ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: EL BROADWAY IN SPAIN: MUSICAL THEATRE, CULTURAL TRANSPOSITIONS, AND ARTISTIC PROCESS Jose David Reales Gregory, Doctor of Philosophy, 2019 Dissertation directed by: Associate Professor, Dr. Laurie Frederik, School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies The Broadway musical has been shaped by a distinctly American identity, but its rapid international success underscores the need for research which further explores the complexities surrounding its cross-cultural jump into countries with their own histories and identities. In a country where performance research sits largely on flamenco, guitar, and zarzuelas, the 21st-century Spanish stage has been transformed by an unprecedented boom in musicals such as Chicago, West Side Story, Billy Elliott, Phantom of the Opera, and The Lion King. This dissertation follows theatre makers of Spain and dives into their productions of Broadway musicals to uncover the cultural, linguistic, and social negotiations behind their creative experiences. I journey into Spain’s past to decode various constructions of Spanish identity through musical performance, examining how the function of musical performance changes with shifting notions of nationhood. I look at Madrid and its professional companies, tracing urban and economic factors that feed into the replication of Broadway’s symbolic space. Joining the creative process of individual artists, I watch how amateur groups performing Broadway musicals in civic spaces of the provinces unite against a backdrop of local traditions to define their community through distinct linguistic and creative translation processes. Finally, I turn to a national Broadway musical theatre festival to determine how competition, programming, and workshop sessions construct audiences’ ideas of legitimacy for the purposes of strengthening belonging within the community. The transposition of these Broadway-style musicals to Spain are subject to the pressures and cultural politics of their space which creates new intersecting sites for the exploration of belonging between city and world, region and nation, and self and community. Ultimately, the Broadway musical genre is historically embedded with hegemonic power structures that, while consistent with the globalized market and its artistic community in the United States, are tough to negotiate at local and individual levels in other cultures – raising questions about the sustainability of national arts in today’s world. EL BROADWAY IN SPAIN: MUSICAL THEATRE, CULTURAL TRANSPOSITIONS, AND ARTISTIC PROCESS by Jose David Reales Gregory Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theatre and Performance Studies 2019 Advisory Committee: Dr. Laurie Frederik, Chair Dr. Jose M. Naharro-Calderón Dr. Sandra M. Cypess Dr. J. Lawrence Witzleben Dr. Caitlin Marshall © Copyright by Jose David Reales Gregory 2019 Dedication I dedicate this to my other half Kurt Thesing, who has been there every step of the way on this journey, and all the musical theatre artists in Spain longing to live out their artistic passion. I also dedicate this to my abuela – to me she is Spain. ii Acknowledgements This dissertation been a musical symphony full of harmonies, discords, key changes, and plenty of revised compositions. This score would not have been possible without support, trust, guidance, and challenge of my very own “musicians.” I am especially grateful to María José Pámpano for not only inviting me to the festival as both a researcher and a participant, but also for her continued friendship and equal obsession over musicals. This project may not have found its voice without her infinite enthusiasm and passion for the art. “Eres un crack musical y te juro que un día un de nuestros sueños se harán realidad – y tu también Álvaro Barroso!” I thank Manu Calderón for welcoming me to The Asociación de Teatro Musical de Sevilla (ATMS) and making feel at home in his artistic family. Many thanks to all the participating groups of the festival, artists, and technicians, who let me sit in on normally-private rehearsals, workshops, and working sessions especially: Tomateatro (Sevilla), The Cultural Association Believe (Ciudad Real), Esfiga (Córdoba), Musicales 3C (Madrid), Gustavo Garcia, Miguel Angel Maroto, los increíbles técnicos Nicco y Gonzalo, Sylvia Montesinos, Susana Ruiz, Fernando Ramos, y Maria Soriano. I would like to acknowledge El Centro Documentación Nacional de Teatro for their invaluable access to resources and historical material. My research benefited from unexpected bonuses like the wonderful interviews from Nica Burns and James Charrington. Muchas gracias a Alessia Johns for lending me her academic eyes – and constant positivity – during these endless revisions. A dissertation is not possible without the encouragement of an entire cast of friends, family, and grad school cohorts – my forever love and thanks to them all, especially: Jess K. Witty, Kate Spanos, Sara Thompson, and my “sister” Shannon Maddox. My partner, Kurt Thesing, deserves to reap the benefits of this reward as much as I do – he has pushed me through some of the most difficult moments of this journey. Special thanks to my dissertation committee for your invaluable expertise and constructive feedback. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the unwavering dedication and guidance of my advisor Dr. Laurie Frederik. Her relentless encouragement, unparalleled patience, and incredible ethnographic mindset inspired me to rediscover the passion of my own research and find the confidence to finish what I started. iii Table of Contents Dedication ..................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ......................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ............................................................................................................... vi Glossary ..................................................................................................................... viii Overture ...................................................................................................................... xii Introduction: Transposing Music and Cultural Meaning .............................................. 1 Broadway Musicals in the United States ................................................................... 6 Broadway Musicals and the American Dream ........................................................ 13 Broadway Musicals in Spain ................................................................................... 20 Cultural, Linguistic, Musical, and Artistic Transpositions ...................................... 28 Research Questions ................................................................................................. 34 Literature Review .................................................................................................... 35 a. Musical Theatre History and Theory ............................................................... 35 b. Globalization and “Glocalization” of Theatre ................................................. 39 c. (Un)Connected Musical Communities ............................................................ 43 Research Methodology ............................................................................................ 54 Chapter Summaries ................................................................................................. 61 Vamp A ....................................................................................................................... 66 Chapter 2: Scoring Spain’s Musical Identity from Past to Present ............................ 67 From Liturgical Dramas to the Autos Sacramentales .............................................. 71 A Modern-Day Auto de Los Reyes ......................................................................... 76 Auto-Scripting Identity ............................................................................................ 82 From Autos to National Zarzuelas .......................................................................... 88 Shorter Zarzuelas for Popular Tastes ...................................................................... 94 Modernity and the Zarzuela ..................................................................................... 97 The Spanish Cuplé, Revistas, and Coplas ............................................................. 100 Francisco Franco, Power, and Spectacle ............................................................... 103 Tourism, Rock and Roll, and La Movida .............................................................. 110 Jesucristo Superstar ............................................................................................... 114 Chapter Summaries ............................................................................................... 129 Vamp B ...................................................................................................................... 132 Chapter 3: The Business of Culturally Relocating Professional Broadway .............. 133 Madrid, Global yet Spanish ................................................................................... 135 Gran Vía: A Symbol of Progress ........................................................................... 139 The Spanish Professional Stage ............................................................................. 152 Stage Entertainment, From Global to Madrid ....................................................... 157 Buying Theatres, Becoming Local ........................................................................ 164 El Rey León: King of Madrid? .............................................................................. 169 The Locally-Grown SOM Produce ....................................................................... 184 Chapter Summaries ............................................................................................... 194 Vamp C ...................................................................................................................... 198 Chapter 4: The Amateur Scripting of Linguistic and Cultural Translations ............. 199 La Asociación de Teatro Musical de Sevilla ......................................................... 202 iv Rent on Broadway in New York City, 1996 ......................................................... 210 From New York City 1994 to Sevilla 2014 ........................................................... 214 Going Off Book: Translating Rent, a Rock Opera ................................................ 219 (Re)Casting Roles on the Stage ............................................................................. 230 Civic Musical Embodiment ................................................................................... 238 Scripting Spanish Broadway Bodies ..................................................................... 246 Chapter Summaries ............................................................................................... 266 Vamp D ..................................................................................................................... 270 Chapter 5: Who Needs Broadway? The Politics of Musical Theatre Festivals ......... 271 Music and Theatre Festivals in Spain .................................................................... 274 A Musical Theatre Festival in Zafra ...................................................................... 279 The Cast of Festival Participants ........................................................................... 294 Spanish Regional Broadways on Display .............................................................. 298 Colloquial Chats con Cafe ..................................................................................... 312 The Expert “Americano de Broadway” ................................................................. 319 Workshopping Broadway ...................................................................................... 326 The Art of Competition ......................................................................................... 331 Chapter Summaries ............................................................................................... 347 Vamp E ...................................................................................................................... 354 A Coda: Same Song, Different Pitch ......................................................................... 355 Appendices ................................................................................................................ 376 Bibliography .............................................................................................................. 392 v List of Figures Figure 1, Cabaret marquee on Gran Vía, Madrid (Madrid) Figure 2, a religious procession in Rota (Cádiz) Figure 3, production picture from Auto de los reyes (Madrid) Figure 4, photo image of musical notation of Codex las Huelgas Figure 5, magazine cover and poster for Jesucristo Superstar Figure 6, a censor report for Jesucristo Superstar Figure 7, program cover for Jesucristo Superbeach Figure 8, maps of downtown Madrid showing Gran Vía Figure 9, a press photo from Rey León publicity event in Madrid, Spain Figure 10, crowds waiting for the night’s performance of El Rey León Figure 11, the Rey León show curtain Figure 12, SOM Produce collection of some of their past show posters Figure 13, SOM Produce posters superimposed onto Times Square image Figure 14, Teatro Nuevo Apolo and curtain Priscilla, reina del desierto Figure 15, musical theatre posters for ATMS in Sevilla, Spain Figure 16, musical selection from a Spanish score for Cabaret Figure 17, selection from the translated Bohème script by ATMS Figure 18, a page of the musical director’s notations for Bohème Figure 19, Latin-based musical notation on a scale and octaves on piano Figure 20, a page of choreographer’s notes for Bohème Figure 21, Gay Pride Photo Exhibition in Sevilla, Spain Figure 22, actors in Bohème at an ATMS rehearsal, Sevilla Spain vi Figure 23, festival statistics in Spain from the Spanish Ministry of Culture Figure 24, Teatro de Zafra Complejo Cultural and surroundings, Zafra, Spain Figure 25, map of Spain showing origin of the participants of the festival in Zafra Figure 26, the first day of rehearsals for Los miserables at the festival Figure 27, Inaugural evening, III ¿Y Quién Necesita Broadway? Certamen Musicals Figure 28, merchandise table selling products from Superhéroes Figure 29, production shots from the four participants of the festival Figure 30, author teaching his lecture at the festival in Zafra Figure 31, actors’ workshop at the festival Figure 32, an evening at the Awards Gala for YQNB in Zafra Figure 33, Plétora Teatro performs the closing ceremonies during the Awards Gala Figure 34, the shelf of trophies on display at the festival Figure 35, a theatre group’s lobby display showing off past wins Figure 36, a theatre group’s “seal of approval” proudly marketing their YQNB wins Figure 37, winners celebrate at the afterparty vii Glossary Acronyms SGAE: Sociedad General de Autores y Escritores (The General Society of Authors and Writers) ATMS: Asociación de Teatro Musical de Sevilla (Musical Theatre Association of Sevilla) YQNB: ¿Y Quién Necesita Broadway? (Who Needs Broadway?) Terms and Phrases años de desarrollo (years of development, development plan): During Franco’s dictatorship in Spain, the 1960s and 1970s were known as the “years of development,” due to its increased economic activity as well as an increase in population growth and migration to urban centers. años de hambre (years of hunger): This was the name given to Spain’s economic depression in the 1940s, resulting from economic reforms, slower integration into an industrial revolution, a recently damaging civil war, as well as political repression and genocide. The hunger and social breakdowns felt had profound sociocultural and political implications. autos sacramentales (autos for short): These short, one-act religious plays thrived during the Spanish Golden Age of Theatre in the 15th century. buenos tiempos (the good times): It is a term often used as a nostalgic expression of longing for the past. carros (wagons): These wagons were used as portable stages during the autos sacramentales. Initially most autos in Madrid used two wagons per auto, but as the productions became elaborate the number was increased to four. Castellano: This is a term which refers to the general romance language of Spain. Sometimes referred to as Castilian from by the outside, it can also denote the original deviation from Latin or “romance.” centro cívico (civic center): It is a public, government-run building located in that provides sociocultural resources for the community. Registered associations – art groups, rehabilitation programs, work programs, etc. –can use it as a space for work, performance, or basic operations. Different neighborhoods may have their own center, based on jurisdiction. viii coplas: These are songs in verse derivative of the tonadilla which takes as inspiration popular themes of love, piety, and satire. They have also been associated with the folklore of Southern Spain (Andalucía) and romanticized notions of its gypsies. Coplas are also a type of meter. corrales (corals): These are the permanent, public theatres of the Spanish Golden Age characterized by an enclosed patio and features similar to that of the Elizabethan stage in England. costumbrismo (habits or customs): These include the customs and habits of a group of people, sometimes associated with artistic movements that use these customs as primary inspiration and themes. cuplé: It was a popular musical form of song in 19th century Spain. Initially a “low- form” of entertainment, they were sometimes considered the “pornography” of their time – often performed by women and sometimes men in drag. In the early 20th century, they transformed into more family-friendly forms of song and entertainment. el Broadway: This is another name musical theatre artists of Spain use when referring to musicals in general. While they may also reference New York City, the term was used throughout this research to refer to Madrid’s Gran Vía and the YQNB festival. entremeses: Used between acts of the nuevas comedias, these short pieces of entertainment included small performances or variety acts. espacios mecanografiados (mechanographic spaces): Used to determine the category of actors and respective pay scales, these refer to the counting of the lines of a play (or film’s) script – a count of every letter, symbol, and space character in the typed- text of a line. It is normally used by the actors’ unions or government collective agreements to determine pay scales. espectáculo: Although its literal translation is “spectacle,” in Spain this is another term meaning “show” or “production.” Even a simply staged play with no special effects is often called an espectáculo. Falange: This was the official party of Fascist Spain, especially during the era of Francisco Franco. franquismo: This is the name given to the years and ideology of dictator Francisco Franco’s rule in Spain from 1939 – 1975. Today its remnants are known as “franquismo sociológico.” género chico (small genre): A shorter form of the zarzuelas, these were much more affordable for the middle classes and attracted a wider audience that were not usually accustomed to attending the theatre. Using popular language, music, styles, prices, and characters, audiences could see themselves portrayed on the stage. ix jácaras: Presented during the Spanish Golden Age, these satirical interludes were used between longer forms of entertainment. loas: A type of entremes, these short musical interludes also provided entertainment between longer staged productions. mansion: Mostly seen during the Middle Ages, these set pieces were used during liturgical representations in churches to represent different locations in the stories; i.e. heaven and hell. mojiganga: With roots originating in the carnivalesque, these were farces consisting of short texts, masked actors, comic-burlesque, and some accompanying music. Popular during the Spanish Golden Age, mojigangas that took place in the corrales turned into celebratory parades of masked actors dancing to music at the end of theatrical performances. (la) movida: This countercultural movement, started in and usually associated with Madrid, came to symbolize the years after Francisco Franco’s death in 1975 and into the 1980s. It was marked by the exploration of newfound sexual, artistic, and cultural freedoms. Other cities like Barcelona experienced their own versions of la movida. nacional flamenquismo: It was the appropriation of flamenco, traditionally associated with the southern, rural region of Spain (Andalucía), during Francisco Franco’s rule in Spain to promote national unity and tourism. Once seen as a subversive performance, flamenco ironically became a national symbol of music during the dictator’s rule. nuevas comedias (or comedias): Comedias were the full-length plays written during the Spanish Golden Age at the end of the 16th century. Las nuevas comedias, or simply comedias, usually dealt with issues of love and honor. Although the name may deceptively imply otherwise, comedias were often a mix of the serious, tragic, and comic. The importance of the comedias are not the form of the genre itself, but of the musical components which were added to the performances. objective social (social objective): In business and non-profit in Spain, it is the purpose and mission of your organization. Partido Popular (The Popular Party): This is the conservative political party of Spain. Partido Socialista Obrero Español (or PSOE): Also known as the Spanish Socialists Worker’s Party, it was originally founded in 1879 on Marxist principles before centrally grounding itself on socialist-democratic principles in 1979. Promising power to the working class through socializing means of production, PSOE took its place as Spain’s ideological left. pasodobles: Derivative of la tonadilla, this upbeat, military-inspiring sounds are often played at bullfights in Spain. It is also a popular dance. x registros: These are the offices of the Spanish government where Spanish citizen go to register for different civil obligations: new births, businesses, residency, etc. revistas (magazines): Inspired by the French, these small musical revues provided Spaniards their own glitz and glamour. sainete: These were one-act musical sketches used as intermission pieces for theatrical representations in Spain from the Golden Age until the mid 19th century. seguidillas: A type of folk song, its meter follows a 7–5–7–5 pattern. Sevillanas are an example of this variant in Southern Spain. los teatros de mi pueblo (the theatre of my town): A phrase used by Spanish people to talk about the theatres of their town, usually it’s referring to something not as sophisticated. It hints at the opposite of cosmopolitan. tonadilla: Short, satirical musical comedies with roots in the jácaras of the Golden Age of Spain were used as short entertainment pieces between longer theatrical performances. They also often used dance. Transición (La) (The Transition): These are the years in Spain after Franco’s death in 1975 and its transition into a new democracy in the 1980s. tropes: The term for figurative language, speech, or text used to create an artistic effect. turismo de musicales: Specifically used for this research, it is a “musical tourism” used to describe tourists who go to Madrid for its Gran Vía musicals. zarzuela: Sometimes considered “the musical theatre of Spain,” they are musical comedies alternating text, folk dance, and operatic and/or popular songs. Like musical theatre, zarzuela music feeds the narrative of the text. zarzuela grande: The longer form of the zarzuela, these performances often had less spoken text between the songs and more resembled their opera predecessors. The shorter forms were known as género chico. xi Overture Forty-five minutes until curtain. This particular 8:30 p.m. show time was unusually early for a Madrid show and painstakingly inconvenient for us. It was too soon after an early evening coffee and light merienda (early evening coffee and snack), too early for a memorable dinner at a hipster restaurant, and too much in the middle of the week for any worthy, post-show culinary experiences. The experience of seeing a Broadway show, after all, includes dinner before the show, cast signings at the stage door after the performance, and a post-show drink to spend hours talking about the evening’s entertainment. This new show time did not seem ideal for the complete experience. From our hotel, we could chance it and sprint over to the grand Atocha train station and hope the metro gets us to the Callao stop in time. Seeing that the same sprint took us halfway to our destination, we walked – or speed-walked, practically skipped – our way into La Puerta del Sol, the most tourist-laden handful of commercially-lined streets congregating into one large, bustling urban epicenter. Madrid’s most recognizable intersection of avenues, pedestrian sidewalks, entertainment, and commerce was filled with people from all walks of life: street performers, commuters making their way home, tourists snapping selfies, and the parade of police on patrol. Each year Spaniards across the country tune in to their televisions to watch the very bells of the clock tower in La Puerta del Sol ring in the New Year. Focused on my phone’s clock more than my walking path, I never stopped to think of how many people were making that same Tetris-like path through the city to get to their shows, their plays, their concerts, their bars, their escapes. It