• RIP Encores!

Politics appear to have claimed another scalp with New York City Center’s venerable Encores! series. The new artistic director Lear deBessonet, working with Clint Ramos in the curious new position of “producing creative director”, has decided that entertainment is not as important for modern audiences as relevance. In addition to “revivals of hidden gems” (no argument there), deBessonet says that the future of the series lies in “productions where artists reclaim work for our time through their own personal lens, and celebrations that look at the ways musical theater can connect us, in this city and across the country”. For next year, they have chosen two black-themed musicals, “The Life” and “The Tap Dance Kid”, dating respectively from 1997 and 1983 (a third show, to be drawn from a classic rather than forgotten musical, will be announced later). In other words, the point is not the music or even the quality of the work, but the subject matter.

I suppose they mean well with their personal lenses and connections, but did they really have to pick Encores! for this? The series, consistently among the brightest lights in New York’s musical firmament since its launch in 1994, has been dedicated to unearthing forgotten musicals of the past in concert versions using their original orchestrations. Every show features a full glorious onstage orchestra of around 30 musicians — often more than the number of actors — with the production fitted into the remaining stage space. The librettos are generally heavily abridged (or entirely reconstructed in the case of older shows), actors perform with books in hand, and sets and costumes are kept fairly simple. The music is always front and center – as long-time Encores! producer Jack Viertel put it, “It was always about the score”, referring both to the choice of shows and the productions themselves. Indeed, the original mission of the series was explicitly to “celebrate the works of America’s most important composers and lyricists”.

It has had spectacular successes, including some that moved directly to Broadway (most notably the mega-hit Chicago), and the productions are always of the highest quality. Some shows were inevitably better than others, and the creaky books in particular, albeit revised from the originals, made it pretty clear why many of these musicals are forgotten. But we can forgive a lot with music at this level. The economics of modern-day Broadway rarely allow for orchestras on this scale, and this is music by Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Rodgers & Hart and others, some of the greatest music that America – or anyone – has ever produced. Being able to hear this music as originally conceived is not only a nostalgia trip but tremendous entertainment on its own merits. It helped, of course, that the short period – two weeks from first rehearsal to final performance – attracted the best musical performers on Broadway.

Nothing wrong with the two musicals chosen by the new team, though it’s worth noting that both were written and composed largely by white artists. But do they really have to be “reclaimed”? That’s what Broadway is for, not Encores!, and it’s not what we’re paying for. The shows are both in any case awfully recent by Encores! standards; only three of the 79 shows produced in the series thus far (including two repeats) were from the 1980s and only six from the 1970s. (An Encores! director had managed to insert her own recent show, 2002’s Thoroughly Modern Millie, into this year’s lineup until the pandemic put paid to it.) Does a show from 1997 really need updating? Did these guys even see the original production to know what they’re revising?

If they’re looking for black-centered shows, how about musicals by actual black artists like Scott Joplin or Duke Ellington? Or something recalling legendary performers who appeared in the famed Blackbirds revues like Bojangles Robinson, Adelaide Hall, Ethel Waters and Lena Horne? Or celebrated black versions of classic pieces, like The Hot Mikado or Carmen Jones? Those choices, all from the 1920s to 1940s, would involve a lot of work for various reasons, but they would truly honor the road that black artists have traveled.

But that’s assuming that a black-themed season is a good idea in the first place. The series has offered plenty of black-focused musicals in the past – St. Louis Woman, Golden Boy, Lost in the Stars, Cabin in the Sky, House of Flowers, Purlie – but always for the quality of the music rather than the subject matter, a much more dignified approach that allows the works to compete on their own merits. It has also offered great parts for black and other minority performers in pretty much all its shows. Picking musicals simply because they deal in some form or other with racial issues is mere tokenism, which does nothing for whatever cause the artistic director thinks he’s tackling and, not least, dishonors the many black composers and creators who have contributed to the art form over the years. The “connection” that he is seeking is in fact a disconnection from our shared culture. Pitiful.

I’ve never been a fan of those who live forever in the present tense, and have always treasured Encores! for offering an invaluable link to our past, a window to just what made Broadway’s Golden Age golden. Sad to see it fall victim to the politicization of everything. It was a nice run while it lasted.