to Ogunquit had more attractive offerings.

Concerning show content, no musical theater from Cape Cod to Ogunquit had more attractive offerings.  The music of all of America's great composers, Gershwin, Porter, Rogers and others, filled the enclosed dome to the delight of....

To the delight of whom?  That is the question.  And the answer to it explains the demise of NSMT.

Since the 1960s, American culture has gradually changed.  Finally, those who have resisted some aspects of change have been overcome by those who insisted upon a complete rejection of the old in favor of the new.  And the consequence of the shift has been to create empty seats in theaters that used to turn customers away. 

Why?

Tastes have changed.  Fifty years ago, the audience was made up of the young, middle-aged and seniors.  Thirty years ago, the young were hard to find in the better musical theaters, which were then supported by the middle-aged and the seniors - and there were plenty of them. 

But sometime after that, theater managers noticed that demand for tickets was dropping, and the audience was increasingly composed of white haired devotees who were not being replaced, as they once were. 

To attract a younger audience, one night appearances of popular personalities were mixed in with musical shows that ran for at least a week. 

But here too, theater managers bumped into the generation gap - personalities attractive to the white heads were ignored by the young; those attractive to the young were ignored by seniors.  And managers needed both, at both kinds of shows, to an increasing degree as the older generation died off. 

No satisfactory mixture was ever found.  Other summer theaters were closed for the same reason.  Beverly is the most recent and, perhaps, the most dramatic.

We are in fact witnessing the slow death of a culture.  The music of the operetta (say, Victor Herbert), has disappeared entirely.  The compositions of composers like Rogers or Berlin (who perhaps captured the American heart more than any other composer) is now sneered at as elevator music.  Shows with a story to tell (My Fair Lady) are ignored or dismissed as cornball.  All of this is now silenced in Beverly and in most other venues.

Change, of course, is natural.  And there has always been a degree of tension between the tastes of older and younger generations, but never before to the extent that exists today.  It is apparent in every field of endeavor.  But change for the sake of it is self-destructive.  Is that the case here?  Have no alternatives been offered?

Yes, they have, for example: Instead of, say, The King and I, we have Hair.  Interesting and meaningfully, some folks actually think this is an upgrade.   

The problem is that the modern replacement for the best musicals doesn't draw its own generation in sufficient numbers to keep the musical theater alive as it once was, pouring new material into the market year after year.  Broadway, the engine of the art form is, for all practical purposes, dead. 

Columns like this are jumped on as the ramblings of a man who isn't with it.  I suppose there is truth in that -- but not much. 

As one who sang professionally for years, I know the difference between good music and junk.  Those who turn their backs on America's great composers are rejecting a priceless gift that, if accepted, would never stop giving. 

Popular music today is filled with tasteless and tuneless poetry, simplistic, over-arranged songs and an occasional good piece of music that somehow manages to survive.   

Richard Rodgers, Ethel Merman, Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald and Fred Astaire were outstanding contributors to America's musical culture.  They couldn't make a living today doing what they do best.  To survive they would have to buy a guitar and a funny hat.

When that can be said about any culture...