was 8:02 p. m. when I stepped over el kilómetro cero (kilometer zero), the small plaque marking the exact spot from which all National Highways in Spain are distanced. xii Kilometer zero. The “center” of Spain. The clock and ball tower above, now dormant, a symbol for millions as they gather around their televisions each year to watch it ring in the next year of promises. The “beginning” of time every year. In this center of time and space are also all of Madrid’s major theatres. Straight through the semi-circular square, past the Bear statue and El Corte Inglés shopping retailer, and through the LED-covered facades of El Callao, we made it to the expansive, marquee-infested, stretch of Gran Vía – Spain’s most famous road and the center of theatre entertainment. What do most Spanish audiences go to see on Gran Vía? Do they buy tickets for La casa de Bernarda Alba? No. Do they crave a Pedro Almódovar film starring Penelope Cruz? No. Perhaps they are most interested in seeing Fuenteovejuna by Lope de Vega? No. How about Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret? Yes! Cabaret’s huge bright red and white logotype shone brightly above the Teatro Rialto as we made our way to the doors of the front entrance. It was reminiscent of the 1966 original logotype, surrounded by a cliché frame of incandescent light bulbs. Even from afar the white, almost-easier-to-read four-word subtitle stood out more than the title itself: El Musical De Broadway (The Musical of Broadway). xiii Figure 1: The marquee for Cabaret in Madrid, Spain on Gran Vía – with a gentle reminder of its Broadway roots. Photo by author. Those four words would make encore appearances as if stuck on a never- ending loop of reminders. The life-sized posters turned photo backdrops flaunted it: El Musical de Broadway. The merchandise and concession stand in the ornate foyer sold it: El Musical de Broadway. The murmurs of the shuffling audiences bragged about it: El Musical de Broadway. And if that wasn’t enough, the one-Euro program billed it: El Musical de Broadway (Cabaret Theatre Program. n.d. Madrid: El Rialto, 2015). Even I was starting to buy into the possibility that we would be seeing a version of Cabaret that had already been through the view and review process of the New York stage. This, however, was produced by a Spanish production company, under the direction of a Spanish artistic team, performed by Spanish actors, and for what I have to assume to be a Spanish audience. Row mates climbed over me as I studied the playbill’s headshots and biographies. Sprinkled throughout the bios were a shockingly large and varied number of musical theatre credits – many I would never xiv have pictured on local Spanish stages. These bios read just like ones on Broadway, listing an expansive resume of musicals. In a country with a limited musical theatre history of Broadway musicals, the number of Broadway musicals listed as credits was impressive. I hunted for them, one by one, like Easter Eggs dotting a lawn of black and white: Fame: The Musical, Grease, Les Miserables, Cabaret, My Fair Lady, Man of La Mancha, West Side Story, Chicago, Jekyll & Hyde, Blood Brothers, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Annie, Spamalot, Sound of Music, Cats, Oliver!, Phantom of the Opera, Beauty and The Beast, Hair. . . How many Broadway-style musicals have made it onto Spain’s professional stages? If these types of musicals did not make their way to the Iberian Peninsula until 1975 and beyond, how did some of these actors have such expansive musical credits? I keep tallying: Dirty Dancing, High School Musical, Lucky Stiff, Nunsense, Nine. . . lights dim. xv Introduction: Transposing Music and Cultural Meaning With over twenty years of experience in musical theater in the United States as a professional performer, director, artist, and teacher, I have spent the better part of my life immersed in Broadway musicals. From my first introduction to musicals through Les Miserables to my design of a college lecture using Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, I considered myself well-versed and expert in all things relating to Broadway and its musicals – firmly grounded in its historical foundations yet up-to-date on all the latest musicals, current trends, and key players in the industry. However, in 2014, I saw El Rey León (The Lion King) at the Lope de Vega Theatre in Madrid and my understanding of “Broadway” as an American genre was transformed. Although the Broadway musical has both shaped and been shaped by a distinct American identity, its rapid growth and commercial success across the globe – in countries like Spain – underscores the need for research which further explores the complexities surrounding its cross-cultural jump into other countries with their own histories and identities. This dissertation follows theatre makers of Spain and dives into their productions of Broadway musicals to uncover the cultural, linguistic, and social negotiations behind their creative experiences. I start with a journey into Spain’s past to decode various constructions of Spanish identity through musical performance, examining how the function of musical performance itself changes with shifting notions of nationhood and how Broadway made its appearance into the country. I look at Madrid and its professional companies to find out how they perform Broadway, tracing the urban and economic factors that feed into the replication of 1 musical theatre’s symbolic space. Diving into the creative process of individual artists, I then move into the Spanish provinces to watch how amateur groups performing Broadway musicals in civic spaces unite against a backdrop of local traditions to define their community through distinct linguistic and creative translation processes. Finally, I turn to a prominent regional amateur Broadway musical theatre festival to determine how competition, programming, and workshop sessions are used to shape and construct audiences’ ideas of legitimacy for the purposes of strengthening belonging within the community. The transposition of these Broadway-style musicals to Spain are subject to the pressures and cultural politics of their space which creates new intersecting sites for the exploration of belonging between city and world, region and nation, and self and community. This dissertation endeavors to do several things: 1) raise fundamental questions about how political history and religion has shaped music, 2) analyze the forces involved in the creative processes of professional and amateur communities, and 3) shed light into cultural transposition in an age of post-globalization while revealing some of the social complexities and contradictions of importing new musical genres. Ultimately, the Broadway musical genre is historically embedded with hegemonic power structures that, while consistent with the globalized markets and its U.S. artistic communities, are tough to negotiate at local and individual levels in other cultures. Built on strong foundations of capitalism, the distinctly American art form undergoes cultural transformations in meaning and reception as it enters new spaces across the world. Musical theatre is often overlooked as a serious form of research, watered down into an idea of “entertainment for the masses” that relies on spectacle for its 2 success and commercial viability. As a musical theatre history instructor, I have challenged that perception by helping students focus on the many other valuable benefits of the genre. Musical theatre is used to explore theoretical frameworks and provides endless research opportunities through its complex and fascinating history. Musical theatre encourages interpersonal communications and refines team-building skills. There are even practical applications of musical theatre that span across other industries: the study of musicals as a multibillion-dollar business model or the physiological or biological study of a body during a musical theatre performance. Musical theatre can and should be approached through the same “serious” academic lens applied to other theatrical forms like William Shakespeare or Berthold Brecht. This lack of extensive academic research centered on Broadway musicals around the globe has admittedly narrowed my own focus to their American roots. At the same time, musical theatre cannot use the same lens often applied to the study of “serious” opera. Although both musicals and operas are theatrical performances that rely on music to tell a story, there are some significant differences that clearly define them as separate genres. In opera, music, especially the singer’s trained operatic voice, is the principle player. Audiences clamor to hear singers and orchestras perform the music of Mozart in The Magic Flute or Bizet in Carmen. The words are not as important as in musical theatre, which explains why operas are generally performed in their original languages. In musical theatre, the text is the focus and Broadway composers write melodies to enhance the narrative. Dance and 3 choreographed movement are also integral components of the musical theatre genre and are clear distinguishing features that differ from opera.1 Spain proves fertile ground for scrutinizing how different manifestations of Broadway are played out. In a country where Broadway musicals are not part of tradition, international performance research sits largely on flamenco dance, guitar, zarzuelas, and on drama centered around many of Spain’s historic playwrights including Miguel de Cervantes, Federico García Lorca, Lope de Vega, or Antonio Buero Vallejo. Spain’s theatre scene has a long and vibrant history of drama, and much of that history is still reflected on today’s contemporary stages in the country. In 2017, a professional theatre company continued their multiyear tour of Miguel de Cervantes’s El cerco de la Numancia (originally written in 1585). In any given year, you will find Lope de Vega’s Fuenteovejuna (1619) on a rural stage in one of the provinces. Zorrilla’s Don Juan Tenorio (1844) is played on a Spanish stage every Halloween. The familiarity and affinity for the Spanish canon forces an endless rotation of plays such as Federico García Lorca’s La casa de Bernarda Alba (1945). Many of Spain’s political and cultural shifts have been reflected through its playwrights, and public theatres like La Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico (The National Company of Classical Theatre) and El Centro Dramático Nacional (National Center for Drama) in Madrid are the carriers of these literary traditions. These classical centers of drama are where audiences will find Spanish adaptations of Tennessee William’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or the Sophocles Greek tragedy Antigone. They have not been hosts to popular Broadway musicals like Cats or Phantom of the Opera. The dramas produced in these theatres are perceived by the 1. It might be the reason why many colleges (like the University of Maryland) make opera part of the music department while keeping musical theatre together with theatre, dance, and performance studies. 4 organizations and audiences as a more elite form of theatre, for more specific audiences. Unlike with musical theatre, the political shifts of the 20th century also produced a wider range of new playwrights and dramas that gave new life to the Spanish canon. The 1980s produced protest plays by Alonso de Santos, Angelica Liddell, and Sanchis Sinisterra. These playwrights paved the way for some of today’s prominent figures such as Juan Mayorga, Alberto Conejero, and Paco Bezerra. Much like many “Western” theatres, it is also common to find seasons full of internationally-recognized classics such as Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard or Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, or Melville’s Moby Dick. Pentación Producciones, one of Spain’s major producer of plays, runs the gamut of programming – their 2019 season including a wide spectrum of plays that also include David Mamet’s The Penitent (a 2017 Broadway play) and Phaedra (a Greek tragedy by Seneca). There is no better way to validate one’s theatrical abilities than by staging some of the world’s best-known “Western” classical plays. As in the Spanish film industry, however, there is more of an affinity to comedy than tragedies on the stage – especially in the rural regions. One actress said to me, “Somos una cultura de risa y cachondeo” (We are a culture of laughs and a good time). People see theatre as entertainment and want to escape their everyday complications, especially in rural regions of Spain, where theatre is less of a professionalized industry. Spain’s family-centered culture also explains the proliferation of children’s theatre and pantomimes. More recently, some of the latest innovations in theatre are focused on microteatros (microtheatres). Due to the financial limitations of staging large productions, microteatros are embraced by today’s younger generations as a way of providing short, affordable, and quickly impactful dramatic entertainment. Staged in 5 small spaces – cafes, rooms, bars, streets – these short plays (15-minutes or so) allow for a closer relationship between the performances and its audiences. Audiences can number in the dozens or even as little as five. One Madrid brothel was reconverted into a microteatro building, where audiences could move through the different rooms and watch different short plays in one evening. However, the twenty-first century Spanish stage has been most transformed by an unprecedented boom in musicals such as Chicago, Man of La Mancha, Sweeney Todd, West Side Story, Billy Elliott, Phantom of the Opera, and Disney’s The Lion King. Taking its place among the top leading musical theatre producers of Europe, Spain is in the midst of a cultural transformation, which allows for an avid critical analysis of the relationship between music, commerce, and nationality. With slightly over 40 years of history since its transition from dictatorship to democracy, and its strategic geographical location at the crossroads of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, Europe and Africa, Spain’s rich culture and diverse regions provide a fruitful backdrop for exploring shifting ideas of tradition. As both a native of Spain and a Broadway musical artist, I seek to contribute to an understudied area of research and the interest of musical theatre scholars, practicing artists in both Spain and United States, and producers specializing in musical theatre on a global scale. Broadway Musicals in the United States In the 2017 – 2018 season, Broadway in New York City welcomed 13.8 million visitors with 11.5 million of those attending musicals. The year before, Broadway theatre ticket sales contributed $12.63 billion to New York City’s economy 6 and created over 87,100 jobs.2 Its commercial success proves that the Broadway musical is one of America’s most-beloved art forms, having played a unique role in constructing a unique American identity throughout its history. American audiences explored the joys and wonders of the new Western frontier in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma (1945). They have shared in the excitement of making it “big” in America, as they watched small-town Peggy Sawyer move to New York City and become a star in 42nd Street (1980). Musicals like The Sound of Music (1965) remind us that love comes when least expected. High-school nostalgia has been re- lived by countless generations thanks to Grease (1971). Americans have even come to appreciate their own presidential history and have given a voice to the minority in musicals like Hamilton (2015). The musicals of Broadway have provided a new sense of hope and unity through some of its universally-appealing themes. However, when scholars dig deeper, they reveal other darker social conflicts at play. From the bigotry of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s South Pacific to the class and racial divisions of Ragtime, the Broadway musical often also shows a problematic picture of history in the United States – complex issues such as racism, sexuality, gender, economics and politics have been woven together through song, dialogue and dance. Both the joyous and the socially turbulent show off American culture and discuss issues that have emerged in this country at certain points of our history. [Musical theatre] was invented in America, it was largely developed in America, and in the estimation of many (perhaps biased) theatre people, it is still done best by Americans. . . In fact, musical theatre – or musical comedy, as it was usually called up until the 1940s – is one of the few indigenous American art forms. . . Composer Leonard Bernstein called musical theatre ‘an art that arises out of American roots, out of our speech, our tempo, our moral attitudes, our way of moving.’ (Miller 2007, 5 – 6) 2. “Statistic: Broadway in NYC,” The Broadway League Website, 2019, accessed January 08, 2019, https://www.broadwayleague.com/research/statistics-broadway-nyc/. 7 The development of the Broadway musical underpins the crucial role of musical comedies in defining nationalism through shifting ideas of popular and elite cultures. By the early 19th century, New York City had taken its place as the nation’s largest city and one of the most dense and diverse cities in the world, in part due to its economic appeal and the exponential growth of immigrants from Europe. As the number of immigrants exceeded the number of wealthy merchants and financiers, the gap grew wider between the rich and the poor to create a middle-class in between these polar ends, which was similar to gaps developing in Madrid and other industrializing nations.3 However, a diverse population with differing ideals and rampant inequalities made the situation more challenging for American dramatists. As the country grew, U.S. nationalism grew and took center stage as the subject for many American dramatists (Meserve 1977). While the elite continued to enjoy restaged Shakespeare productions from England, the newly democratized America yearned for a freeing of artistic expression and creativity from Europe. Writing and producing works that were specific to America and by Americans reinforced that 3. As an illustration of nationalistic tendencies in early Broadway musicals, Sean Wilentz’s Chants Democratic provided an insightful perspective into “the heart of New York’s emerging class” during the early 19th century and the concept of “artisan republicanism” (Wilentz 2004). The increase in commercial trade and manufacturing severely affected the need for crafts workers including artisans, small masters, and specialties such as printing, shipbuilding, subcontracting, and food preparation. As such, these craft workers comprised a large portion of the new middle class and they had their own notion of what it was to be a Republican. Individualism, profit making, and certainly division of labor were not at the center. At its center were unity, solidarity between craftsmen, and the confirmation that artisans contributed to the good of the city – in a concept that Wilentz describes as “artisan republicanism”. With such contrasting opinions and diverse populations sprouting up across the country, it was becoming increasingly difficult to define the republican principles that inspired the Revolution. “To be an American citizen was by definition to be a republican, the inheritor of a revolutionary legacy in a world ruled by aristocrats and kings” (ibid, 61). Through banners, speeches, street dramas, and parades, artisans asserted their pride and solidarity through these public symbols in a public sphere. Parades afforded them the ability to display their crafts and skills. Banners were a symbol of their collective identities. Annual celebrations, such as Independence Day, helped to affirm to the population that artisans did not pursue their own self-interests, but rather the interests of the community as a whole – a virtue that is common in republican thought. “In more public spheres, craftsmen would insist on their equal rights and exercise their citizenship with a view to preserve the rule of virtue as well as protecting their collective interests against an eminently corruptible mercantile and financial elite” (ibid, 102). 8 sentiments of nationalism in theatre began in America as early as the 1780s with plays such as The Contrast (1787) and followed by plays like Metamora: Or The Last of The Wampanoags (1829), and Fashion (1845) – which satirized life and fashion in New York City.4 Gradual shifts in audiences and modes of production facilitated a change from entertainment focused on the elite to theatre that spoke to the business- class through melodramatic performances, a topic which Bruce McConachie explores in-depth in Melodramatic Formations (1992). The face of American theatre, however, underwent several shifts to make way for the Broadway musicals of today. Drawing off the popular trend of the ballad operas from London, the first English-speaking opera in the American colonies – Flora (1735) – followed the formula of presenting lower class characters on the stage. Presented in a South Carolina courthouse, Flora added its own American characters to the story that reflected life in the colonies. The first major shift came in the form of melodramas, which in the first two decades of the 19th century became the leading form of popular entertainment in America. Inspired by the French, these dramatic plays used music to heighten the emotional portions of text. Melodrama saturated the American theatre scene by the 1850s, although the genre was later redefined around plays with formulaic stories of good versus evil. Dion Boucicault’s The Octoroon (1828) and George L. Aiken’s dramatization of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) were filled with sentimentalism, local flare, and morality tales that tugged at American audience’s emotions. Like melodramas, the Broadway musicals of today rely on heightened emotions (through music and dance) and are often similarly formulaic in 4. When They Weren’t Doing Shakespeare by Judith L. Fisher and Stephen Watt is an informative resource highlighting the 19th century plays and genres that often competed with the popular Shakespeare plays being performed in the country (Fisher and Watt 2011). 