BroadwayCon Year Two: Less Snow, Bigger Venue

Last year, a major snowstorm shut down Broadway theaters, but the first ever Broadway fan convention went on as scheduled. And it ended up being a lot of fun. This year brought about some changes for BroadwayCon--no weather interference and a much larger venue (it moved from the New York Hilton Midtown to the massive Javits Convention Center). Aside from the distance from any subways, it proved to be a smart move.

The large rooms for panels and the huge BroadwayCon mainstage meant that it usually wasn't necessary to wait in line and you could walk into pretty much any panel and get a seat. The only time I saw a long line was for BroadwayCon First Look--performances from upcoming Broadway shows--on Sunday, and that's only because they cleared out the mainstage and then let people back in. There was also plenty of room to walk around without getting trampled on, even in the marketplace--the area for vendors, exhibitors, autographs, and photos.

My con experience started on Friday (the convention lasted from January 27 to the 29th) with the In Trousers reunion panel. In Trousers premiered at Playwrights Horizons in 1979 and is the first in William Finn's trilogy about Marvin (the other two are March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland, which make up Falsettos). Moderated by Jennifer Ashley Tepper, the panel included Finn, producer Ira Weitzman, and original cast members Alison Fraser, Chip Zien, and Mary Testa. It was a fascinating and honest discussion. We learned that everything was sped up on the recording so that all the songs could fit on a vinyl record and that's why it sounds a lot faster than the way it was actually sung. We learned that Mary Testa got her first Broadway show and had to make the painful decision to leave March of the Falsettos, which is why her character didn't end up being in the show. "It was besheret. Is that what you Jews say?" she said. But perhaps the best moment was when Zien admitted that he didn't know Marvin was gay. He wondered, "But where is he going?" about the song "Whizzer Going Down." He thought maybe he was going to Florida or something. Unfortunately, they didn't perform, but there was a lot of other singing the rest of the weekend (from professionals and fans).

I missed the opening ceremony because I was volunteering at the Show-Score booth (I'm one of the editors), asking people what shows they'd like to see in 2017. A highlight of the weekend was meeting theater fans from around the world. I especially enjoyed seeing parents sharing their kids' excitement.

My favorite post-it on the Show-Score wall of what people want to see in 2017 (and no, I didn't write this).

After the marketplace shut down at 6, the only thing open was the mainstage. Since my main goal for Friday was to see "Don't Quit Your Night Job" at 9, I ended up getting to the BroadwayCon mainstage during "Twenty Years on Pride Rock" and staying for the BroadwayCon Cabaret and the Annie 40 year reunion panel. Not a bad way to pass the time, especially since composer Charles Strouse. director Martin Charnin, and Annie herself, Andrea McArdle, were there.

"Night Job," the brainchild of Steve Rosen, Sarah Saltzberg, and David Rossmer, is a delightful combination of improv and musical theater, but they don't do it too often anymore, so I hope they at least make it a BroadwayCon tradition. They had plenty of special guests, including Santino Fontana, who sang a musical Mad Libs version of "Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful" from Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella.

The weekend was made up of many joyous moments like that one, but BroadwayCon wasn't a complete bubble away from everything happening in the country (this was the same weekend that Trump signed an executive order banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States). Many speakers took the opportunity to get political. Paula Vogel was at BroadwayCon First Look to get people excited about Indecent (I already am, having seen it Off-Broadway. Get your tickets.), but she also spoke about how important it is for playwrights to write at this time, saying, "It's the most important gift you can give the country right now." Before "Hamilton: The Next Administration," the cast recording played, and many were singing along, but everyone screamed along to the line, "Immigrants, we get the job done." The cast members also spoke at the panel about how this and other lines have been getting an even stronger response than usual.

The politics also extended to within theater. I praised BroadwayCon for this last year as well. It celebrates Broadway while also looking at the ways it needs to improve. During "Someone in a Tree: a Frank Discussion of Asian Americans on Broadway" moderated by Erin Quill with Kelvin Moon Loh, Manu Narayan, B.D. Wong, and Amy Hill, they called out specific productions, like Roundabout's The Mystery of Edwin Drood, for using yellowface. Wong spoke about Jonathan Pryce's casting as the Engineer in Miss Saigon. When it happened in London, he thought they do things like that there, but it couldn't happen on Broadway, and he was shocked when Pryce remained with the show here. But he and the others who protested were able to at least get the production to get rid of the makeup and make the role more ethnically ambiguous. They also set a precedent so the role would be played by an Asian from then on (in the upcoming Broadway revival, Jon Jon Briones plays the engineer). Although they didn't get the exact results they wanted the first time, they got the conversation started.

Wong also said that we can have panels until we're blue in the face, but by the time you talk about casting, it's almost too late. It needs to start with writers. Even if writers would give some characters Asian-sounding last names, they'd be more likely to be cast with Asian actors. Hill started writing to empower herself, saying, "You have to work so hard when you're an actor of color. You have to act, you have to write, you have to produce."

This idea of having to write for yourself also came up in the "Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability on Stage," moderated by Howard Sherman with Sarah Folkins, Matt Fraser, Tony Lopez, and Alexandria Wailes.

They spoke about how traditionally, roles for actors with disabilities are written by people who don't know anything about the reality. Or they write "inspiration porn." The panelists want to see narratives where they are full-fledged human beings. Fraser said a way forward is for writers to collaborate with disabled actors. I wish I could just write down a transcript of the whole conversation, but I hope the right people (producers) were listening. Also, I learned about the Graeae Theatre Company where Fraser got his training because at the time he couldn't get into any theater schools, and just wanted to include that in case anyone else wanted to read up on it.

So, BroadwayCon is a place for honest discussions. It's also a great place for shows (and even movies) to advertise and sell tickets. I certainly don't begrudge them that. And in most cases they did it in smart ways.

