HOT: Savion Glover is dazzling in Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk.

Expect Broadway's riches to trickle to South Florida

Broadway's revitalization has a juicy reciprocal quality: It is bound to be a tremendous boon to theater throughout the country, which has itself been a major contributor to Broadway's new lease on life. The implications -- for theatrical trickle-down within a year or two, for a resurgence and experimentation in the art form -- have South Florida producers feeling gleeful.

Two musicals born downtown just blocks apart -- Rent from the New York Theatre Workshop, Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk from the Joseph Papp Public Theater -- are at the center of the springtime frenzy. Rent wins the Pulitzer Prize for drama, gets its stars in a fashion/feature in Rolling Stone, stars in its own Bloomingdale's windows, snags a May 13 Newsweek cover.

Noise/Funk choreographer and star Savion Glover, an angularly graceful 22-year-old with a decade of Broadway savvy behind him, is everywhere: as a photo image above Times Square, working the new Virgin Megastore there, as a frequently recycled presence on MTV, doubling as a Tony nominee for choreography and acting.

Hallelujah. After justifiable worry about the aging of the audience, about theater's shrinking market, producers have proof that if you give the MTV-obsessed and the Web surfers something that speaks to them, moves like them and looks like them -- something great and funny and heart-rending -- they will come.

But this dueling Tony duo (Rent leads with 10 nominations vs. nine for Noise/Funk) isn't the only thing that has transformed the Great White Way into the Great White-Hot Way this season. No question, Broadway has sold itself well, despite a top ticket price of $75 for many shows. By Tony time, the League of American Theaters and Producers predicts a record-setting gross of $425 million, up from $406 million last season. The League estimates total attendance will pass 9.2 million, the highest level since 10.1 million people flocked to see such hits as Nicholas Nickleby, Dream Girls, Nine and Amadeus during the 1981-82 season. The 21 plays and 11 musicals (both new shows and revivals) this season are a good bump up from the 19 plays and five musicals of '94-95.

The secret of Broadway's newfound success? An abundance of things to see and sell, especially in the past month.

Superlative reviews

After a fallow fall and winter, critics have been cranking out one superlative-laced review after another over the last two months. As the New York Times' Vincent Canby observed in his review of the Peter Hall-directed An Ideal Husband (an Oscar Wilde play circa 1895): ``Not in years has a theater season closed with the last-minute arrival of such a variety of first-rate productions.''

We're talking the Steppenwolf Theater Company's kinetic Buried Child, a 1979 Pulitzer-winner in which Sam Shepard takes the myth of the ``happy'' American family to its dysfunctional extreme. Directed by Steppenwolf founder-turned-movie-star Gary Sinise, it has the same sort of rock-charged energy as Rent and Noise/Funk, just without the music. Rewritten and edited by Shepard, it qualifies as his Broadway debut, putting it in contention for the Tony as best new play.

And we're talking another Pulitzer winner about a dysfunctional clan -- Edward Albee's 1996 A Delicate Balance, impeccably produced by Lincoln Center Theater -- with sizzling Tony-nominated performances from the coolly elegant Rosemary Harris and the dryly brilliant Elaine Stritch.

And another hot revival, the cartoonishly boisterous A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, subtitled ``Nathan Lane Finally Gets His Tony.''

Palpable excitement

How rich is the 1995-96 Broadway season? Talk to Scott Zeiger, president of the Pace Theatrical Group (which brings South Florida and the rest of the country most of the touring Broadway theater we see), and you feel the flush of excitement through the phone line.

``I'm absolutely thrilled with Rent and Noise/Funk, that contemporary musical theater is being perceived as hypermainstream, as cutting edge, as selling out,'' said Zeiger, whose company is one of the investors in Rent.

``Younger artists are experimenting away from the multimillion-dollar gamble, and the press and public are embracing it. And I'm astonished at how many good plays there are. The stars [in the heavens] have just been lined up right.''

Which means potentially exciting things for South Florida Broadway fans, a year or two down the line.

``In South Florida and elsewhere, I want to deliver more than just revivals. I want a proper mixture and selection, just like you have in New York now,'' Zeiger said. ``I think Seven Guitars, Master Class, A Delicate Balance, Rent, Noise/Funk, Big, Victor/Victoria, The King and I and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum will all tour.''

Aiming beyond tourists

In New York, the traditional, lavish, $10 million dollar musical -- think Victor/Victoria with Julie Andrews (who just said no to her best actress Tony nomination, after her show was otherwise snubbed), think Big with its dance-on-a-giant-piano number -- is still a huge sell to the tourists who find Broadway as much of a magnet as the Statue of Liberty or Empire State Building. Heck, ask your neighbors from Miramar or your friend from Kendall what they saw on their last trip to Broadway, and you'll probably hear Cats or Miss Saigon or Phantom of the Opera -- moving tourist attractions with chandelier and helicopter.

But this season, thanks to great plays from the regionals (Shepard's Buried Child, August Wilson's Seven Guitars) and to the scorching Off-Broadway musical success of Noise/Funk and Rent, the Broadway menu has a depth, breadth and charge that it hasn't had in years.

``The recent revivals give people a chance to see plays that came and went, and that deserve to be seen again,'' said Michael Hall, producing artistic director of the Caldwell Theater Company in Boca Raton. ``And now Off-Broadway and Broadway are quickly picking up plays that have started in the regionals and nonprofit theaters [as in the case of Papa and Cowgirls, current Off-Broadway shows done earlier at the Caldwell].''

The Pope Theater Company's Louis Tyrrell sees the current Broadway season as ``a great indication that art will live in the toughest of times and environments. But it's still true that there's an overall sea shift of new work going from the regionals to New York, instead of the reverse.''

Hopeful sign

Coconut Grove Playhouse Producing Artistic Director Arnold Mittelman, who is one of the 720 Tony Award voters, thinks Broadway's resurgence is largely coincidental but still a hopeful sign.

``It's great. I feel my life's a bit redeemed, that I'm in a medium that still has the capacity to delight,'' he said. ``The more product there is on Broadway, the more an audience understands there's a vital art form. And maybe it will stimulate theatergoing here.''

Mittelman lauds Off-Broadway's leap, via Rent and Noise/Funk, from Broadway alternative to ``a feeder system to Broadway of its finest work.''

Which may or may not be such a good thing. Richard Kornberg, the press rep for Rent, is naturally happy about the widespread crossover success of that show, about how it may encourage Broadway to take more chances with tougher material. But he sees a bit of a downside to Broadway's celebratory spring.

``Everybody thought last season would be hot, but this one was,'' he said. ``Certain things seemed to come out of nowhere: Buried Child, Rent, Noise/Funk, all from nonprofit theaters. Whereas bigger shows are planned far in advance, and sometimes expectations about them aren't fulfilled. The nonprofits are so successful in transferring to Broadway that it's killing Off-Broadway. People used to go to Off-Broadway for critically acclaimed things and Broadway for commercial stuff.''

This season, you can get both by walking a few blocks in any direction from Times Square.