9 their stories of good versus evil. Another shift occurred with the popularization of burlesque. Hamlet Travesties: A Burlesque in Two Acts in 1828 signaled the beginning of “legitimate” burlesque. Burlesques were parodies of other plays, songs, or performers, and the acts included song, dance, and even pantomime. Minstrel shows, a type of early brief burlesque, were introduced into the country in the 1830s. It evolved into blackface minstrelsy, which included several acts of musical performances interspersed with song, jokes, and short comedic interchanges – through a parody of the slave. By 1848, blackface minstrelsy was a national art form and would remain so for almost the rest of the century. At the same time, burlesques became much more elaborate and imports from Europe were gaining traction for their revealing costumes and sexualized femininity. By the 1860s, New York City was the center of these newer burlesques and host of popular acts like Lydia Thompson and her English blondes (1869) – famed for their skin-colored tights. Burlesque had evolved into a an extravagant “leg show.” By the late 1860s and 1870s, burlesque expanded into a full-length entertainment. The American musical made one of its most radical shifts during that decade, as the abundance of melodramas, burlesques, and pantomimes forced theatre audiences to crave for new and exciting entertainment. Audiences were beginning to expect more “spectacle” and “extravaganza” type performances in their theatres. The Black Crook (1866), what many consider America’s first musical, certainly did its best to appease audiences’ insatiable hunger for this new wave of entertainment with plenty of magic, fantasy, special effects, intricate sets, baby ballets, mechanical donkeys, and dancing girls (Allen 1991). Commercial theatre grew as the middle class expanded. “Middle-class American playgoers prefer musical comedies and light entertainment; serious drama 10 is the exception on Broadway” (Zatlin 1999, 227). Operettas like Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance (1879) fed this appetite. But comic operas and operettas such as Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance failed to address any of the themes that resonated with audiences on this side of the Atlantic. In fact, even the musical language seemed an ocean away. Broadway composers and lyricists would need to write for the audiences at home by creating sounds, lyrics, themes, and a language that was distinctly American. Pushing away the formalities of the European comic operas, George M. Cohan wrote what some have credited with being the first “truly American musical.” Little Johnny Jones (1923) tells the tale of an American jockey (played by Cohan himself) who travels to England to win a race; he eventually returns, but not before successfully clearing his name of a scandal. The musical not only captured the spirit of America, it really captured the spirit of Broadway itself. Little Johnny Jones produced several hits including, “The Yankee Doodle Boy” and “Give My Regards to Broadway.” The 20th century showed the quickest transformations of the Broadway musical as the genre went through several different phases. Show Boat (1927) is noted for being the first musical play, whereby the songs are used to emphasize story points. Oklahoma (1945) becomes the first fully integrated musical – meaning text, music, and dance are equally important and necessary elements of the storytelling. Dance becomes an integral part of the plot. While there were other stylistic permutations throughout the 20th century (the rock musical, the fragmented episodic musical, the juke box musical), the marketing boom of mega-musicals in the 1980s amped the value of the Broadway spectacle itself over the artistic content of the individual shows themselves. Musicals like Cats and Les Miserables brought with them a new 11 way to not only create a musical that could attract the biggest possible audiences, but also new ways to market it. “Cats has transcended Broadway spectacle, taking on the added social burden of being an easy punch line. It is the reference of choice for conjuring up an especially redolent-of-the-80s (furry leg warmers!), beloved-by- Hoosiers (hydraulics!) brand of theatrical experience” (Sternfeld 2006, 113). Broadway as a space of entertainment in New York City also underwent significant transformations, which similarly parallel the transformation of Madrid’s Gran Vía (described in Chapter 3). With the end of Civil War, New York City evolved as the core of theatrical entertainment in the United States. Although tours were widely popular, the area around 14th Street and Union Square became the hub for many of its actors, producers, companies, and managers. Profiting off of the entertainment businesses, costume shops, press agents, printers, and other smaller businesses that fed off of these shows set up around these theatre companies. As theatres and business grew, they made their way north but stopped short of 42nd Street – as the area around it and Broadway was an area of brothels and stables. In fact, it came to be called The Tenderloin. By the 1890s, producers were aware of the dollar value of entertainment and set out to control every aspect of play production, distribution, and marketing. As the Theatrical Syndicate (a theatrical booking group made up of a few producers) started to take a stronghold of theatre across the country, other producers rushed to stake their claim of space in New York City – building out the area known as The Tenderloin. Producers understood the value on marketing their shows as a by-product of New York City. In 1900, the city began the building of its subways around 42nd street and The New York Times, along with the theatre district, moved into the area. Although it was site to a prosperous theatrical flourishing, 12 especially in the Golden Age of Broadway in the 1940s and 1950s, it fell into abysmal decline in the 1970s. The Broadway district and Times Square was the center of drugs, prostitution, homelessness, crime – the opposite for an area trying to attract audiences to Broadway musicals. With the redevelopment of the New Amsterdam Theatre by Disney beginning in 1993, however, the area underwent its last transformation into the corporate, family-friendly site of musicals like The Lion King and global chains like McDonald’s. Broadway Musicals and the American Dream Broadway musicals have served as discourse through which to discuss American ideologies, especially the unique nationalistic concept of the “American Dream.” Broadway was and continues to be a commercial institution. It is in the business of making money and musicals are undoubtedly the crowning commercial hits of Broadway. Playing on the principles of a free capitalistic society, the American Dream feeds into ideals of consumerism and the ability for an individual to succeed or make a fortune. For America – particularly on the Broadway stages – the first three decades of the 20th century best embodied the idea of prosperity and one’s ability to rise to the top of the success ladder; and those who did make it were not afraid to show it off. After the Armistice in 1918, the pleasure-seeking, prohibition-despising, boom-rich American public enabled musical theatre to revel in a decade of luxury and wastefulness and irresponsibility as it had never known before, and will probably never know again in our time. Money was available to produce anything with the slightest prospect of success, and audiences were lenient, easily amused, and generous with their patronage. . . people were making money faster than they could spend it. (Smith 1950, 125) 13 While the great American Dream of success, fame, and wealth is generally coupled with thriftiness and hard work, the age of industrialization of the 19th and 20th distorted this Dream, substituting it with a "get rich quick" mentality. An excellent example of this ideal are early Broadway forms of musical entertainment like Florenz Ziegfeld’s Follies. Revues permeated the scene at the start of the century and had their golden years between 1915 and 1930, as the most popular form of stage entertainment. Inspired by the French Folies Bergères of Paris, Ziegfeld produced yearly versions of Follies from 1907 – 1931. Although inspired by the popularity of the glitzy musical revues from Paris, Follies also capitalized on some of the successful elements of earlier vaudeville. Some of his many incarnations of Follies included comic vaudeville headliners such as Bert Williams, Fanny Brice, W.C. Fields, Will Rogers, Eddie Cantor, Marilyn Miller, and Anna Held. However, this musical revue and part-variety show was considered a higher-class of vaudeville. Follies not only quenched America’s thirst for spectacle, pleasure, and something new – it also epitomized entertainment as a product of the American Dream of the era (Mates 1987, 149). As was the case with many Americans of the time, and most entertainers in his shows, Ziegfeld’s greatest creation was himself. . . a hundred years after his first Follies, his name is still synonymous with a unique brand of self-promotion. . . he gave his eager customers two and a half hours of the American Dream. (Kantor and Maslon 2004, 24) Producers like Ziegfeld sought “the glorification of the most beautiful American girls in settings of incomparable style and splendor” (Riddle 2003, 23). It afforded Americans the exposure to the cosmopolitan delicacies of cities like Paris but infused with their own “homegrown feminine sexuality” (Allen 1991, 246). It was 14 a critical moment in the formation of Broadway’s future identity, representing “the acceptable face of feminine sexual spectacle in America blended into the ideology of bourgeois consumer culture” (ibid, 245). This idea of the larger-than-life producer and spectacular shows with immense financial profits fueled the idea of an American Dream that forever shaped the landscape of entertainment in the United States. Critic John Lahr notes, [Ziegfeld] glorified beauty, but he really sort of hymned the general abundance of the culture. . . When you went to a Ziegfeld show, it was abundance at play, it was abundance of talent, abundance of fabric and design – everything was absolutely the best that money could buy, and that’s what he sold. . . What was being eroticized was not sexuality but possession. (Kantor and Maslon 2004, 24) Through the integration of its stories, music, and dance, the Broadway musical throughout the 20th century also reinforced or countered the idea of the American Dream. The premier of Oklahoma! toward the end of World War II sent a strong message to its audiences about the spirit of America. It was a “celebration of the indomitable pioneer spirit [that] Americans needed to hear. . . a culture that looked at American life past and present through a haze of romanticism and nostalgia” (Krasner 2008, 123). Oklahoma! fueled myth-making within a New American Dream that centered on what Richard Knapp calls a “frontier brinkmanship”, where America strives “to manage the threshold of its domain, to extend its purview carefully, wisely, and inclusively, and thereby negotiate the transition from wilderness to civilization, from lawless to law-abiding, from frontier to community, from territory to stage, from fledgling nation to world power” (Knapp 2005, 123). In the 1960s, the Broadway musical Hair contradicted established norms of the American Dream and in essence created its own counter-mythology. Throughout 15 the 1960s, American’s distrust of their own government had risen to levels probably not seen since The Great Depression or the Hoover Administration. The civil rights movement and gay liberation were in the limelight. Lyndon Johnson’s lies to the public about the Vietnam War fueled the fire. With the assassination of JFK, America was losing faith not only in its leaders, but also in the idea and vision of America. The stage was set for theatrical representations of these political protests. Following in the footsteps of other alternative theatrical movements such as The Living Theatre and the Open Theatre, Hair is credited with being the first rock musical, inspiring the future of “rock” on Broadway but also spawning future similar musicals such as Rent and Spring Awakening. Unlike the musicals of the Golden Age of Broadway, Hair threw out many of the musical conventions that had come to symbolize the musical. It provided an underlying theme or statement that shifted the focus from an actual storyline. It used a racially integrated cast and covered taboo subjects like sex, drugs, profanity, and nudity. Gone were the “clean” stories of the farm girl falling in love with the cowboy. The musicals content now reflected the counterculture’s newfound obsessions with sexual freedom, LSD, interracial relationships, and anti-war protests. Crucial to creating a counter-mythology was the production team’s process for the actual development of the musical. Some of the artistic team had spent some time in the Village with or as Hippies. In wanting to authentically stage this counterculture life, the director Tom O’Horgan rehearsed the cast as “tribes”, engaging them in exercises to help them create a strongly bonded community. In fact, even musicians came into the rehearsal process earlier, removing them from the confines of the music pit. Ultimately, this fed into the idea of recreating a rock concert. Creating community also involved negotiating the space with the audiences. Most notably, Hair 16 challenged the ideas of conventional theatre spaces by “breaking the 4th wall” of theatre – which means that there is interaction between the actors and the audience. Its non-traditional format, combined with its contemporary rock score, reflected America’s discontent with the government and the status quo. It also showed that this counterculture was just as commercially profitable as the musicals that until then had dominated the musical stage. Hair was a counter-mythological response to a new developing American identity. The American Dream was now one of freedom from constraints. As Richard Knapp puts it, Hair may thus be considered as a propositional redefinition of America, aspiring to establish an alternative mythology to displace those celebrated and elaborated on the American musical stage across the previous two-and-a-half decades. (ibid, 154) Other musicals directly tackle and question the idea of an American Dream based on hope, success, and the idealization of a “better life.” In Stephen Sondheim’s musical Assassins, which first opened off-Broadway in 1990, would-be and successful presidential assassins of America’s past discordantly sing about the trials and tribulations of pursuing the American Dream. Set against the theme of a carnival shooting game, they sing of disenfranchisement and powerlessness, hopes and dreams, high expectations and false promises. As immigrants, many of them are the outsiders who “can’t get into the ballpark.” Not surprisingly, the reference to a ballpark is not by accident; it serves the purpose of using an American ideal as “a perfect indictment of the society and its mores” (Gordon 1990, 335). In the musical, the Balladeer reminds the “would-be-assassins” of America as a land of possibilities. The Proprietor, as the voice of the voiceless, reminds them that the American Dream is an unachievable ideal and that with a gun, a powerful symbol of America, 17 frustrations are easily relieved. Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman thoroughly infuse music, lyrics, and book with this counter-mythology of the American Dream. Most significantly, Sondheim probed the dark side of the American Dream through subversive rewritings of American popular music – repurposing traditional musical comedy conventions and putting them in the hands of the characters of real-life assassins that set out to kill American Presidents. The cakewalk, Sousa march, soft shoe, ballads, pop songs, barbershop quartets, spirituals, waltzes, and even Broadway ballads are put into question in Assassins. From structure to musical and character composition, they were able to create a piece that not only positioned this new version of the American Dream but also forced its audiences to question their understanding of it. Broadway also reflects the “business of the American Dream,” historically defined and continuously altered by socioeconomic structures. This evaluation and constructed authority are often dependent on socioeconomic factors. “The art of Broadway musical theatre is anchored in both its crafts and the marketplaces” (Rosenberg and Harburg 1993, 4). Despite the now exorbitant prices of musicals in New York City, Broadway musicals have hit strong chords with middle-class audiences since its beginnings and the sales prove it despite the increasing prices of tickets. In very similar ways, middle-class audiences in Spain do not balk at EURO 80 ($90) Lion King tickets in Madrid but will scoff at spending EURO 15 ($20) on a local performance in their rural towns. They not only offered an escape from reality through entertainment, but also reflected vivid representations of middle-class characters, stories, and traditions on the stage. As a result, many Broadway musicals have projected the myth of the American Dream and carried the stories promoting 18 class mobility. The focus on class promotion and economics reveals the competitive nature of Broadway, a perspective that leads of the focus of Chapter 5 at the musical theatre festival. Although the history of Broadway points to a uniquely American identity, musical blockbusters have continued their global conquest, shattering box office records and surpassing each other’s gross earnings around the globe. For example, Lion King surpassed the $6.2 billion worldwide,5 Phantom of the Opera comes in with an impressive $6 billion, and Wicked is at a still astounding $3 billion.6 Phantom of the Opera, one of the oldest running shows on Broadway, has alone been seen by over 140 million people around the world – creating one a global fanbase of masked musical theatre enthusiasts. Pop culture reinforces its wide-reaching appeal through hit television shows like Glee and The Voice, and through profitable movie musicals like Chicago, The Sound of Music, and the hit movie musical La La Land. Helpful publicity also includes nationally televised musical performances during awards ceremonies like the Golden Globes and Academy Awards. Powerhouse corporate conglomerates like Disney Theatricals, Stage Entertainment, and Musical Theatre International are taking it further and capitalizing this interest by bringing many of these musicals into new audiences and cultures. In 2019, it is no surprise to see hits such as The Lion King and Mamma Mia! in cities like Madrid, Spain and Tarzan and Phantom of the Opera in cities like Hamburg, Germany. While the West End in London is the primary producer of musicals in Europe, countries like Spain, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands are leading the musical markets of the continent. 5. Mark Kennedy, “’Lion King’ Musical Destroys ‘Avatar’ and Every Musical Ever with $6.2 Billion Box Office,” Business Insider, Associate Press. September 22, 2014, accessed January 08, 2019, https://www.businessinsider.com/lion-king-earns-62-billion-2014-9?IR=T. 6. Matt Donnelly, “Universal’s $3 Billion ‘Wicked’ Haul Outgrosses Its Biggest Box Office Hit,” The Wrap, October 15, 2015, accessed January 08, 2019, https://www.thewrap.com/universals-3- billion-wicked-haul-outgrosses-its-biggest-box-office-hit/. 19 Broadway Musicals in Spain Spanish versions of Broadway musicals started making their appearances in Madrid during the 1950s and 1960s, although without widespread appreciation and patronage by Spain’s audiences. José Tamayo brought a Spanish version of South Pacific to the Teatro de la Zarzuela in 1955, but Rodgers and Hammerstein’s uniquely American musical and its performances in a lyrical Spanish theatre did not break through pop culture barriers of the era. It arrived just six years after its premiere on Broadway, at a time when the dictatorship limited Spain’s exposure to international culture. Madrid theatre audiences were not certain where to place this musical – a melodic score integrated into book tackling issues unknown to them (U.S. military, racial diversity) and which did not follow the usual conventions of the zarzuela. However, it was widely accepted by theatregoers and resulted in the introduction of several Broadway musicals to Madrid in the years that followed including Kiss Me Kate (1963), Man of La Mancha (1966), Gigi (1973), and Fiddler on the Roof (1970). Most of these Broadway imports were staged in the Teatro de la Zarzuela or other theatres usually reserved for staging larger productions or operas – limiting audiences for these new Broadway musicals to the same ones that had an affinity toward zarzuelas and operas. As a result, Broadway musicals were produced for the more “elite” classical audiences – not yet popular enough of a genre in Spain for producers to showcase the musicals in the same category as zarzuelas and operas. With Godspell (1974), we start to see the trickling in of new musical styles reflecting the tastes of younger audiences. With the death of General Francisco Franco in 1975, Spain underwent a political and cultural transformation that changed the face of entertainment in the once dictator-oppressed country. The premiere of Jesucristo 20 Superstar (Jesus Christ Superstar) in that same week during Franco’s death paved the way for the larger Broadway musicals – capitalizing on the mass popularity of rock music – that have placed Madrid as one of the top leaders of musical theatre in Europe. For Spanish artists, historians, and musical theatre enthusiasts, the arrival of Jesucristo Superstar marked the arrival of the Broadway musical to Spain (more in Chapter 2). Broadway musicals were first brought into Spain by individuals and theatre companies with little to no actual experience with Broadway style musicals, or even musical theatre generally. Camilo Sesto, producer and star of Jesucristo Superstar, introduced the musical to the professional stage in Spain with no experience in the genre. Likewise, Luis Ramirez, originally an engineer, became interested in theatre while working on the renovations for a Madrid theatre. He is now recognized as key in the history of Broadway in Spain. Artistically, Ramirez rose to prominent musical theatre fame with his restaged 1997 production of Man of La Mancha – which critics praised as a musical for a “new and modernized stage.”7 It was successful for several reasons. It relied on heavy-hitting cultural icons – renowned stage actors José Sacristán and Paloma San Basilio. It was based on the classic literary Spanish tale of Don Quijote. Spectacles like Man of La Mancha also proved that Madrid was capable of producing the once-feared, sophisticated productions worthy of the Broadway stage – and make a significant profit from it. The “American Dream” of making profits was materializing through musicals in Madrid and the Broadway musical challenged the artistic communities in Spain relying solely on artistic motivations. 7. Lorenzo López Sancho, “’El hombre de la Mancha,’ un Musical Sensacional,” El ABC Online, November 21, 1997, accessed November 7, 2015, http://hemeroteca.abc.es/nav/Navigate.exe/hemeroteca/madrid/abc/2004/12/20/057.html. 21 They were introduced to the Broadway formula, a formula that primarily measured its success in financial profits. Making approximately $13.4 million over the course of 429 shows and 475,398 audience members, Man of La Mancha in Madrid even surpassed the highest grossing Spanish film ever up to that point – proving the power and profits of the Broadway musical. Affirms Ramírez in an article for El País, Nunca se habían dado estas cifras en España. En Broadway estaríamos entre las 10 primeras obras por recaudación y por número de espectadores, según los datos que se publican allí semanalmente. Y hay que tener en cuenta que, allí, el precio de las entradas dobla o triplica el de Madrid. Never before have these numbers happened in Spain. On Broadway, we would be in the top ten of [highest] gross sales and audience numbers, based on weekly figures published there. And you have to keep in mind that, over there, the price of a ticket is double or triple what it is here in Madrid.8 Ramírez’s theatrical company Pigmalion went on to produce other major musicals in Spanish including Grease, Sweeney Todd, Peter Pan, Jekyll & Hyde, Annie, The Magic of Broadway, Falsettos, and Blood Brothers. In 1992, producer and theatre director José Tamayo, Spanish opera singer Plácido Domingo, and British megaproducer Cameron Mackintosh brought Los miserables to the Spanish stage, ushering in a new era of international musical spectacles on the Madrid theatre scene. It was the beginning of the UK producer’s ongoing relationship with the companies of Spain, consequently granting rights for future stagings of Cats, Les Miserables, and Phantom of the Opera. As I discovered in my research, the lack of experience in musical theatre or the business of Broadway has not deterred theatre companies in Spain – both professional and amateur – in bringing this new genre to the Spanish stages. Professional companies have little competition in the market, so 8. Ritama Muñoz-Rojas, “’El hombre de la Mancha’ Gana en Recaudación al Filme Español Más Taquillero de la Historia,” El País Online, January 9, 1999, accessed November 15, 2015, https://elpais.com/diario/1999/01/09/madrid/915884670_850215.html. 22 those that are able to produce a Broadway musical provide one of the few options to audiences. Amateur companies in Spain, due to their more remote locations, are unhindered by the licensing and financial restrictions often faced by community theatres in the United States. Musical theatre in Spain has little precedence, so there are no reference points for gauging quality in both professional and amateur productions. The limited Broadway musical theatre scene means instant audiences with little reference in regard to accuracy, quality, or standard of production. My research also revealed the complexities of non-Spanish companies producing Broadway musicals in Spain. The business of musicals is analyzed in Chapter 3 and the idea of how unexperienced musical theatre enthusiasts (amateurs) transpose Broadway to their own local communities is further explored in Chapters 4 and 5. The Broadway musical has its roots firmly planted on the actual paved avenue of the same name in New York City, and the professional Broadway musicals of Spain today are centered mostly on Madrid’s “Gran Vía” (the Grand Road). Chapter 3 discusses how Gran Vía became the epicenter of Spain’s new musical theatricality and what many Spaniards refer to as “El Broadway español” (The Spanish Broadway) or “El Broadway madrileño” (Madrid’s Broadway). In an article titled “Esto no es Broadway” (This Is Not Broadway), producer Nacho Artime credits Luis Ramírez with “turning Madrid’s Gran Vía into a Broadway.”9 Madrid has also hosted productions of The Addams Family, Billy Elliott, Chicago, The Sound of Music, and High School Musical – just to name a few. In fact, the Spanish version of the musical Priscilla Queen of the Desert played longer in Madrid than it did on Broadway. Madrid is third in line for European cities that produce the most amounts of musicals, 9. Nacho Artime, “Esto no es Broadway,” El Cultural Online, September 18, 2003, accessed October 28, 2015, http://www.elcultural.com/revista/teatro/Esto-no-es-Broadway/7812. 