The Speech & Debate panel was moderated by Darren Criss and I could tell by the screams that a lot of people were there for him, but all those people who probably never saw the play are now excited about the movie. We saw the trailer (see below). I have mixed feelings about it. I am a huge fan of this play and haven't missed a Stephen Karam play since, but it seems like they are trying really hard to make it look like a fun teen comedy with the bright colors and pop music. It's a very funny show, but also a dark one. I guess whatever sells tickets. And I could have done without the Hamilton. Not everything has to include a Hamilton reference. That said, I can't wait to see Sarah Steele play Diwata again.


During the panel, they encouraged people to use hashtags for the movie and they did the same thing during BroadwayCon First Look. Again, good way to spread the word about your show and advertise to those at the convention and beyond. The musicals performed songs and Come From Away was a particular standout with Jenn Colella singing "Me and the Sky." It was interesting to see how the plays approached the event, since not even the Tonys ever seem to get it right. But I thought they did a nice job, especially Significant Other, which had Gideon Glick perform a monologue. I would love to know which shows sold the most tickets as a result of BroadwayCon, but I guess there's no way to find that out.

There are a ton of panels and workshops and performances that I didn't see, but I'm pretty happy with the choices I made. And that's another positive about the convention--the variety of programming for both casual and obsessive fans. I look forward to seeing what they come up with for year three.

A Few Thoughts On Why BroadwayCon Was A Success, At Least From This Fan/Journalist's Perspective

Here are three words I never expected to type when I arrived at the New York Hilton Midtown on Friday afternoon: I loved BroadwayCon. At the first Broadway fan convention, I got to hear Lin-Manuel Miranda freestyle about an unfortunate captioning incident. I got to see cut footage from my beloved Smash while showrunner Joshua Safran provided commentary. I got to hear from company managers about how they dealt with Winter Storm Jonas when all matinee shows were cancelled less than an hour before curtain. But all that was after my first few minutes at the con, during which I wanted to turn around and leave.

After an easy check in, I made my way up the escalator and was met with what was either a line or a mob. The doors to the MainStage, where the opening performance was going to take place, hadn't opened yet. People were waiting to get in and it was chaotic because nobody knew where they were supposed to go, including, it seemed, the volunteers. I don't deal well with crowds, so I escaped to the marketplace area and found space to breathe. That's when a Twitter friend who I had never met in person recognized me and introduced herself. I later went back with her and we were able to find seats for the opening performance--near the back, but close to a screen.

I feel like this post needs a picture, but I was so preoccupied that the only picture I ended up taking was this terrible one of the Hamilton cast. Oops.

In between the opening and the Hamilton panel, some cosplayers were invited onto the stage. One of them said her dream role is the Leading Player in Pippin. Ben Vereen happened to be in the audience and he went up to meet her. Another said she knew all the lyrics to "Guns and Ships" and rapped it as the audience joined in. Moments like these were the highlights for me--getting to watch the fans. I am lucky enough to live in New York and see shows all the time. I interview actors and see them walking around the theater district, so it's not that big a deal to me to see a Broadway star up close. But I remember what it was like growing up in California, where I could only hear Broadway actors on cast recordings. A lot of the attendees were from out of town and probably hadn't had a chance to see Hamilton, but you can bet they listen to the cast recording on repeat and have watched all the Ham4Ham shows. And here were those actors, right in front of them. All weekend, I kept thinking about Neil Patrick Harris singing in the 2013 Tony Awards opening number (penned by Miranda): "There's a kid in the middle of nowhere sitting there, living for Tony performances singin' and flippin' along with the Pippins and Wickeds and Kinkys, Matildas and Mormonses. So we might reassure that kid and do something to spur that kid. Cause I promise you all of us up here tonight. We were that kid." At the end of the Hamilton panel, as the recording of "The Schuyler Sisters" played and everyone in the audience sang along as the actors filmed on their phones, we were all that kid.

I joked that they should have called it HamilCon, but it wasn't only about that musical. The programming was impressive. You didn't just hear from actors, but stage managers, company managers, and others who do crucial work we rarely hear about. Also, as much as the weekend was a celebration of Broadway, many panels offered discussions about the problems in the industry. At "Your Fave is Problematic," panelists addressed presenting classic work that is offensive today and how to get more diverse voices on Broadway. They didn't come up with all the answers in 50 minutes, but at least they got a dialogue going. At a panel on making theater accessible, the panelists admitted that they still had a long way to go in terms of making captioned, ASL-interpreted, audio-described, and other accessible performances more readily available.

After those first two events on Friday, as far as I could tell, you could wander into the MainStage without waiting in line and always find a seat. Part of that could be the blizzard kept people away, but I think there was also more going on to space out the crowds. I was worried that it would be hard to attend panels in each time slot because they would get out at 10 til with a new one starting on the hour. This summer, I went to D23, the Disney fan convention, where you would have to pick and choose a few things to do each day because of all the time required to wait in line to get into things. But at BroadwayCon, it seemed that everyone would go from one panel to another, which prevented having to line up early. My biggest problem ended up being that there were usually multiple panels I wanted to attend at the same time.

BroadwayCon wasn't perfect. There's always room to improve. Obviously, the weather was unfortunate. A lot of scheduled guests had to cancel. I left early on Saturday after finding out that my evening show was canceled and that certain areas of my subway route were being shut down. From what I read on Twitter, it seemed that the rest of Saturday was a lot of impromptu panels, but I think they tried their best to make sure to keep the attendees entertained and if you had to be stranded somewhere, that was probably a good place to be. There should have been more volunteers, especially on the first day. There could have been more booths in the marketplace. But I'm sure they'll implement changes next year. And maybe hold it in July.