This is not your father's Broadway.
In one generation, the whole Times Square area, and the people who make it hum, have transformed. Rows of rundown brownstones are disappearing behind construction fences to emerge as gleaming hotels. Chain stores are battling to plant flagship outlets in once-seedy Times Square. New theatres are under construction. There isn't an XXX sign to be found on 42nd Street between Broadway and Port Authority.
As a public service and guide, Playbill On-Line here lists the people, places and things that made the Old Broadway great, along with their New Broadway counterparts:
Old Broadway/New Broadway:
Porno Shops/Designer Coffee Shops Nederlander and Ambassador empty for years/Nederlander and Ambassador booked with top hits, Rent and Noise/Funk
Of Mice and Men /Disney
The Line at the Paramount/The $20 Line at Rent
Ed Sullivan/David Letterman
The Lunts/Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker
Turn of the Century (1900)/Turn of the Century (2000)
Mr. Abbott/Tommy Tune
Tommy Tune/Savion Glover
Ragtime/Ragtime
The New Yorker/New York Magazine
Pulitzer Prize/Tony Awards
The Method/Pilates
Orange Julius/Starbuck's
Bobby Clark/Bill Irwin
Apollo and Lyric Theatres/Ford Center
Ethel Merman/Patti Lupone
The Carnegie Deli/The Soup Nazi
Gray's Drugstore/TKTS
The Theatre Guild/Lincoln Center Theatre
The Ritz Brothers/The Flying Karamazov Brothers
The Morosco/The Marquis
The Astor/The Marriott Marquis
Bill "Bojangles" Robinson/Gregory Hines
Rodgers & Hammerstein write hit after hit/Andrew Lloyd Webber
The British can't write a hit musical/Andrew Lloyd Webber
Robert Russell Bennett/Jonathan Tunick
$9.90 top/$75 top
The Group Theatre/Blue Man Group
David Merrick/Garth Drabinsky
Houses of Prostitution/The Virgin Megastore
Bob Fosse/Wayne Cilento
Agnes De Mille/Graciela Daniele
Michael Kidd/Susan Stroman
The Russian Tea Room/Joe Allen
Mama Leone's/Carmine's
The Conning Tower/Liz Smith
Dorothy Parker/Rosie O'Donnell
Katharine Cornell/Cherry Jones
Martinis/Diet Pepsi
Julian Eltinge/Charles Busch
Upstairs at the Downstairs/Forbidden Broadway
Alexander Woolcott/Ken Mandelbaum
Parking Lots/Chain Hotels
Vaudeville/New Vaudeville
Sardi's/Sardi's
-- By Robert Viagas
Want to play? Send your Old Broadway/New Broadway item to Managing Editor Robert Viagas at [email protected]
Here are the results so far:
From Mary Ellen Kelly ([email protected]):
"The Music Master"/"Master Class"
"Trilby"/"Phantom"
"The Owl and the Pussycat"/"Cats"
"Twentieth Century"/"Titanic"
Meredith Willson/August Wilson
Belasco's "Madame Butterfly"/Boublil & Schonberg's "Miss Saigon"
Barrymore as Hamlet/Plummer as Barrymore
Ziegfeld at The New Amsterdam/Disney at The New Amsterdam
Mrs. Leslie Carter's bare feet in "Du Barry"/Tim Hopper's bare...in "Present Laughter"
Hammerstein's Republic/The New Victory
David Belasco/Andrew Lloyd Webber
From Craig Rhyne:
Tennessee Williams & Elia Kazan/Jon Robin Baitz & Joe Mantello
From boggsv:
Gwen Verdon/Bebe Neuwirth
originals/revivals
From John Bronston:
Kurt Weill-Marc Blitzstein-Alan Jay Lerner/Stephen Sondheim
Chita Rivera/Chita Rivera
Gwen Verdon/Ann Reinking
Workshop/Pre-Broadway Tour
Turntable/Hydraulics
Vivian Blaine-Barbra Streisand/Faith Prince