23 behind London and Hamburg, with 21% of its tourists coming specifically to see a musical.10 It claims the fame of being the largest producer of musicals in Spanish, brought in around EURO 240 million ($275 million) to its economy in 2015. Gran Vía’s entertainment history had close ties to American influence long before the Broadway musical made its arrival on the Spanish avenue. From the early 1950s through the 1960s, Spain was a valuable resource for Hollywood filmmaking since many producers looked to get away from strict antitrust laws in the United States by filming internationally. Locales like the province of Almería afforded Hollywood producers cheap and easily accessible land for filming. Dictator Franco and his regime welcomed Hollywood as a way of creating a positive image of Spain and its people, relying on the glamour of film and its worldwide influence. Spanish audiences craved Hollywood and Gran Vía became a center for movie theatres. In 1950, Adam’s Rib starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy premiered at the Palacio de Música (Palace of Music). Originally a concert hall for live music with the occasional film screening as early as 1928, the Palacio de Música became a full cinema in the 1950s, where it then continued on to play other Hollywood blockbusters such as Gone With the Wind. This was the beginning of American cultural influence on Gran Vía. Neal Rosendor’s book, Franco Sells Spain to America: Hollywood, Tourism and Public Relations As Postwar Spanish Soft Power (2014) explores this particular phenomenon in Spain. Factors such as the proliferation of television programming, video piracy, and a rise in the cultural tax eventually forced the closure of most of Madrid’s famed cinemas, and interestingly, Gran Vía 10. José Lius Romo, “La edad de oro de los musicales en Madrid,” El País Online, March 19, 2018, accessed February 15, 2019, https://www.elmundo.es/madrid/2018/03/19/ 5aaec660e2704e7e7d8b465f.html. 24 theatre spaces were converted back to live musical performance halls by another American cultural product: the Broadway musical. At the center of Gran Vía’s performance space transformation lies the symbolic El Teatro Lope de Vega (Lope de Vega Theatre). Ramírez transformed the entertainment district in Madrid with his repurposing of El Teatro Lope de Vega in 1997 from an old movie theatre into now the most significant building for musical theatre in Spain. Coincidentally, the Teatro Lope de Vega was also the site of the very first Goya Awards in 1987, the equivalent of Spain’s Oscar Awards for film. “Madrid has always had the impossibility of being able to present the grandiose musicals of Broadway, and this complex would feed that necessity,” assured Ramírez.11 It was more than just a rebuilding of an old theatre, it marked the transformation of Gran Vía into a great center in the world of musical theatre – and the Broadway of Madrid – according to an article in El ABC.12 El Teatro Lope de Vega has since been host to some of the most successful Spanish versions of Broadway musicals.13 Today, the vision of Luis Ramírez is embodied by the largest producer of musicals in Spain: Stage Entertainment (formerly CIE Stage Holding). As owners of El Teatro Lope de Vega, Stage Entertainment represents the new business 11. José Antonio Martínez, “El abandono de Príncipe Pío dará paso a un gran centro comercial y de ocio,” El ABC Online, September 6, 1998, accessed October 25, 2015, http://hemeroteca.abc.es/nav/Navigate.exe/hemeroteca/ madrid/abc/1998/09/06/091.html. 12. Lorenzo López Sancho, “’El hombre de la Mancha,’ un musical sensacional.” 13. Ramirez also set out on an ambitious business initiative that included repurposing the old Príncipe Pío train station into the largest theatre complex in Madrid. Initially slated for the millennial year, it was to divide out over 500,000 square feet into a megacomplex containing a performance stadium for musicals, movie theatres, art galleries, restaurants, shopping, and entertainment area. Its most distinctive feature was the construction of a theatre capable of housing the complex spectacles necessary for Broadway musicals, a problem across theatres in Madrid. As a result of several financial hardships and his untimely death from colon cancer, Luis Ramírez’s Príncipe Pío initiative to bring the largest musical theatre center to Madrid never fully materialized during his lifetime. El Gran Teatro Bankia Príncipe Pío opened in the partly-renovated station in 2015. Named after a bank (sponsor), it is also one of the first international theatres to accept Bitcoin as payment for annual subscription – which gives access to cultural events across the city. The completion of the rest of the station is due in late 2019, and will include amusement attractions, live shows, and entertainment that largely falls outside of the musical theatre aspect once envisioned by Ramirez. 25 of Broadway in Madrid. The relationship between Broadway, Gran Vía, Stage Entertainment, and Madrid as a space for urban entertainment space is at the core of my research in Chapter 3. By the beginning of the 21st century musical theatre was the highest grossing form of theatre in Spain (ibid). However, most of these commercially-successful productions (meaning, highly profitable) were Spanish-translated Broadway musicals. Few original Spanish musicals – with original stories and music unique to local audiences – have made their way to the spotlight over the last few decades. One notable exception was in 1996, when the musical La maja de Goya by Vicente Escrivá premiered in Madrid. Its musical soundtrack consisted of original songs. These songs mimicked the pop sounds of contemporary Broadway musicals like Les Miserables or Phantom of the Opera, but even so, La maja lasted around two years in the city and on tour throughout Spain before it was forced to close without profitable returns. The country’s two most successfully original Spanish musicals were what Americans call “juke box musicals,” which are musicals based on the song repertoire of an artist (or genre) and set to a simple storyline through which to connect the songs. Hoy no me puedo levantar, based on the songs of Spanish pop group Mecano, premiered in 2005 and by 2011 had toured to over 30 Spanish cities and Mexico. Los 40: el musical, a 2009 jukebox musical of the Top 40 radio hits, included over 100 songs (not all Spanish) and 40 performers in a three-hour musical performance. Although not as successful as Hoy no me puedo levantar, the show Los 40 is still one of the musicals used to benchmark a uniquely Spanish Broadway-like musical. In this dissertation, I investigate why Broadway musicals are more commercially successful in Spain than musicals with uniquely Spanish stories and their own music. 26 The proliferation of musical theatre in Spain is not just evident in its capital city. Higher learning institutions in Spain are starting to reshape training curriculums and university degrees, while countless private studios continue to pop up around the country. Regional provinces enjoy some of these Broadway musical transplants through tours, and residents will drive hours to their province’s capital to enjoy them. I recently attended a sold-out performance of Priscilla Queen of the Desert in the southernmost province of Cádiz. Unlike the United States, however, there is not an abundance of professional regional theatres producing Broadway musicals in Spain. Professional companies producing non-musical works are more common, although unusual for them to reside in their own theatres. Instead, they tour their provinces through a theatrical network through which local towns contract single performances. Most Broadway musicals make it to the local communities by way of amateur, or community theatre productions, not professional companies. These amateur groups working outside of Madrid stage their own Spanish versions of Broadway musicals on much smaller scales and, as I discuss later in this dissertation, with much more local reinterpretation and cultural adaptation, or “transposing” (often un-sanctioned). The comparison of Broadway musicals in the United States and in Spain revealed further complexities that extended beyond a simple chronological analysis of productions and translations. Questions emerged about translations, highlighting the hurdles of changing the text of musicals into Spanish while working within the constraints of musical notations. I wondered about the transfer of cultural codes, symbols, and meanings, as these Broadway musicals made their way to Spanish audiences in Madrid. There are no definitive translations or adaptations of a musical, as each carry the influences and cultural shaping of the translators. Broadway, a 27 powerfully charged brand on its own, further complicates the understanding of audience perception about musical theatre in Spain – and how that feeds into the authenticity of the translated musicals. Questions emerged not just about the text, but about the conversation musical theatre was having in its new time, new space, and new language. As Walter Benjamin notes, “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be” (Benjamin 1986, 220). A lot can be learned from musically staged performances that cannot be spotted through the text. It is much more than a conversation about the text, the idea of a transfer becomes a transposition of all its elements, its symbols, its meanings, and its relationships. Studying these locally translated and staged interpretations of Broadway musicals, I dig deep into the creative process of artists in Spain to uncover these linguistic, cultural, musical, and artistic transpositions. Cultural, Linguistic, Musical, and Artistic Transpositions As Broadway musicals tour within the United States, they play to diverse audiences with regional differences from state to state. Values, local influences, and rural or city experiences, affect reception. As a musical theatre scholar, I studied some of these differences and researched the impact of Broadway tours as they made their way across the United States. Intending to apply some of those same principles, I quickly realized these Broadway musicals in Spain are not merely a tour. Broadway tours in the United States are all still in English and the shows are unchanged as they move from city to city. In fact, most major Broadway musicals are even written for the broadest possible audience across the United States. In Spain, these Broadway musicals were new creations – translated, adapted, rewritten, recreated in another 28 sociohistorical context in another completely different country. I did not fully grasp the full scope of research – and my limited vision of it – until I experienced it firsthand as an actor and singer in Spain. Research I once considered solely academic was suddenly putting into question my own personal artistic pride. Eight months after seeing El Rey León in Madrid, 2014, I found myself walking back to the Teatro Lope de Vega for my own audition. At that audition, I recall a question from a production company member after I finished my 32 bars of music. “Was your song transposed?” he innocently asked. I was simultaneously heartbroken but also intrigued at this accusation. Transposing my musical selection would have meant changing the original key into another key to fit my vocal ability; an unspoken implication that I could not sing it in the original key and had to perhaps lower it to make it easier on my voice. At least that’s how it is perceived among my network of musical theatre friends back in the United States. At the time, it was a great source of damage to my artistic pride. This was not me as an actor and it was not an image of myself that I was trying to convey. It made me wonder about the signs I gave during the audition that would make him think it was transposed. Was I low on energy? Was I off pitch? Did they just not like my voice? Did my singing the lyrics in English automatically “lower” the sound for ears normally accustomed to hearing songs in Spanish? I instantly felt out of place, coming to the conscious realization that I was an American (who is at the same time also Spanish) auditioning in Spain. These cultural differences took centerstage in my mind, and I wondered about the implications of my Spanish and American identities on my audition. They joked about my perfectly American accent while speaking English and my authentic southern-Spain gáditano (from the Cádiz province) while speaking Spanish. Perhaps 29 that ten-minute friendly conversation with them right before going onstage was a mistake. They were impressed with my musical theatre credits from the United States, but it may have branded me with an extremely high level of expectations I could not fulfill. They were thrilled I had been to Broadway many times over the years, but maybe I misunderstood them and gave the impression I was actually on Broadway. They wanted several music choices but did not recognize most of the songs in my book. Musical theatre performers in the United States are taught to avoid auditioning with cliché songs, so I was instantly thrown off when they asked me to sing from Jesus Christ Superstar (a musical which often appears on many “do not use for auditions” lists). Did I overstep my bounds by putting them on the spot with my less familiar musical selections? Had I oversold myself from the start and did they mistakenly think I performed on Broadway? Just how professional and trained were my evaluators? Was I too American and not Spanish enough while standing in the middle of the large Lope de Vega theatre? Or was I conversely too Spanish and not American enough during my audition? This experience led me to recognize the transposing of music as a metaphor for the themes covered in this dissertation. Music is transposed for a variety of reasons: it allows singers to work within their vocal limits; it increases conformity and accessibility in choral groups; it simplifies music for instrument players; and it often allows for the addition of extra voices, orchestrations, or instruments. In all cases, the pitches change but the rhythms themselves remain the same. Even so, transposition is enough to affect the color, texture, and perhaps even energy of the music, leading to the reinterpretation of new signals and meanings in the song. In a similar way, Broadway musicals brought to Spain are fragmented through a series of 30 processes that ultimately transposes it into a new “glocalized” form – infusing the global with the local. The Broadway of musicals, like the rhythms between transposed music and its original counterpart, remains structurally the same. Its content, however, much like differences in pitches between pre- and post- transposition, reflects new identities created by the theatrical groups performing them in Spain that simultaneously occupy different spaces within the local and global urban imaginary communities within Spain. Transposing Broadway through its musicals allows Spanish producers, artists, and audiences to create new ways of seeing, hearing, and interpreting these performances on and off the stage. Transposition generally refers to the changing of pitches and keys in music, which directly aligns with some of the themes of this dissertation. The incorporation of musical performance is obviously a key component in Broadway theatre and is unique in comparison with other non-musical styles that are popular in the global theatre industry. The translation and adaptation of Broadway music into Spanish or any other language is complex, but it is also the key to its popularity and success outside the U.S. This dissertation takes transposition beyond “the score” and onto “the stage” of creative process, performance, and reception. Just as transposed music provides new color to existing songs, the Broadway musicals of Spain are colored in a new Spanish key that incorporates local flavors, customs, and sounds. I use the term “transpose” as a metaphor and as a theoretical tool to analyze multiple levels of artistic behavior and social processes. My transpositions are concerned with contemporary performance practices in Spain, and specifically how these practices create relationships between the participants – artists, audiences, and communities. I focus specifically on the musical bodies and artistic processes, 31 uncovering the intersectionality between text, music, space, artistic choices, artists’ relationships, and the global market. The stories told through the texts of these Broadway musicals are linguistically adapted through translation processes for non- English speaking audiences. Musical universality gives local artists the ability to work with existing Broadway musical rhythms, genres, and keys, making the translated words and locally trained voices fit the set melodies. Culturally, the musicals must often be re-codified, allowing for a more accessible reading by those living in the host country or region. Musical transpositions simplify the score for instrumentalists and singers, but they must also respect the intent of the composers – something happy and in a major key may not be made dissonant and sad, for example. In the same way, Spanish musical theatre artists and producers negotiate the cultural complexities of bringing Broadway musicals to their own stage. Each rehearsal is a transposition of cultural codes and expectations reflecting their own experiences, so they toe the line between respecting local traditions while also diversifying their communities with outside (and sometimes unconventional, contentious) perspectives. Ultimately, the global theatre market and its economic influence creates Broadway models that are unsustainable by local communities, especially those far removed from urban centers. Therefore, theatre groups must also modify their business practices in ways that allow them to produce their own versions. These negotiations force a compromise to find the right balance between the intent of the original Broadway musical and its adaptation to a different set of morals, social roles, religious traditions, and theatre expectations. I walked into that audition confident in my skills, backed by a resume of American credits I felt gave me a unique advantage in what I had to offer in Spain. 32 My entire musical theatre experience and training was in the United States and I figured becoming part of a new Broadway community in Spain was as simple as reading the new text and singing some of the same notes. The audition, however, was more of a wake-up call reminding me that transpositions are more than just about musical notations. They involve cultural, social, and political influences that affect every step of the process – including a quick, simple audition. I no longer felt as securely American, but I also did not feel completely Spanish. This artistic limbo inspired me to dig into the cultural transpositions of Broadway musicals to find an explanation for this imbalance – to understand the different interpretations of Broadway between the United States and Spain, to explore the power of the musical spectacle and whether that power comes from the musical or the artists, and to ultimately find out if Broadway is as truly transcendent as I have made it out to be most of my life. Much like I am still working through my own cultural awareness, a cultural transition did not occur overnight in Spain either, and not all of the country was ready for these musicals either. The older tunes of the classical zarzuelas (to be discussed in Chapter 2) were at least still Spanish. Initially, Spanish audiences were averse to American products, even outside of the theatre industry. “Uf, son americanadas” (Ugh, they’re americanizations), Spanish musical theatre producer Nacho Artime said of people’s reaction to musicals. It was certainly not an uncommon dig for the rapid infiltration of new cultural products, ideas, and ways of living.14 Some of this cultural acceptance changed though, as evidenced in one of Spain’s most popular film of the 14. Nacho Artime, “Esto no es Broadway,” El Cultural Online, September 18, 2003. 33 1950s, Bienvenido Mr. Marshall (1953).15 The Broadway musical has now settled into Spain for what seems to be an indefinite vacation. I set out to find out what Broadway meant to Spanish artists and their communities. As this uniquely American art form was transported across the ocean into another culture, I wanted to know the ways Spanish artists connected with musicals whose themes capitalized on the nostalgia of a bygone Broadway era. Through this dissertation, I explore the different ways Spanish audiences connect to a musical form that has been traditionally associated with an American identity. It reveals the ways these Spanish communities have both benefited and been hindered by these cultural transpositions. More broadly, my analysis underscores the impact these forces have on collaborative art forms across borders. Research Questions In this dissertation, I ask the following questions: • How have Spain’s own musical forms been historically shaped and reshaped by shifting negotiations of national identity? • Why did Broadway musicals become popular in Spain and what do they offer that uniquely Spanish musicals cannot? • Who are the stake holders and how do they negotiate the creative spaces when staging their own interpretations of Broadway? • How are cultural differences performed on and off the stage during these transpositions? • What is at stake when these musicals are produced in Spain? • How are these Broadway musicals culturally and socially redefining artistic communities in Spain? 15. A Spanish film by director Luis García Berlanga, the plot revolves around the arrival of American diplomats to a small Spanish village. It depicts Spanish and American relationships and perceptions each held for the other, while providing a social commentary of 1950s society in Spain. 34 Through an exploration of Broadway in Spain, I want to ultimately explore the effects of globalization on collaborative art forms like musical theatre. In a world of growing urban centers and cities, can artistic communities create unique and original forms of expression? Literature Review Musical theatre, like this dissertation, touches upon a wide range of subjects and can be looked at from several perspectives – as a historical survey, as an ethnographic study, as a dramaturgical analysis, a cultural studies perspective, and even a business marketing angle. My research crosses over a wide variety of those fields. However, the bodies of scholarly literature that most inform my research and analyses include: musical theatre history and theory, globalization, and music community participation. While many other subjects are touched upon throughout the dissertation, these three are a driving force in this research. a. Musical Theatre History and Theory The close connection of musical theatre to American history and entertainment has produced a field of scholars specializing in musical theatre from a variety of perspectives. Several musical theatre historians have provided valuable chronological information that has helped me situate musicals in their historical context. Sheldon Patinkin’s No Legs, No Jokes, No Chances: A History of American Musical Theartre (2008) offers an extensive breakdown of musical theatre history, while providing valuable examples of important historical moments occurring at the same time. Larry Stempel’s Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theatre provides a similar analysis yet is able to connect the predecessors to current day 35 examples much more clearly and in more depth. Most musical research serves as similar chronological timelines of Broadway history (see also Kenrick 2017, Kislan 1980, Hischak 2008, Carter 2007, and Engel 1967). Jessica Sternfeld’s The Megamusical and Elizabeth L. Wollman’s The Theatre Will Rock provided new historical perspectives on contemporary Broadway musical trends – offering analyses and valuable theoretical insight into more recent musical theatre trends like megamusicals and rock musicals. Within musical theatre scholarship, several scholars have provided the framework for my understanding of the intersection between identity politics and the Broadway musical. John Bush Jones’s historical perspectives in Our Musicals, Ourselves (2003) visualizes musical theatre as a slice of life, using history as a lens through which to find and analyze cultural contexts, attitudes, inspirations, and motivations of the community and its processes. Unlike the books that focus solely on chronology of the musicals, his writings are a “social history of the musical stage [that] examines musicals both in history and as history during the twentieth century – as theatrical vehicles that intend to transform, not just report, the tenor of the times” (ibid, 1). Jones uncovers the major historical events that impacted the United States, and how the cultural and social attitudes of those moments shaped the content and creation of the musical. Rodgers and Hammerstein were greatly motivated by the sentiments of the country after World War II. The counterculture of the 1970s brought in the freedom of musicals like Hair and the fragmentation of society propelled musicals like Company. Understanding his approach allowed me to apply the same model when looking at Spain’s musical theatre history within the context of its social climate. 36 In The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity (2005), Raymond Knapp dissects how musicals have historically advanced specific concepts and themes related to an American national identity. From Show Boat to West Side Story, he breaks down musicals into categories of themes that feed the idea of nationalism. Whether it be musicals as a definition of American mythologies and counter-mythologies or as factors in national conversations about race, ethnicity, and exoticism, Knapp’s approach to overlapping musical theatre history with a social narrative has shaped my own approach in finding how Spanish artists’ creative processes mold or affect their own national identity. “Musicals have helped us envision ourselves as a nation of disparate peoples, functioning within a world of even more extreme differences” (ibid, 7). As a complement to this first book, The American Musical and The Performance of Personal Identity (2006) uses musical theatre as a vehicle for exploring how the artists themselves interact with each other and the world in which they live. The book focuses on operettas and movie musicals, but it helps to uncover approaches to more personal, and often abstract, themes like fantasy, gender, sexuality, and relationships through musicals like Chicago, Sweeney Todd, and Moulin Rouge. Knapp uses musical theatre to examine how individuals develop and establish their identity, hoping to discover a “multiplicity of possibilities expressed and experienced in more concrete terms in an attempt to map out the inner self and outer persona. . . helping to negotiate, within a dynamic of reciprocal influence, the sometimes-treacherous terrain that lies between these two frontiers” (ibid, 1). This served as an invaluable tool in knowing what to look for while doing my own ethnographic research in Spain, similarly examining how Spain might also be forming their identity through musical theatre as well. 37 Stacy Wolf, one of the foremost musical theatre scholars, provided foundations through which to look at musical theatre from a different lens. Looking through a feminist lens, Wolf’s A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical (2002) and Changed for Good: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical (2010) allowed me to understand the sociocultural contexts of musical theatre study. Similarly, Todd R. Decker used Show Boat: Performing Race in an American Musical (2013) to explore the study of musical theatre, but through race. Decker places the original musical in conversation with other future incarnations of the musical to provide a discussion about race in America – highlighting the racial lines of the musical theatre genre itself (see also Knapp, Morris, and Wolf 2011). A key understanding of Broadway as a commerce and business were necessary to explore some of the frameworks of this dissertation, especially in Chapter 2. Rosenberg and Harburg’s The Broadway Musical: Collaboration in Commerce and Art (1993) provided some early 20th century history on the business and commerce on Broadway. Stage Money: The Business of the Professional Theater (Donahue and Patterson 2010) and Steven Adler’s On Broadway: Art and Commerce on the Great White Way (2004) focused on the economics of Broadway, covering everything from differences in operational structures of professional theatres to non- profits in the United States. The term “musical transposition” is an important one in many areas of musical study, and thus, also for musical theatre. In Transposing Broadway: Jews, Assimilation, and the American Musical, Stuart J. Hecht (2011) provides an interesting examination the Broadway musical as a transposition of American culture in the eyes of a particular population. His approach focuses specifically on the impact 38 of twentieth-century Jewish immigrants and their American descendants on the early development of the Broadway genre. He grounds his study in U.S. musical theatre history, focusing on musicals after the 1910s and covering many Golden Age Broadway musicals of the 1940s through the 1960s. Hecht’s transpositions focus heavily on the score and text of musicals past to reflect how past experiences of the Jewish community have shaped and developed the musical into what it is today. My use of transposition is distinct from Hecht in that my research purposefully steps away from the American to take a more global perspective – something that has now become possible as Broadway increasingly expands its industry and moves overseas. While Hecht’s historiographical lens lends itself to a dramaturgical approach, this dissertation leads with an ethnographic approach and uses in-depth findings to analyze new cultural currents of Broadway production around the globe. b. Globalization and “Glocalization” of Theatre Through modernism in the early 20th century, cities altered by the Industrial Revolution and the quick pace of modernization “consciously broke away from classical methods of representation and instead explored forms of expression better suited to the altered experience of time and space” (Berghaus 2005, 13-14). Urban development skyrocketed toward the end of the 20th century, largely propelled by modernism’s rapid transition from a mechanical age to an electronic age and the result of a 1950s massive expansion in trade, finance, and global markets. The emergence of a post-Industrial information society catapulted into focus, and with it the idea of individuality and identity became a highly problematic concept – there was more time communicating with “it” than with other humans. Cities and urban centers became complex, uncertain spaces that made it harder for people to connect 39 on an individual basis. Gone was the focus on the individual, the text, and on established notions of reality; instead, a new postmodernism ushered in an era that navigated the interpretation of reality. Modernism’s centricity on the individual turned towards power structures and domination strategies in the social world in order to expose the politics of representation through cultural interpretations (ibid). With specific importance to this research, postmodernism put the globe over nation-state in the game of identity (Robinson 2001). In Work of Nations, Robert Reich foretold the cause and effects of this new globalization: We are living through a transformation that will rearrange the politics and economies of the century. There will be no national products or technologies, no national corporations, no national industries. There will no longer be national economies, at least as we have come to understand that concept. All that will remain rooted within national borders are the people who comprise a nation. Each nation’s primary assets will be its citizens’ skills and insights. Each nation’s primary political task will be to cope with the centrifugal forces of the global economy which tear at the ties binding citizens together – bestowing ever greater wealth on the most skilled and insightful, while consigning the less skilled to a declined standard of living. As borders become ever more meaningless in economic terms, those citizens best positioned to thrive in the world market are tempted to slip the bonds of national allegiance, and by so doing disengage themselves from their less favored fellows. (Reich 1991, 2) Spain’s rapid growth of society and technology during the last half of the 20th century brought with it the emergence of a globalized economy centered on new ways of production, consumption, capital, and commodities – postmodern conditions that would require worldwide integration and synthesis of economies. In time, individuals – and musical theatre itself – are swallowed up into a global world of nation-states, transnational corporations, and international organizations. In The Global Age: State and Society Beyond Modernity, sociologist Martin Albrow (1997) denotes this transition from modern to postmodern society as a defining feature of globalization. 40 A new ‘global age’ replaces modernity and shifts the action and social organizations of individuals and groups. In Albrow’s construct, the nation-state is the definition of modernity – an authority or central source from which social action radiates. A shift to postmodern thinking decenters the nation-state, so that “under globalization both individuals and institutional actors such as corporations relate directly to the globe, rendering the nation-state largely redundant” (Robinson 2007, 136). This postmodern rationale substitutes a national with a global perspective as the primary source of identity. These trends reflect the next shift in the urbanization process – or what Soja calls the “unbounding” of the metropolis into a new postmetropolis (Soja 2011). In his theories, the postmetropolis appears as a restructured urban cosmopolis; fragmented, polarized, and restructured through the globalization of capital, work, and culture. Beginning with an implosion of urban cores at the end of the 1960s, “transnational migration flows in particular have refilled many metropolitan cores, contributing to the flattening out of metropolitan density gradients, especially through the urbanization of suburbia. A complex mix of deindustrialization and reindustrialization as well as decentralization and recentralization have worked to reorganize the social and spatial structure of almost every modern metropolis, creating the foundations for the emergence of a more flexible, globalized, and neoliberal mode of urban industrial capitalism, a "new economy" (ibid, 684). New spatiality makes it difficult to separate the urban from the non-urban and the city from the suburb. This creates a weakening of the idea of place and definition of social communities within this space. “The boundaries of the city are becoming more porous, confusing our ability to draw neat lines separating what is inside as opposed 41 to outside the city; between the city and the countryside, suburbia, the non-city; between one metropolitan city-region and another; between the natural and the artificial” (Soja 2000, 150). The accelerated globalization process is defined by new regionalized versions of the city. The central is becoming peripheral and the peripheral central, as best described by Soja: “The postmetropolis can be represented [or performed] as a product of intensified globalization processes through which the global is becoming localized and the local is becoming globalized at the same time” (ibid,152). This is important to my research because this chaos forces these musicals performed in Spain to play Broadway somewhere between the global and national – a “glocalization” of musical theatre. An increase toward the homogenizing global cultural amoeba incites the need for local cultural differentiation in these musicals, so that producers of musicals in Spain are allowed to simultaneously engage with national themes or cultural values while staying in line with other globally-positioned powerhouse productions. Through the way they particularly play Broadway, they are able to capitalize on both Broadway and their home city or town. Likewise, local communities attempt to engage with both Spain as their country and the larger Broadway community. The Broadway musicals, now fragmented and politicized in new spaces, unmoor and reterritorialize cultural capital through various branded projections of place to tout its membership in the larger global community while reinforcing its local connections in Spain. In his article, “Broadway as Global Brand” David Savran (2017) tackles the musical in the global environment and positions the Broadway musical as a “a pre- eminent transnational theatre form,” absorbed by other theatrical conventions and 42 entertainment forms abroad. As a deterritorialized genre fit for a globalized world full of moving international products, Savran’s analysis frees the Broadway brand from its traditionally-held post as reflection of American identity and ideals. Savran also acknowledges in other writings that Broadway has become untethered from its physical location in New York City and has come to represent the musical itself. “These questions about the national identity of the Broadway musical make it clear that the thoroughfare embedded in its name is less a real street than a fantasmatic origin and terminus in the global theatre industry” (Savran 2014, 26). In my research, I question whether or not Broadway has indeed become untethered or whether its bond to New York City is too firmly grounded to break. In Spain, whenever anyone would refer to Broadway or el Broadway, they were always referring to musicals in general – although New York City was never far behind it in discussion, comparison, or observations. Savran, however, in his article “Trafficking in Transnational Brands: The New ‘Broadway Style’ Musical” (2014), he counters those critics that see the musical as a sort of “McTheatre” of standardization – ignoring the geographical and historical uniqueness of the musical’s new international audiences. “A musical is not, after all, a hamburger,” Savran notes, “and consumers develop a much more active and complex relationship with a two-and-a-half-hour musical spectacle than with a Big Mac” (ibid, 335). See also Miles 2010, Ritzer 2015, and Salter, Bowery, and Handler n.d. The purpose of my research is to explore these complex relationships in further depth. c. (Un)Connected Musical Communities Although globally connected, theatre and Broadway musicals are intimate connections between audience and performances, between the actors on stage, and 43 between those involved in the creative and design process. Social and cultural experiences are a vital component of identity formation, enacted through performances that may serve as important markers for communities’ values, ideals, morals, and rules. They also assist in reaffirming individual and collective identities, bonding groups together through common experiences. Performances are ritually framed and contextualized by particular cultures and histories, so their significance changes over time. A wide range of resources analyzing the relationship between ritual and performance has informed this research. From the social sciences and performance studies, sources include Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (1960); Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theater (1982); Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959); and Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (1973). Theatre history and theatre studies also has a related literature, including Richard Schechner and Victor Turner, Between Theater and Anthropology (1985); Eli Rozik, The Roots of Theatre: Rethinking Ritual and Other Theories of Origin (2002); Erika Lichte, Theatre, Sacrifice, Ritual: Exploring forms of Political Theatre (2005); and Peter Bucknell, Entertainment and ritual, 600 to 1600 (1979). Musicals make us feel like part of large globally-connected community with common interest and passions that help create meaningful and collaborative interactions. Benedict Anderson’s theories help underscore how Spanish artists in their communities negotiate their place in their communities and Spain as their nation. In Imagined Communities, Anderson (2006) references the idea of simultaneity, which can be summarized as “temporal coincidence, measured by clock and calendar” (ibid, 24). It is within this virtual community that wider, national 44 consciousness exists and to be a part of that nation groups of people need to experience themselves as people. They are participating together in something larger than themselves and the abstract notion of a nation comes from the interactions of citizens who relate to the larger, abstract idea of the nation. The Broadway musical has infiltrated the broader economic, political, academic, and cultural transition of Spain but it is unclear what kind(s) of imagined communities the participants of this imported genre have formed. Productions like Sweeney Todd, Lion King, and Into the Woods have been produced to critical acclaim in Spain and, like most musicals in Spain, have capitalized on its connections to Broadway. Connections like these make artists and audiences feel closer connected to a larger and global Broadway community. They are participating together in something larger than themselves and the abstract notion of a “nation” or Broadway comes from the collective practice of the members of a group who imagine those interactions as meaningful. Broadwayworld.com, an online press and resource for Broadway fans, epitomizes the idea of this interconnected community. Major cities in the United States and abroad, including Madrid and Barcelona, have their own site under the Broadwayworld umbrella. This exemplifies Anderson’s idea of a globally connected community – especially if we remember that he used the idea of a newspaper as something that creates the simultaneity necessary for an imagined community. Through what Anderson calls “unisonance,” there is a unisonality or echoed physical realization of the imagined community (ibid, 145). Millions of people sing the same phrases of “Circle of Life” from The Lion King and hum the same introduction of the title song from Phantom of the Opera. While they may not be sharing the same physical space, their partaking of the same musical activity places them in the same imagined 45 community. When theatre groups from four different regions of Spain were brought together for the festival in Chapter 5, a collective sing-along of “One Day More” from Les Misérables showed how they were connected even before gathering in the same space. Although the dissertation focuses on the Broadway musical within Spain, the interaction of musical groups with nation are more directly explored in Chapter 5. Through the music of musicals, we are also able to connect to our own nations in new ways. As noted by ethnomusicologist Bruno Nettl, “The idea that one makes or listens to music to show who one is, in national, ethnic, class, personal contexts, has been around for a long time, but identity hasn’t been recognized until the last two decades as a major function of music” (Nettl 2005, 257). In Music, Ethnicity, and Identity (1994) Martin Stokes explores different ways that musical activities across the world bring people together in ways that socially align them together into single experiences. He refers to this process as a type of “tuning in” to an experience “in which social identity is literally embodied” (ibid, 12). Engaging in musical processes also allows us to tap into our own persona to explore our own individual identities. In 2016, I had a formal sit-down interview with a London producer, Nica Burns, who said: Music, rather than writing, music is able to tell more in a much, much more overreaching emotional star and huge moment that you can do. . . anthemic moment. Height of the story combined with, at that moment, with music that grows and the lyrics that fit exactly. It’s very hard to beat it, uniting an entire audience and making them want to stand up and go “Yes! Yes! You got there! Yes! You did it!” There is something about music that is very uniting, it expands people’s emotional response. It unifies and expands the collective emotional response to words and the moment of the story. . . The musical has the capacity of unlocking someone’s emotions. The music helps to unlock it and help feel what’s going on. (Nica Burns, interview with author, May 11, 2016, London) 46 I turned to ethnomusicology as a way of exploring the cultural and social aspects of the musical artists in the creative processes. In Music as A Social Life: The Politics of Participation (2008), American ethnomusicologist Thomas Turino synthesizes theory and cultural anthropology to categorize music making as a form of “social life.” For some cultures, music may be the sound of hitting two sticks together. Or maybe music is the sound that comes from running a spoon up and down a textured glass bottle. Perhaps they are the vocal responses amongst tribe members in Africa. In fact, many dictionaries avoid defining music in its most basic capacity since the authors “assume that the readers know what they, and the people with whom they associate, think music is” (Nettle 2005, 17). If we have some difficulty in defining music within our own culture, they how do we even begin to analyze the concept of music in other cultures with which we are not familiar? Cultural practices such as musical theatre are ways in which we all form collective identities which are necessary for social group formations and interactions. These collective identities allow “people to intimately feel themselves part of the community through the realization of shared cultural knowledge and style and through the very act of participating in performance” (Turino 2008, 2). Yet we also show conflict and inequality through music and performance, and it emerges during the creative process as series of social and political negotiations. Martin Stokes (1994) also breaks down the musical construction of place as a series of differences which create borders that delineate specific identities: Music is used by social actors in specific local situations to erect boundaries, to maintain distinctions between us and them, and how terms such as “authenticity” are used to justify boundaries. (Stokes 1994, 5) 47 We see these divides in the various studies of musical performance. National anthems raise questions about identity and the inclusion (or exclusion) of those who sing them. Cultures, race, and ethnicities are studied through specialized forms of musical performances like hip hop, Celtic music, Brazilian nationalistic project revolving around Macunaíma, or even the study of cultural identity through the music of Bollywood film. Certainly, musical theatre is a genre that engages with the social in unique ways – it tells a cultural story through narrative – resolving, recovering from, or even creating social conflict. (See also Chambers 1985, Manuel 1989, Nettl 1983, Slobin 1993 and 2008, Kelen 2015, Witzleben 1995, Booth and Shope 2014, and Charry 2012). Turino focuses less on defining music and more on establishing a connection between music as an art form and the effects of it on society. “Music is not a unitary art form, but rather that this term refers to fundamentally distinct types of activities that fulfill different needs and ways of being human” (Turino 2008, 1). Using an approach that draws on fieldwork from cultures across the globe (Peru, Zimbabwe, and the Unites States), he connects the significance of music, its effects on artistic experience of the participant, music as meaningful symbols, and a negotiation of “space” in order to make the jump from concrete genre to abstract social concept. As was the case with the artists in the Spanish production of Rent (see Chapter 4), “musicmaking and dancing provide a special type of activity for directly connecting with other participants. . . that create effects of feeling and physical reaction and thus personal integration” (ibid, 21). Another essential part of society is business and the market. Musical production is embedded in this as well. Participatory music engages individuals, 48 social groups, social movements, and businesses alike. It is not just limited to special to just artists or small theatre companies. Large arts corporations (see Chapter 3) engage with their audience through specialized branding strategies. Brands, like Broadway, are carriers of symbolic and cultural capital (Power and Hauge 2008). Brands are thought to represent powerful forces shaping the identity politics of our age. Our tastes in brands are seen as social tools and indicators that work alongside a host of other symbols, objects, and activities as weapons and reflections of our identities and aspirations. In more circumspect accounts they represent a forest of logos, slogans, and messages—a nebula of information—that carpet our everyday lives and landscapes. (ibid, 125) Engagement of the individual Spanish artist in the creative musical process influences their social life in an interplay between what Turino calls the Possible and the Actual. The Possible is the realm that includes the things that they “might be able to do, hope, think, know, and experience” while the Actual involves already experienced actions or moments (2008, 17). The Actual, which involves the normal routines of the day, are often dictated by cultural expectations and framework. The Possible awakens participants from these mundane habits sand allows them to explore the imagination and endless possibilities. Understanding the leap of Spanish artists from the Actual into the Possible allows for an analysis of those similarities or sameness, especially when it comes to participating in music. The shared musical experiences remind us of “communitas,” Victor Turner’s principle that a collective state through ritual can create a collective where personal distinctions are “stripped away allowing people to temporarily merge with their basic humanity” (ibid, 18). This idea, along with Turino’s theories help point towards ways in which Spanish audiences participate in musical theatre to shape their social lives. 49 Through the interactions and translations of the musical processes (Chapter 4), the participation of artists also uncovered negotiations of specific gender identities within the constructs of a tradition-steeped city in Spain. The embodiment of Broadway by the actors, through the text and through the artistic process, revealed cultural contradictions of these identities during their performances on and off the stage. Local theatre groups specializing in musicals are important locations in Spain for a community of fans of Broadway. Broadway musicals provide a codified template, but participation in their own unique creative process is ultimately shaped by not only their limited exposure to Broadway, but culturally embedded Spanish influences as well. The Broadway musical form “encourages spectators to engage with it from identity positions not their own” (Wolf 2002, 5), although they are also influenced by their own cultural framework. The effect of addition music to a dramatic scene that might otherwise play naturalistically serves to exaggerate its content, adding a dimension of artificiality at the same time that it often also strives to tap into a deeper kind of reality, one accessible only through music. Because the addition of music seems to pull in these two opposite directions, the musical as an art form engages routinely in a kind of stratified presentation in which we, the audience, pay attention to both the emotional realities that music seems to body forth and the performance of that music by the actor-singers on stage. (Knapp, 2006, The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity, 12) Yet the Broadway musicals in Spain underscored differences, which, when combined with musical theatre’s interdependence on commerce, leads to politicization and competition. In many ways the collaborative nature of musical theatre revealed its competitive elements during this research. In groups, we might sing at church, in school, as part of a choir, or during a night out with friends at a concert. Televised shows like Pitch Perfect and Glee point towards singing and music 50 as more mainstream forms of entertainment. Just like these shows remind us of the joys of singing, other popular shows like The Voice, American Idol, and The X- Factor, quickly make us remember that perhaps our own individual songs may best be reserved for the shower – where no one else can hear, or judge, us. Music is a journey through which musical space, a process that unfolds in time and the effect of which depends on how clearly we can see where we are and how well we recall where we have come from. . . Music is not a series of acoustic facts; in fact, it is not acoustic at all. I can’t emphasize this enough. It is fine to call music ‘organized sound’, so long as we recognize that this organization is not determined solely by the composer or performer: it emerges from a collaboration in which the listener too plays an active part. (Ball 2012, 33) In the above quote from Music Instinct: How Music Works and Why We Can’t Do Without It, popular science writer Philip Ball (2012) reminds us that in musical- making processes, the listener is also a part of the experience that shapes the journey. Although Ball’s scientific approach of placing music between science, philosophy, and musicology is too heavily grounded in evolutionary discussions that are too removed from the main points of this dissertation, it does help put into perspective the notion that music is built into our consciousness in ways that uniquely shape us – either culturally or individually. More importantly, these are experiences that are almost biologically tied to others’ involvement in the process so that the shared musical experience affects others as much as it affects us individually. Ball notes that while music can promote social stability, it is not just “a matter of bringing people together – music can serve a socially sanctioned outlet for negative or controversial behavior too” (ibid, 11). Like the protest songs of the performers in Rent discussed in Chapter 4 or the outwardly display of regional differences of the theatre groups described in Chapter 5, musical performances enable groups to “maintain the 51 stereotypes, which may have nothing to do with the true nature of the individual” (ibid). As a result, these musical differences often result in hierarchies and political structures within the communities – calling into question the seemingly collaborative nature of musical theatre. Unlike painting or playing an instrument, musical theatre is total art which requires the collaboration of performers, musicians, directors, designers, and producers. However, the inherent hierarchical structure and economic influences of Broadway musicals tilt the playing field. In his article “Reputation in a Musical Scene: The Everyday Context of Connections between Music, Identity, and Politics,” musicologist Julian Gerstin (1998) discusses music as a process, rather than a product – piggybacking on the idea of an imagined community but also discerning the micro-politics that exist from within them. A major factor in the play of ideas through musical networks is the micro- politics of authority and hierarchy that arises from musicians’ working together, depending on one another, and competing. . . When musicians apply ideas about identity and politics to one another, they tend to do so in ways that help them manage their musical networks and assert authority. (ibid, 386) From this angle, he also reinforces the idea of reputation and the factors surrounding it, including aesthetic evaluation of performers’ skills, performers’ identity, as well as the “interpersonally constructed authority [that] is part of every musical relationship” (ibid, 407). Competitions and associated theatre awards validated these hierarchies and reward differences throughout the research (more in Chapter 5). The role of prizes and accolades in the cultural economy is an important part of understanding the role of Broadway theatre musicals around the world, especially in the U.S. and for the purposes of this dissertation, in Spain (see Bourdieu on class distinction1993 and English on cultural prestige and prizes 2005, 2008, 52 2011). In his book, The Economy of Prestige: Prizes, Awards, and the Circulation of Cultural (2005), James English provides insight into the relationship between power, festivals, and prestige. A professor with a specialized field in the economics of cultures and literary studies, English builds on Bourdieu’s foundation that cultural capital has become the basis of social stratification resulting from the growth of objectified and institutionalized forms (Bourdieu 1993). A prominent theme in this dissertation’s Chapter 5 is a discussion of the proliferation of cultural prizes. English examines prizes like the Nobel Prize for Literature and claims that it has been so significant because it has always “seized the collective imagination with sufficient force to impose with unprecedented intensity the curious logic of proliferation that has raised prizes from a rather incidental form of cultural activity a hundred years ago to an undeniable force today” (English 2005, 28). From discussion of the Academy Awards to concepts of judging awards, he looks at the way the selection process distributes power among the director, programmers, jury members, and then briefly consider which types of selection are used in the various steps. The focus is less about the trophies themselves and more about the cultural legitimization of the event. Cultural value cannot emerge in the absence of social debts and obligations, of the (very unequally distributed) credit or respect that certain individuals are granted by others; its production is always social process. Neither can it emerge in a political vacuum, the participants uncolored by and indifferent to prevailing hierarchies of class, race, gender, or nation; its production is always politicized. And neither can it emerge in perfect independence of or opposition to the economic marketplace itself; its production is always implicated, in multiple ways, in the money economy. The complex transactions that prizes facilitate between artistic, social, political, economic, and other forms of capital are not, at bottom different from transactions…by means of which “art” is produced. (English 2005, Kindle Edition) 53 Research Methodology Prior to the fall of 2014, I had already spent twenty years in the trenches of American theatre: performing in universities; taking the stage in dozens, more than fifty or sixty, of community theatre productions; working my way up as a local, professional actor at regional theatres in DC; directing musicals professionally; and even founding my own theatre company in Baltimore, serving as its Artistic Director and producing many musicals over the years. Preliminary research about Broadway musicals in Spain while I was still in the United States yielded not much more than the oft-researched musical genres from Spain’s classical periods – generally music with its origins set in the early 20th century and prior. Musical research in Spain produced results revolving around flamencos, guitars, and other common genres associated with the Iberian Peninsula. Resources for musical theatre in Spain – especially Broadway musicals recently produced in Spain – were practically non- existent other than the occasional journal article or online press articles. In October 2014, I packed my bags and left the United States for Sevilla in southern Spain to observe a local community theatre group rehearse their translated production of the Broadway musical Rent. I visited them four times and attended rehearsals throughout October and November to observe the creative process at the local and non-professional level. The first two rehearsals involved informal meeting of group members and its artistic leaders, coordinated through Manuel Calderón. As my initial contact with the group from the United States, Manuel was crucial in helping introduce me to the group and in setting up the more formal interviews of the research with director, Nono Gándara. I observed music, staging, and choreography rehearsals and gathered ethnographic material that included notes, audio recordings, 54 photos, and archival material from the company itself. On several evenings, I also spent time socializing with some of the group’s members, which afforded me the opportunity to engage on an individual basis with the leads of the musical. When not attending Rent rehearsals in Sevilla, I made my way to Zafra in the province of Extremadura to observe – and take part in – Spain’s only amateur musical theatre competition. At the festival, I observed the same-day load-in, rehearsals, and performances of different theatre groups from four different regions of Spain. As a lecturer and judge at the festival, I also had insider access to behind-the-scenes discussions and the technical workings of the festival. It also afforded me firsthand observation of the participants, while allowing me to partake in the festival. María José Pámpano, my contact at the festival, provided the necessary access to rehearsals, lectures, workshops, gallery exhibitions. She also introduced me to other professional artists participating in the festival. Ethnographic data included observation notes, taped lectures, and photographs. Press and promotional material, including archival material provided by Pámpano, also helped to inform this research. Due to specific rehearsal dates, varied availability of actors at times, festival dates and performance, I spent October, November, and December travelling from Cádiz to Sevilla to Zafra on different occasions – so the chapters in this dissertation do not reflect a specific chronological order. During October 2014, I also travelled to Madrid to try and establish contacts with professional artists and producers in the city. Madrid proved to be a difficult entry point. Numerous attempts to meet with the staff and creative members of the large theatre companies in the capital city proved unsuccessful. I was thrilled when the director of 50 Shades: The Musical friended me on Facebook, seeing this an “in” 55 for me in the process. Various attempts to contact him produced no response. In a much later conversation with some theatre professionals in Spain, I was told that the professionals in Madrid were “probably afraid to let [me] take over their jobs with [my] experience.” The professional musical stage in Madrid, like Broadway, is a business – and so this inaccessibility inspired me to focus on Broadway’s connection to Madrid in the marketplace. The regional community theatre groups and the musical theatre festival were the complete opposite. As a performer and director, I was cautious to merely sit back and observe their processes from the sidelines. While not surprised, this affected the way the actors and creative team behaved while I was present. I often got the feeling that their “performances” included behavior that was out of the norm for them. In several sites and during many events, I was often called “El Broadway” or “El americano” and even “El americano de Broadway.” This automatically branded me as an expert in their eyes, despite my numerous attempts to correct them or at least clarify my experiences. At the festival I was also involved as a judge, which added another level to the complexities of collecting ethnographic research (more on that in Chapter 5). These multiple layers added to the colorfulness and variety of perspectives discussed throughout my research. My direct participation in several events and my personal level of engagement with artists in Spain required a balancing act that forced me to ride the line between being simultaneously an insider as well as an outsider in the community. Direct participation – as a festival judge, a fellow Spaniard, and a musical theatre artist who has been through the process – afforded me the opportunity to gather ethnographic insights into creative processes that would be normally “hidden” from the public. Through participation, I was also able to build individual rapport with other 56 participants and establish close relationships with other influential participants that had access to further resources or connections. Being a native Spaniard was key in securing this access. As a mere observant (or outsider), my data gathering would have been limited to official events, workshops, and organized gatherings. It would have excluded informal conversations, socializing outside of rehearsals, and a behind the scenes look at many of the groups I studied in this research. This was the case in Madrid, where I was only able to gather and collect information as an outsider. At the same time, I required a level of reflexivity to ground me to the objectivity of my research – so I would not lose sight of my goals during my participation. Authors scrutinize, publicize, and reflexively rework their own self- understandings as a way to shape understandings of and in the wider world. As such, autoethnographies are necessarily transcultural communications, articulated in relation to self and a wider social field that includes an audience of ‘others.’ (Butz and Besio 2009, 1660) I had to recognize my place in this research as a Spanish native, a musical theatre artist, and academic scholar to understand how my own personal experiences influenced data collection and interpretation. I needed to set aside preconceived notions I had about Broadway and more importantly, what I thought Spanish artists wanted to know about the musical theatre genre. After all, I was also an American and these experiences automatically gave me a unique perspective. Understanding these implications also allows for readers to gauge the impact of these factors on my research. Ethnography is a not an innocent practice. . . These performances are messy and pedagogical. They instruct our readers about this world and how we see it. (Denzin 2006, 422) 57 Unsuccessful at establishing contacts in the city, I went to Madrid periodically from January through August 2015 to gather archival theatre resources from places like the Centro Nacional de Documentación (National Documentation Center), various libraries, and specialized theatre bookstores. The remaining months of the 2014, I attended a few regional and local amateur productions while frequently reconnecting with the team from the musical theatre festival in Zafra. In 2016, I took a position at Dewynters in London as Head of Publishing at the London-based advertising agency specializing in West End theatre and musicals. I was thrilled to combine my research with a career opportunity that fit my passions, and during this period, I took advantage by interviewing producers, marketers, and professional artists working on Broadway musicals abroad. This job gave me more insight into the business and global network of Broadway musical production in England and Europe. I was able to move back to Cádiz (while keeping the job) later in the summer of 2016 and spent the next two years following up on interviews, gathering more archival materials, and focusing on the writing of the dissertation. The multi-sited nature of my fieldwork provided some advantages. Collection of data in three regions of Spain gave me a wider and more diverse range of cultural insights from the participating groups, allowing me to paint a bigger picture of musical theatre performance around the country. Madrid, Sevilla, and Badajoz are all unique provinces with their own histories, dialects, customs, and business practices. Regional attitudes and ideas about performance (especially if tied into local traditions) greatly influenced reception of Broadway and its musicals. After all: The sites are connected with one another in such ways that the relationships between them are as important for this formulation as the relationships within them; the fields are not some mere collection of local units. One must 58 establish the trans-local linkages, and the interconnections between those and whatever local bundles of relationships. (Hannerz 2003, 206) Engaging in multi-site research did lead to methodological challenges, particularly in relation to time. Having multiple sites to cover in this research meant less time at each site. This meant less time to establish deeper connections with other participants and their social experiences. Musical theatre creative processes are generally longer than other theatrical genres, due in large part to the separate rehearsals required for music (singers and orchestra), dance choreography, and blocking of large casts. As a result of my multi-site research, I was unable to explore the entire creative process of one group. Despite limitations, the multi-site research provided the maximum potential for a study that examined national networks and the Spanish landscape of Broadway musical theatre. Spain is a mosaic of regional identities, divided into seventeen autonomous regions – each with one or more of the 50 provinces that make up the country’s borders. There are many languages, including Castilian, Catalan, Valencian, Galician, and Basque, with additional regional dialects adding to the differences. While the dissertation explores issues in national identity and regional difference, it is not possible to account for all differences in Spain. Madrid is a focus of this research as the capital and the commercial hub of professional musicals in Spain. I chose Sevilla because of the play being performed there – Rent – and I chose Zafra since it was the location of the only amateur musical theatre festival in Spain. There are vibrant theatre scenes in other parts of Spain as well, especially in Barcelona. Longstanding Barcelona-based company Dagom Dagoll has produced many of its own original musicals and Broadway musical translations into Catalán, but the 59 quantity and amount of musical theatre being produced there is less than Madrid. The co-producer of the Madrid-produced musical We Will Rock You (based on the music of Queen) speculated on the lack of Broadway success in Barcelona: En Barcelona no funciona nada. No sabemos por qué. Creo que defienden su idioma, el teatro en catalán. Nothing [in reference to musicals] works in Barcelona. We don’t know why. I believe they are defending their language, the theatre in Catalán.16 Barcelona and the region of Cataluña to which it belongs has a long history of political and cultural tension surrounding its identity. Part of an autonomous region, Barcelona is politically united with Madrid (primarily meaning it pays taxes to the Spanish state) but also maintains its own sense of identity, and traces of Catalán history date as far back as the Roman Empire. Despite the unification of Spain under Isabella and Ferdinand in the 15th century, Cataluña maintained its own cultural traditions and distinct language. These differences became the site of political and ideological battles that continue to this day.17 16. Elisa Silió, “Madrid, capital del teatro musical,” El País Online, August 21, 2003, accessed April 10, 2019. https://elpais.com/diario/2003/08/21/revistaverano/1061416801_850215.html 17. By the 19th century, Cataluña’s economic success and cultural vitality reinforced their need for a stronger sense of identity that did not rely on Spain’s dominance. A romantic revivalist movement called the Renaixença motivated a cultural rediscovery of their Catalán language, local flavor, art, customs, and artistic processes. In Barcelona, the Palau de Música Catalana (built between 1905 and 1908) and the culturally significant Gran Teatre del Liceu (built in 1847) housed unique Catalán performances. As the cultural iconic theatre of Cataluña, the Liceu has been dragged into the pro-independence debate throughout its history – and became the National Theatre of the region after the Spanish Civil War. Despite these initiatives for the preservation of Catalán identity, cultural suppression during the Spanish dictatorships of the early 20th century further complicated the development of the arts in the region. After the Spanish Civil War, professional theatre was abolished in Cataluña and not reinstated until 1946. Barcelona spent the better part of the 20th century rebuilding its theatrical repertoire. However, the region was not able to fully integrate its unique voice fully into the movement until around the near of Franco’s death in the 1960s. From there a vibrant theatrical and innovative scene emerged that produced legendary theatrical groups like La Fura del Baus and Els Joglars. 60 Unless otherwise specified, I have personally translated all quotes (including found resources) from Spanish into English. Translating qualitative data from Spanish to English is a complex process and can be shaped by many factors, so I have kept the original Spanish-language text in the quotes as well. Translating ethnographic collection comes with its own set of complications, posing unique challenges to the accuracy of information (Churchill 2005). As I found in this research though, being an insider qualitative researcher allowed me to understand and find nuances in the language in the context of situations – something that has been shown to be advantageous (Abalkhail 2018). In “Translation Strategies in Ethnography” (1997), Kate Sturge nicely sums up the relationship between translation and ethnographic translation. Certainly, there are differences between the practice of translation in the accepted sense of the word and that of ethnographic translation. The latter undertakes a dual translation, from the oral to the written form as well as from one language to another; the reproduction of the performative aspects of an utterance - its physical, temporal and social contextuality - defies the translator's supposed task of reproducing meaning intact. Difficulties associated with these aspects of language wreak havoc in any translation, but whereas ordinary translation takes as its object a piece of language already somewhat decontextualized and depersonalized, ethnographic translation is faced with 'raw' words hovering around the mouths and ears that produced them (ibid, 22). Chapter Summaries Chapter 2 is a journey through Spain’s musical history to reveal the possible ways culture and arts is manipulated through the shaping of identities. Three major 61 historical musical movements help illuminate shifting ideas of Spanish-ness. The ritualized musical performances of the uniquely-Spanish autos sacramentales scripted a national rhetoric to reinforce Church control through their negotiation of identity. The zarzuela gave the country a musical to call their own, through a politicization of entertainment that reflected ideas of nationalism. And through the arrival of Broadway musicals like Jesus Christ Superstar, a counterculture sang of newfound freedoms after 40 years of dictatorship. I focus on the historical place of these musical performances to now only reveal how theatrical experiences are collective transformed, but to also show how the same types of performances can be politicized and serve different functions. Chapter 3 gives an ethnographic and historical account of the creation of a physical “Broadway zone” in urban Madrid. Taking a trip to many of the city’s professional theatres and Spanish productions of Priscilla Queen of the Dessert, 50 Shade of Grey: The Musical, and The Lion King, I specifically focus on the cultural relocation and reterritorialization of Broadway within a commercial, urban space. I review the conditions that prime a global city like Madrid for the proliferation of Broadway musicals. I then narrow my focus on Gran Vía, detailing how this over- 100-year-old avenue in Madrid has become “El Broadway español.” I finish in Madrid by describing the fascination world of global production conglomerate Stage Entertainment, learning how their Spanish production of The Lion King employs artistic and business practices that reinforce the idea of a “Broadway of Spain.” In addition to providing a glance at the professional world of musical theatre in Spain, I consider how companies negotiate the politics of place and national belonging through the city. 62 Chapter 4 exits the big city professional theatre scene and heads to an amateur theatre group’s production of Rent in the province of Sevilla. Through an exploration of translation dramaturgy, representations on and off the stage, and interpersonal relationships of the group’s artists, this case study brings the cultural transposition of Broadway into the creative process and the hands of the artists themselves. Through ethnographic research collected at rehearsals, interviews, and performances, I focus on the linguistic and sociocultural translation of Rent into their own version of the musical – an intriguing and important exploration of identity playing out against a backdrop of community traditions. In Chapter 5, I travel from Sevilla to Zafra to take part in a six-week annual festival competition for amateur musical theatre groups. Far from the lights of Madrid and the still urban center of Madrid, I participate in performances, weekly activities, professional lectures, and an awards gala to find the intersection of these Broadway transpositions and Spanish audiences. Through the festival space, audiences participate in ways that allow them to visualize themselves a part of their own Broadway experience. Performances on the stage, in the seats, in classes, at lectures, and at award ceremonies uncovers layers of cultural contradictions among theatre groups from different regions and differing ideas of professionalism. In this chapter, differences are at the regional level and I find out how different interpretations of the same Broadway idea help to negotiate identity of its participants, their legitimacy within the festival space, and their belonging to the larger musical community. ------------------ I think about my Lion King audition again and wonder if it might have made a difference to change my song. Perhaps I could have translated it into Spanish to make 63 it more accessible to the director. I could have transposed the key to compensate for differing sounds of the vowels while singing in English, or perhaps not spoken English at all during our chat. I could have gone in without a resume and kept my musical theatre background out of the picture. Then again, I would have been reshaping my own identity and it would not have been a true reflection of myself. In the words of New York Times music critic Will Crutchfield: It's all a matter of practicality, not principle. If the transition can be made with some harmonic elegance, and if the musical loss is either negligible or, at worst, small enough to be outweighed by the performance it makes possible, then -- no big deal. If it can't be, then one decides, O.K., that singer can't do that role… The important thing to remember is that what happens on a given evening cannot really ''damage'' a musical score.18 Broadway musicals have had a long reputation for generating American national identity and a sense of community, but its arrival in Spain raises unique issues about how cultures in a globalized world are reshaping and redefining themselves through their creative experiences. The transposition of Broadway to Spain results in cultural and linguistic adaptations that greatly influence its own idea of nation and musical identity, bringing in to question the future of its own musical history. The cultural forces uncovered in the different musical theatre making spaces of Spain bring to light Broadway’s hidden power structures. How professional companies, amateur groups, and festival participants play host to these forces affects their creative processes. It is only by becoming consciously aware of these embedded 18. Will Crutchfield, “Music; Tailoring Arias to Suit the Vagracies of the Voices,” The New York Times Online Archives, October 17, 1999, accessed February 15, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/17/arts/music-tailoring-arias-to-suit-the-vagaries-of-the- voices.html. 64 structures that musical theatre artists and organizations can affect change in their own participation and redirect power – to creative change that matters most. Take a seat and join me for a cultural performance of music, identity, and nation. 65 Vamp A What’s the buzz, tell us what’s Cuéntanos, dinos lo que va a pasar. . . happening. . .? Why should you want to know? ¿Por qué queréis saber? Don’t you mind about the Olvidaros del futuro. future. No penséis en más allá, Don’t you try to think ahead, ved en mí sólo el presente. Save tomorrow for tomorrow. El mañana ya vendrá. Think about today instead. What’s the buzz, tell us what’s Cuéntanos, dinos lo que va a pasar. . . happening. . .? I could give you Podría contarlo todo, plans and forecasts, de mis planes y futuro. even tell you where I’m going Sé muy bien a dónde voy. Jesus Christ Superstar by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice (1970) Translation from Madrid Jesucristo Superstar 66 Chapter 2: Scoring Spain’s Musical Identity from Past to Present Every year in October, the celebrations of La Virgen del Rosario (The Virgin of the Rosary) submerge my hometown village in Spain in a weeklong whirlwind of devotion, celebrations, parades, ceremonies, and social engagements. The Virgin of the Rosary is the Patron Saint of the town and the festivities are the largest religious celebrations outside of Semana Santa (Holy Week). During Spain’s Semana Santa the week before Easter each spring, centuries old traditions are proudly on display throughout the country in the form of processions, costuming, and music accompaniment that almost never change. Much like Semana Santa, this festival in October sees daily street festivals fill the town with families and overflow the restaurants and bars. The countless dedicatory ceremonies spearheaded by town officials outnumber the days in the week. A corte de Damas (Court of Dames) composed of young women representing the different guilds and associations elect a Dama Mayor (its reigning Queen) – as they embark on a year of appearances at local festivals. Most of these festivities, rituals, and celebrations center around the procession of La Virgen del Rosario. I sat on the second floor of my house, waiting for the religious cavalcade and the sounds of the encroaching band to pass in front of my balcón (balcony). As I expected, the procession’s leaders turned the corner and made their way holding the lanterns and banners I had grown accustomed to seeing almost my entire life. When the processional float carrying the Virgin Mary turned the corner, I was taken aback by the sound that accompanied it. Usually, you hear the band play the distinct Spanish national anthem or a dramatically charged melody of tunes heard in processions throughout the Spain. But was I hearing things or were 67 they playing what I think they were playing? Yes, there was no way to confuse the melody of “Under the Sea” from Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Everyone knows the tune. I ran downstairs, my interest piqued by the juxtaposition of this song selection with such an emblematically traditional religious celebration. The Little Mermaid blared from the trumpets as children sang along. The Virgen Mary floated by on a bed of flowers carried by a few dozen men. Marching in front of her, priests and choirboys marched behind a formation of the Association’s Damas and three-piece- suited representatives from other local fraternities and religious guilds. At the head, the Mayor flanked by the Guardia Civíl (Spain’s National Guard) and Policía Local (Local Police) stepped in time to the beats of a Disney theme song. Across from them, Spanish medieval attendants in tights and period garb shuffled along in unison (see Figure 2). I realized, at that moment, the procession I was watching was a performance of assorted identities of the community – the embodiment of ruling politics, engrained religion, medieval customs, and now, of assimilated pop culture through global musical references. I smiled and thought about the implications as I imagined Sebastian the Caribbean-accented crab singing “Under the Sea” chasing the Virgin Mary, her priests, and its military procession down the plaza. Perhaps I just never noticed it or was never looking for it, but I cannot remember a specific moment growing up when I noticed the integration of popular culture songs into Spain’s processions. This particular procession was outside of Holy Week, so maybe this more festive celebration was an intentional contrast to the more somber mood of Easter. I thought about this encroaching new music and wondered about Spain’s connections to its own musical history. How was the idea of a Spanish identity tied to its musical performances? What musical transformations reshaped that identity? 68 Figure 2: A procession of Virgen del Rosario and her accompanying guild members, National Guard, priests, and courtiers – an embodiment of religion, politics, medieval ritual, and musical theatre (Under the Sea not included) in one unified community. Photo by author. In this chapter, I trace three major musical movements that have generated sound waves in Spain’s cultural history: the religious callings of the autos sacramentales, the nationalist pride of the zarzuelas, and the infiltration of the global Broadway musical as el Broadway. This journey sheds light on the way performances are shaped in different spaces and time – displaying the transformative power of music in particular communities. The historical location of these musical performances is significant in understanding how the set of expectations that we bring to them as artists, audiences, and scholars shifts from cultural to “cultural moment.” Each historical moment has its own set of “cultural moments,” which are affected by influences and events that take place within that specific time. By understanding the 69 historical and social context in which these performances occur, only can we then analyze the cultural relevance and differences as we look through our own lens. Musical theater scholar Mitchell Morris affirms the importance of acknowledging the historical framing of musicals over time, which shapes the conceptual development of this dissertation. Studies of the musical as a genre, as well as its precursors, spin-offs, and assorted cousins, typically shape themselves as accounts of change over time. To some extent, this is inherent in any popular genre of the arts: contemporaneity and fashionability are powerful values, and they gain their effectiveness only by contrast, explicit or implicit, with what came before them. (Morris 2011, 9) In order to engage in conversations of how Broadway is transposed to the different spaces of the upcoming chapters, I first look at these distinct Spanish musical theatre histories through a performance lens. The historical analysis of the musical performances as social experiences in this chapter, rich with clues about identity formation, offers solid theoretical ground, not only for assessing the relationship between music and the performance of identity, but for seeing the potential of the musical theater genre as a creative and transformative force in our social life. I will focus on these musical performances within their historical contexts as a way of highlighting how their theatrical experiences shaped collective identities, while also uncovering how the same types of performances served different functions. More specifically, I will demonstrate how auto sacramentales, zarzuelas, and el Broadway negotiated with aspects of Spanish identity through musical performance in their respective historical moments – each of these genres occupying a significant historical place dominated by major cultural, social, or political shifts. A journey through Spain’s musical history reveals the ways culture and arts is manipulated in 70 the shaping of identity. The identity of musical performance itself is therefore illuminated through shifting ideas of Spanish-ness. From Liturgical Dramas to the Autos Sacramentales Autos sacramentales, or simply autos, serve as an ideal departure point from which to trace Spain’s encounters, since they were forms of musical storytelling through drama. “Drama” refers to the printed text, while “theatre” in general includes production and staged elements. Autos descended from liturgical types of dramas, which are texts based on religious stories derived from the Bible. Liturgical dramas began as small readings within the churches around Europe during approximately the 10th century and made its way into Spain around approximately the 11th century. Spain’s tumultuous relationship with the Moors prevented the rapid spread of dramas which had roots firmly planted in Christian liturgy. Many of these religious dramas surfaced onto the Iberian Peninsula through the French borders during the celebrations of Corpus Christi and were relegated to the inside of the cathedrals and the rituals of the church; its textual content dictated by the Sacraments of the services and the musical stylizations of Latin chants or accompaniment. Long before the advent of the printed book, these popular chants were well-known by the illiterate audiences that recited them during Catholic Mass. These appeared as popular tropes,19 a recurring literary and rhetorical device which consisted only of a series of call and response chants associated with the teachings of the Catholic Church. Tropes were a primitive form of dramatic interaction during Mass. The most common of 15. Here it is used in the liturgical sense. Tropes were insertions of texts or chants used to further interpret liturgical verse – or even expand it. 71 theses tropes, the quem quaritis, reenacts the exchange between the Angels and the Virgin Mary. The Angels: Whom seek ye in the sepulcher, O followers of Christ? The Women: Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified, O celestial one. The Angels: Why, O followers of Christ, seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here; he is risen, as he foretold to his disciples. (Gassner 1987, 39) As the tropes gained momentum in popularity, perhaps out of religious necessity, they were modified for specific religious observances such as Easter or Christmas. The most ancient representation of drama in Spain is credited to Canto de la sibila (approximately 10th century), although its uncertain origin in France and translation from Catalan negates its claim of being the oldest liturgical drama found intact in its original language (Livermore 1972). It is still celebrated to this day in the Balearic and Cataluña Islands of Spain in Mallorca and Alguero. These theatrically- religious performances were first celebrated with little to no emphasis on spectacle, relegating the themes to the Latin-based text and stories. Simple representations required no more than the space in front of the altar, a chorus of chanters made up of priests and choirboys, and a few chairs. Stand on a chair placed upon the altar and you were instantly in heaven. Sit on the floor in front of the pews and there you were in the fire pits of hell. The Latin text could have little to no meaning if one was not familiar with the religious rituals of the church. Those who go out in search of its remnants in the contemporary musicals of today will not find the “holy grail” or the beginnings of Spanish musical theatre, even if you do compare religiously themed present-day musicals like Godspell or Jesus Christ Superstar. This is centuries away 72 – and even further removed stylistically – from anything you would hear Sutton Foster belting out or Jerry Mitchell choreographing.20 By the 13th and 14th century, the liturgical dramas became less attached to the rituals of the Mass and shifted into what were called religious dramas or mystery plays. By the end of the 1350s, much of Europe had lived through the plague and there was a fascination with death and the fickleness of life. Gravediggers danced in the cemetaries in skeleton costumes and this form of entertainment was popularized through this fascination with death. These “Dances of Death,” or danzas de la muerte, as they came to be known in Spain, were also capitalized by the Church. They rode on the popularity of these danzas to incorporate the themes of death and life into their sermons, using a bit of popular culture to reinforce their religious messages. The text of the Mass, the music, and performance of the danza created a musically theatrical performance. It was officially transformed in the 1380s into a literary work called Danza de la Muerte (Stern 2004). These allegorical dances inspired literary works such as Jorge Manrique’s poem Coplas por la muerte de su padre (1479) and were later incorporated in performances of the autos themselves. The number of participants in the readings increased and actors were added to the pieces to add elements of performance. Performances shifted away from the altar and to other parts of the churches. They infused the performances with visual symbols, allegories, and current events drawn from popular culture, in order to minimize the effort needed for spectators of the dramas to understand its narrative. Citizens from various classes, clergy, and members of the guilds would participate in the creation of these citywide 16. Sutton Foster is a Tony Award-winning contemporary musical theatre actor know for starring in musicals such as Anything Goes, Violet, and Thoroughly Modern Millie. Jerry Mitchell is an ex-Broadway dancer turned Tony Award-winning Director/Choreographer, responsible for Broadway commercial successes like Legally Blonde and Kinky Boots. 73 theatrical religious celebrations, their guilt as motivators for performing their religious obligations. The guilds and trade organizations were responsible for the building of sets and the wardrobe. A clergyman, sometimes also the author of the text, served as the piece’s director and rehearsed the show for months at a time – incorporating the music and dance into the process. The large collective of citizens watched together, prayed together, sung together, and unified through one common bond. By the 14th and 15th century, the spectatorship for these performances as new forms of entertainment grew. As the performances moved outside of the Church into the streets to accommodate for larger audiences, the spectacles grew more complex and required bigger production values including the building of set pieces, called mansions. Latin texts were now a thing reserved for Church practices and officials, so street vernacular made it into these new religious dramas. There is mention of a representation of The Passion, which claims to have used 393 performers and another performance to have 16,000 spectators in one audience (Pemán 1967). Heaven was always temptingly displayed as a glimmering, ornamentally-enticing destination, while Hell often used frightening, grotesquely-menacing structures not too different from those often depicted in Gothic paintings of the underworld. The lack of space – or perhaps the inevitable, earthly competitive nature amongst the town churches – forced the performances from the inside of the churches to any number of exterior church squares in the town. The competition between church productions grew intense and the autos took to the streets on wagons, or carros, which carried the stage from square to square. One particular religious play in 1474 required no less than 22 different scene locations including Paradise, Hell, Nazareth, Bethlehem, Rome, and more (ibid). 74 By the 16th century, Spanish playwrights developed these liturgies and tropes into the more recognizable autos sacramentals, or autos. These one-act plays were a response to the Catholic Counter-Reformation in that same century and playwrights could infuse the text and staging with allegories and doctrines of the Catholic Church. The autos became fully-staged plays, often requiring the participation of almost entire cities or villages. They developed into their most recognizable forms by the 17th century. Gradually, instrumentation and dance were added to the performances; many of these constituted the first small chamber orchestra – a practice that became standard by the 18th century as performances moved into the Courts. Although performances were originally presented in the streets in connection with the celebration of the feast of Corpus Christi, autos then were used for other public celebrations such as burials and crowning of royalty. They were characterized by large outdoor productions with street processions featuring dancers, performers, giant heads, and floats. Floats and the later carros (or wagons) carried actors representing biblical scenes. By the 17th century, in many of the capital cities, large stages were erected in the plazas to attract as many spectators as possible. The outdoor performances were grand and spectacular, feeding the insatiable appetite of the audience for spectacle. They developed into their most recognizable forms by the 17th century. Gradually, instrumentation and dance were added to the performances; many of these constituted the first small chamber orchestra – a practice that became standard by the 18th century as performances moved into the Courts. Even today, influences of these performances are captured in the public sphere. In 1992, Madrid restaged an over $2 million-dollar spectacle that recreated these outdoor religious festivals. Called Fiesta barroca, the festivities culminated in the performance of 75 Calderon’s Calderón El gran mercado del mundo and a mojiganga (closing dance) in which 1800 people participated. Festivities were celebrated around the Plaza Mayor, which was decorated with gigantic paintings depicting the heaven, hell, and purgatory scenes from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. The staging of this classic religious historical event was interpreted by many politicians outside of Madrid as a political statement. Held the week the Olympics were being inaugurated, it reinforced the idea of Spain’s religious past against a backdrop of the modernization being promoted by the Olympic host-city, Barcelona. Performance and politics were once again at the center of the public sphere. A Modern-Day Auto de Los Reyes The holy trinity of musical theatre – drama, music, and dance – was long ago celebrated simultaneously in autos like El auto de los Reyes, in what is considered by many to be the oldest existing Spanish (and Castilian) liturgical drama dating as far back as the 12th century (Pemán 1967).21 A restaging of it ran during the Christmas season from 2008 – 2011 in Madrid to sold out audiences and I was able to experience it for myself in 2010. Housed in one of Madrid’s prime government- subsidized theatres, adults and children sat in amazement under the spell of what was a musical performance that fell somewhere between theatre and a religious ceremony. I sat in silent observation, baffled by the audience’s captive attention despite the hour- long performance in original Latin-sounding text. I considered it a musical as it had 17. A singular and unique part of Spanish theatrical history, El auto de los reyes is the oldest liturgical drama found in Old Spanish that dates as far back as the 12th century. Discovered in a codex in La Biblioteca del Cabildo in Toledo, Spain, it is the oldest liturgical drama of the Ordo Stellae still conserved in its original Spanish vernacular. The Ordo Stellae is a cycle play that tells the biblical story of the Three Wise Men’s journey as they follow the star that leads them to Jesus in Bethlehem. With 147 verses, these liturgical dramas allow us to explore the theatrical landscape during the Medieval Era – an era credited as the rebirth of “drama” since the Greek and Roman times. 76 text, movement (dance), and music. Unlike the more upbeat and catchy tunes of today’s musicals, this was dense and dry. The lyrics were not in contemporary Spanish, the music was not popular or catchy, and the larger-than-life spectacle usually associated with musicals was missing. This newly restaged auto unfolded before me with ritual-like theatricality that captivated the audience nonetheless. I recognized the story of the Three Magi and their journey to Jesus during Christmas, so caught myself being just as intrigued as to how the story was being told by the performers on the stage. I had somewhat forgotten that I could not understand the old Castilian Spanish of the text. Affirms Ana Zamora, director of La Abadía’s production in an interview for Spanish newspaper El País, Mi intención ha sido respetar la sonoridad y que el lenguaje fluyera. Es cierto que el espectador puede considerar difícil escuchar un castellano tan antiguo, que en ocasiones no entiende bien, pero me parecía más importante reflejar en escena cómo pasan las cosas que la propia trama. En definitiva, la historia de los Reyes Magos la conoce todo el mundo. My intention has been to respect the sound and that the language flowed. It is true that the spectator may find it difficult to hear such an ancient form of Castellano (Spanish), which on occasion they may not understand, but I believe it more important to reflect the themes through the staging. In the end, everyone knows the story of the Three Magi.22 A small chorus of three men, dressed in colorful tunics and costumes from another era, posed ceremoniously behind an actor carefully unraveling the news bearing scroll. Each of them was gender-ambiguous actor, outfitted in matching suit jackets, white kilt-like skirts, and brightly colored striped scarves which allowed them 18. A significant celebration during the Christian celebration of Christmas, which tells the tale of Three Magi (sometimes also called Three Kings or Three Wise Men) as they follow the “Star of Bethlehem” to bring gifts to Jesus. Miguel Ángel Villena, 2008, “Misa medieval en La Abadía,” El País, December 12, 2008, accessed September 13, 2014, http://elpais.com/diario/2008/12/12/cultura/1229036408_850215.html. 77 to transform into man, woman, flora, fauna, or angelic being. “Quem queritis pastores, dicite?” they sung. “Tell, what do you seek pastors?” The somewhat discordant chant resonated throughout the cavernous chapel-turned-theatre space, complemented by the even more glorious sounds of the instrumentalists that line the upper levels of the stage. To the untrained ear, there was no rhyme to their melodic reason. For the precision-hungry musical history aficionado or the microscopically- focused musical scholar, I would come to learn that they were the sounds of the danceable Cantiga 116 of Alfonso X; not danceable in the toe tapping, hip shaking kind of way but only in the technical sense that it managed to trigger sudden mechanical movements and rhythmic, coordinated gestures from its actors. The actors, harnessing torso puppets of birds, bulls, and sheep, permeated the acting area as they played out a perfectly timed dramatic ritual. See Figure 3. 78 Figure 3. Production shot from El auto de los Reyes at Teatro de La Abadía, in Madrid, Spain. 2008. “El Auto de los Reyes.” N.d. 2008. Segovia: Teatro de la Abadía y Nao D’Amores. (Biblioteca Virtual de Cervantes) It was the celebration of a joyous proclamation, a centuries old ritual brought to culmination through words, music, and dance. This restaging of El auto de los Reyes at La Abadía in Madrid was all but a small and distant memory of a musical performance that may remotely resemble today’s musical theatre genre. Although no direct correlation exists between the autos and the musical theatre genre of today, similar conventions can be noted in the performances. The use of dance, text, and music to tell a story is characteristic of musical theatre – although the extent to which these performances are related affect present day definitions of 79 musical theatre23. Text is used to form the basis of the script or story. Movement aids in helping to convey aspects of the story which may not be told simply through the text, especially if, like in the restaging of El auto de los Reyes, is unintelligible to its audience. Music also helps to tell the story, although some of the music may not have been necessary to understanding the story. Conventionally, you can see the similarities in the way the musical notation appears for its performers as they might in a score from today in Figure 4. The notes are written on a musical staff and the text is written to follow the notes, much like you would see in a musical theatre score today. However, the text does not appear to match each of the note counts – although difficult to interpret without knowing the language of the text. 19. The Broadway musical, in large part due to Oklahoma! (1943), is generally referred to as an “integrated musical” because of its three-way lacing of music, dance, and text. The idea of the “integrated” musical has recently also been widely questioned and explored (Block 2011). 80 Figure 4. Section of musical notation from Codex las Huelgas. Anglés, H. 1931. Page from Codex las Huelgas (Burgos, Monasterio de Las Huelgas, Codex IX). Barcelona: Institut D’Estudis Catalans. (Biblioteca de Catalunya) Parallels and similar themes have been used to shape many of Spain’s more contemporary theatrical performances. Good versus evil, though not uniquely Spanish, nods back to the moral principles and foundation of the autos. Catholicism, 81 whether in positive or negative light, has often taken a centerstage as a theme in many contemporary plays and films of today. The allegorical and mystical style of the autos can be seen in surrealist and fantastical plays like La vida es sueño (Life Is a Dream) by Pedro Calderón de la Barca in 1635 or Noche de guerra en el Museo del Prado (Night of War in the Prado Museum) by Rafael Alberti in 1956, the latter a play about significant pieces of Spanish art that come to life to serve as characters of the revolution. Even Federico García Lorca’s use of poetry, flamenco dance, and allegorical symbolism in many of his early works hints at stylistic similarities that are inspired by ritual-like performances. In both of these instances, characteristics of the autos have been used to serve a different artistic purpose. Twentieth-century Spanish playwright Francisco Nieva noted, “The system that is most recognizably original to and characteristic of Spanish theatre is the auto sacramental. . ., as a theatre of ideas and images that breaks with physical-temporal space and in which ‘the world, the seas, the heavens, myths, symbols. . .’ are represented. It is an anti-classical and prematurely romantic theatre” (Kasten 2012, 108). Autos sacramentales, once relegated to religious rites and worship, would serve other artistic purposes throughout the centuries to come. Auto-Scripting Identity A thorough understanding of a culture’s music lies in the learning and the materials used in that process (Nettl 2005) and the exploration of the creative practices of the autos sets up the framework for a discussion on the identity of musical communities in Spain. The director of La Abadía’s recent production noted that “[Es] un mecanismo de relojería inspirado en los ritos ancestrales que se esconden detrás de las celebraciones litúrgicas y populares del ciclo de la Navidad” 82 (It’s the inner-clock workings inspired by the ancestral rites that hide behind the liturgical and popular cycle plays of the Nativity), when speaking about the familiarity of the subject matter.24 The rituals, symbols, and allegorical content of the autos promoted a similar social solidarity among its communities. Texts were based on the battle between Heaven and Hell, and its characters included symbols of the most sacred kind for Catholics – images of Christ, the life of the Virgin Mary, or the Eucharist. These rituals used musical performance to materialize Christian doctrines, built around a unified, singular identity in which the boundaries – both morally and physically – were clearly delineated. Almost propaganda-like in their performance of Church teachings, these musical plays were produced and performed as a monarch (state)-sponsored concept of Spain that highlight the singularity and importance of Catholicism. Performances like El auto de los Reyes played a significant role in what Victor Turner (1982) calls “social dramas” of their communities. Social dramas can range from local and national conflicts to war or revolution and reveal some of the hidden layers of a social group or community including their hierarchies, classes, divisions of labor, gender relations, ethnic relations, etc. Turner points out that “Social life, then, even its apparently quietest moments, is characteristically ‘pregnant’ with ‘social dramas’” (ibid, 9). The very history of the autos and how audiences and artists engaged with these performances, reveal various level of hierarchies, religious and social classes, as well as the networks of groups that worked together to put on the autos (guilds, trade associations, fraternities). Looking 24. Miguel Ángel Villena, “Misa medieval en La Abadía” El País Online, December 12, 2018. 83 at how participants responded to this popular entertainment of their time gives a picture of the networks and social dramas playing out in communities throughout Spain during that era. . . . social dramas revealed the “taxonomic” relations among actors (their kinship ties, structural positions, social class, political status, and so forth), and their contemporary bonds and opposition of interest and friendship, their personal network ties, and informal relationships. For the artist in me, the drama revealed individual character, personal style, rhetorical skill, moral and aesthetic differences, and choices proffered and made. Most importantly, it made me aware of the power of symbols in human history. (Turner 1982, 9) In his dissertation entitled “Production Meaning: Spectacle as Visual Rhetoric in The Auto Sacramental”, Spanish studies scholar Errol L. King articulates the deeper importance of autos. Such performances, often drawing from centuries-old ideas originating outside the peninsula, yet rooted in national values, appealed to a sense of pride in the country’s sovereignty and its lead role in the Counter- Reformation, thereby becoming effective tools in safeguarding against some of the domestic dissensions that had followed in the wake of the Reformation in many countries to the north. (King 2012, 22) Autos, as ritualized musical performances, scripted a national rhetoric to reinforce Catholic Church control through their negotiation of identity. By promoting and reaffirming a Catholic national identity, the state powers (monarchy and church) were able to maintain and strengthen their power over a homogeneous and obedient society through this particular form of entertainment (Wardropper 1953, 89). This national imagery was ritualized through musical performances as a way to make otherwise biblical stories accessible to the illiterate masses. Bruce W. Wardropper asks an interesting question, which highlights the complexity of this accessibility: ¿Cómo es posible que un público, en su mayor parte analfabeto y sin cultura literaria ni teológica, asistiera de buena gana y con provecho espiritual a 84 obras dramáticas de las más difíciles e intelectuales que se hayan escrito? How is it possible that a public, largely illiterate and without literary or theological background, would willingly attend and be spiritually inspired by the most complex and intellectually challenging texts ever written? (ibid, 77) I had the same question, especially after trying to sit through a performance I could not even understand in Madrid. However, constant exposure at the time and the repetitive nature of these rituals better equipped the public for the interpretation of the cultural meaning behind the performances. They were likely the most qualified in understanding the themes and concepts presented. While watching the performance, I noticed the choreography, staging, and music reminded me of similar staging during Catholic Mass. Movement included slow walks in processional-like formations, not unlike what I used to see at church on Sunday mornings. The draping of costumes indicated the saintly roles of the actors. The combination of chant and music made me forget I was in a theatre, especially since the theatre itself occupied the space of an old church. The illiterate masses of the era, used to the tensions and anxieties of the Catholic and Counter Reformation era, were exposed to similar messages and performances that encouraged inclusion in their community through proper social codes or behavior – or not and meet the same fates of the expulsed Jews and other minorities during the Inquisition. In fact, autos were even used in the New World to reinforce that same compliance, and those who did not conform would suffer the consequences. Peruvian historian Magdalena Chocano Mena noted, “Representations belonging to a tradition of moros y cristianos were evidence of a ‘theatre of humiliation’ through which the Indians were forced to acknowledge defeat” (Mena 2000, 151). Through the religious performances of the autos, an idea of a Catholically-unified nation was reinforced. 85 By 1765 autos had become too secular in performance and too carnival-like for the taste of the Church, and they were banned from public presentation. Performances started to incorporate dances and satirical farces between the autos, which detracted from the religious intent of the message. Since they were no longer performed inside the churches themselves, there was even less to ground it within the confines of religious doctrine. More importantly, the celebrations at the supposedly religious events where they were performed led to morally unacceptable behavior as the performances took on a more popular form of entertainment. Mojigangas, or carnivalesque parades of actors dancing around to loud music, infiltrated the theatrical scene – taking place after performances as celebratory revelry. Carnivalesque performances like mojigangas were often considered a site of ungodliness, blasphemy, profanity, and a parody of the sacred (Bakhtin 1984). “It is understood, then, that the auto was the first victim of the reformers and its government – which put an end to its polemics and decreed its prohibition in 1765” (Perales 2003, 130). By then, authors of hundreds of autos, like Lope Félix de Vega Carpio (1562-1635) and Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681) did not only shaped the contemporary public’s communal awareness through these dramas. They also helped to introduce everyday secular concepts and ideas into future genres like las nuevas comedias, which were the plays of the Spanish Golden Age (16th and 17th century) containing both comedy and drama. The playwrights’ high court appointments made them political catalysts for strengthening the relationship between religious and secular theatre. Autos sacramentales like El auto de los Reyes still appear in cities, towns, and festivals today. An example is El festival de arte sacro, which is held every year 86 as an important reminder of Spain’s musical drama legacy – through performances of a national imaginary powered by the church and the state.25 Unlike its predecessor though, these autos are usually funded by City Councils and presented as part of larger celebrations that include drinking, revelry, and a socialization not focused on religion. The social dramas of the participants playing out around the autos of today would certainly make them the forbidden fruit of its ancestral audiences. Present day performances celebrate less of the religious aspects of the autos and instead revolve around socializing, drinking, and celebrating in the streets until the early hours of the morning. The focus has shifted from the dramas themselves to the celebratory aspects surrounding the event and their “performances” off of the stage. Like the procession described at the beginning of the chapter, they are performances embedded into the cultural fabric so are unlikely to disappear despite being stripped of their full religious intent. In the ways discussed, the autos negotiated the idea of a Spanish religious nationalism and provided a picture of the social interactions of its participants engaged in the process of creating these musical performances. While not structurally the same to them musicals of today, the philosophies surrounding the shared ritualistic performances of autos are similar to those of musical theatre. In The Musical Richard Kislan philosophizes musical theatre as a theatre of romance, a total theatre, a popular theatre, a presentation theatre, and a theatre of convention (Kislan 1980). Similarly, as discussed in the chapter, autos are: a presentation of life; a total collaboration of many forms; a form of popular entertainment of its era; a catalyst for 25. In fact, Oscar Córnagel Bernal explores the relationship between allegorical representations of the autos and today’s Spanish contemporary theatre scene in his article “Alegoría y ritualidad como paradigmas teatrales: del auto sacramental a la escena contemporánea” (Bernal 2006). 87 presenting ideas; a structured performance grounded in theatrical and religious conventions. The future zarzuelas also helped to shape and reshape an imaginary Spain through its artistic practice in similar ways, undergoing transformations directly resulting from the political, rather than religious, undercurrents of the moments. Starting out as a tool for promoting a unified national identity, this uniquely Spanish musical genre was also adapted into a politically-charged art form that influenced future generations in Spain. From Autos to National Zarzuelas It was not until Pedro Calderón de La Barca officially introduced the zarzuelas into the courts at the end of the 17th century that a more conventional form of musical comedy took the Spanish stage. Europe’s musical landscape had already been transformed a few centuries earlier during the Renaissance by newfound philosophical freedoms, humanistic attitudes, and richly abundant arts patronage. Academies in Italy had dusted off the Classics of the Ancients and were putting them on the stage. Commedia dell’arte proliferated the circuits of Europe, not just Italy. Perspective-painted backdrops made their way to proscenium stages. In an attempt to recreate the Ancient Greek tragedies as accurately as possible, music and song were fused to create opera – a direct descendant of the European operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan and, coincidentally, the American musical. 26 Before any Italian opera had 26. William S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan were known for creating witty and melodic operettas that were revolutionary in both England and the United States. Their operettas were of influential importance on the American musical for several reasons: they focused on writing a book with scenes that tied to action and included believable characters; they set new standards for music and lyrics by composing songs that were appropriate for character and situation, including satire and parody; they created new theatrical standards by not using interpolations of other composter; and most importantly, they created compositions that lived beyond the stage (and to this day). From the 1870s 88 been sung on a Spanish stage, however, musical transformations through communities on the Iberian Peninsula were already underway. Spanish Golden Age authors of the nuevas comedias, mentioned in the previous section, reinforced their audience relatability by complementing their plays with short, popular, farcical sketches or monologues that depicted relevant and current situations or themes. Loas (prologues) and entremeses (interlude between acts) were first added as short pieces of entertainment that served as preludes and intermissions for the autos and nuevas comedias. These prologue and short interludes grew in complexity, transitioning from a simple guitar player strumming popular tunes to entire groups of singers accompanying the increasing number of added instruments. Eventually they grew in length to include sketches and short fables of prankster low lives (in satirical fables known as jácaras), which later evolved into the much longer, comedic sainetes. Since these one-act comedic sainetes were much longer than jácaras, they stood alone and were placed directly at the end of the night’s main entertainment or between different forms of performance. The popularity of these secular performances grew, often overshadowing the main performances of the autos and the nuevas comedias. They told and sung the stories of everyday life and the humor was relevant to audiences of the day. Plus, the appeal rested on the fact that they were shorter forms of entertainment. As a way of circumnavigating any possible conflict with the Catholic Church, the overtly secularized performances transferred from the streets to the Elizabethan-like stages of los corrales (enclosed Spanish theatres in the Golden Age centered around a common patio and resembling Elizabethan theatres). Realizing the value of the theatrical enterprise, the very same church guilds and brotherhoods were through the 1890s alone, they composed The Gondoliers, H.M.S. Pinafore, Iolanthe, The Mikado, Patience, The Pirates of Penzance, Prince Ida, Ruddigore, The Sorcerer, Trial by Jury, and The Yeoman of the Guard. 89 the ones to set up these spaces as a system for collecting funds for charity. A profit- generating, commercial theatrical industry had emerged. The monarchy often avoided conflict with the Church (and often fulfilled charitable obligations) by self-producing the performances within the walls of their courts, and the proliferation of musical pieces was very much dependent on the individual tastes of a ruler. Spain’s Phillip III (1598 – 1621) had a particular affinity toward spectacle and musical performance, a trait that would be passed onto his son and successor Phillip IV (1621 – 1665). In 1629, the Court mounted a musical drama by Lope de Vega, La selva sin amor (The Loveless Jungle), which was revered as “cosa nueva en España” (new thing in Spain) and described in a printed libretto of the piece the following year as an event in which: Los instrumentos ocupaban la primera parte del teatro sin ser vistos, a cuya armonía cantaban las figuras los versos, haciendo de la misma composición de la música las admiraciones, las quejas, las iras y los demás afectos. The unseen instruments occupied the first section of the theatre, its singers harmonizing the verses, creating admiration, complaints, flaws, and all other affects through the composition of the music. (Fernandez-Cid 1975, 22) Innovations in the Courts, whether in fashion, music, literature, or economy, were often used as projections of nationalistic pride and difference from other European countries. “Cosa nueva en España” served to not only trumpet a sense of advancement to Spain’s people, but also to underscore efforts to compete with other European nations. Ethnomusicologist Martin Stokes has examined parallels between music and identity within the politics of nation, asserting that “for regions and communities within the context of the modernizing nation-state that do not identify with the state project, music and dance are often convenient and morally appropriate ways of asserting defiant difference” (Stokes 1994, 12). By defining nationalism 90 within a framework of emblems, flags, and anthems, Stokes articulates a shift in these national symbols – through radical changes of power or revolutions – as a reaction to an adaptation to new state ideologies. It was a way to keep the Catholic Church in Spain content while moving forward a different national agenda. Like musicologist Zdzislaw Mach’s example of Chopin as a national composer, national music in Spain became “important for the national soul” and also “international recognition” (Mach 1994, 64). Music became a constant in the Court, enabling Lope de Vega’s sucesor Calderón de La Barca to compose what are to be considered the first zarzuelas: El Jardín de falerina (1648); La fiera, El rayo, y La piedra (1652), Fortunas de Andrómeda y Perseo (1648), El golfo de las sirenas (1657) y El laurel de Apolo (1657) (ibid). The zarzuela has often been described as Spain’s historic equivalent of musical theatre, both in structure as well as its interconnectedness to shifting notions of national identity. While in his work musicologist Anahid Kassabian focuses on the perspective of global music in film, she notes the importance of music’s historical trajectory in shaping national identities. The relationship of music and the nation-state has a long and elaborate history. It includes the rise of national styles in Europe in the 1500s, the time of the rise of the nation-state formation. These styles are often identified with specific genres – irrespective of the ‘nationality’ of the individual composer…[it] includes musical discourses of patriotism (national anthems), the development of overtly nationalist art music movements. . . (Kassabian 2001, 93) Prior to 1657, the approximate year zarzuela was coined as a musical genre, the elegant and elaborate stage in the Palace of Buen Retiro in Madrid’s center accommodated most of the complex spectacles staged by the Court. However, Phillip IV’s passion for entertainment equaled his affinity for hunting, so he regularly used 91 his hunting lodge away from the city instead as the venue for performances. The hunting lodge out in the country (actually a small country palace), El Palacio de la Zarzuela (The Zarzuela Palace), was far enough removed from the monarch’s official palace to allow for a physical separation from the Church and, therefore, greater freedom in the staged entertainment. The other absolutist courts of Europe flaunted their refinement and progressiveness by staging Italian opera performances, but Spain’s physical, cultural, and religious isolation from the rest of the Continent prevented Italian opera artists from performing in there. In an attempt to keep up with the European elites, Phillip IV adapted operas to work for Spain’s current conditions. The stories were uniquely Spanish, but the lack of Italian opera singers and economic struggles required the addition of dialogue to limit the amount of singing and also avoid the staging of the large spectacles associated with the Italian operas. The new format required less rehearsals and preparation, so the Phillip was able to use the Court’s artists for these side performances at The Zarzuela Palace. “Hoy tengo zarzuela” (today I have zarzuela), the musicians would proclaim on show days (Alier 2002). These new musical forms became synonymous with their location in the country palace, so zarzuela stuck as the name for this new form of entertainment. During its first baroque phase, zarzuelas were mythologically-inspired and contained a blend of fantasy and real-life characters. Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s El golfo de las sirenas (Gulf of the Sirens, 1657), for example, mixed elements of gods, mythology, and relatable stories into the musicals. Zarzuelas experienced varying periods of success, decline, content, and style dependent on the entertainment preferences of Spain’s monarchs. Their emergence during the reign of Phillip IV in the 17th century was countered by Phillip V’s preference for Italian operas (due to his 92 lack of fluency in Spanish). His successor (Phillip VI) continued the trend, but King Charles III preferred the language and stories of Spain and the musical baroque shifted into the early form of the zarzuela known today. As a way of reaffirming tradition and battling foreign influences through these musical performances, these evolved zarzuelas reinforced its connection with its culture through sung stories of Spain’s people and depictions of costumbrismos (Spanish folklore and the artistic representation of tradition) by incorporating elements of the tonadilla. Tonadillas, its origins centuries before in Spain’s Golden Age, were stand-alone musical performances lasting around 20 – 30 minutes that incorporated local stories, dances, and traditions of Spain’s different regions. The zarzuelas of the 18th century modeled themselves less after the mythologically-infused, partially fantasy-based operas, and more on a genre which spoke directly to the Spanish people. By incorporating tales and songs of plebian lives from the tonadilla, this long-form of the zarzuela focused on characters and offered social commentary as a way of entertaining audiences. Musical styles and arrangements were equally tied to character and situation. Although Italian opera did make a brief reappearance after Napoleon’s occupation in the early 19th century, the arrival of Romanticism propelled a proliferation of zarzuelas of the people, by the people, and for the people of Spain. It is not unlike early Broadway, where composers and lyricists wrote for the American public by creating sounds, lyrics, themes, and a language that was distinctly American – pushing away the formalities of the European influences like the British or other European operettas. In a similar manner, the zarzuela also provided an outlet for Spanish individuality in a Europe that was then dominated by Italian operas. Iconic composers such as Francisco Asenjo Barbieri emerged during 93 that time, also creating La Sociedad Artístico Musical (The Artistic Musical Society) as a way of nurturing the cultural growth of the zarzuela as the national music. The Teatro de la Zarzuela was built in Madrid to house them and it was not long before the trend caught on in the rest of Spain, even prompting Barcelona to build their own Teatro Liceo. As popularity spread throughout the provinces, zaruelas adapted to regional customs, local influences, and relatable characters – tailored to fit the distinct individual communities of Spain. Eventually, the zarzuela was adopted across Spain, making it a national art form of Spain – and the reason why the genre often draws comparisons of being the Spain’s equivalent of the American musical. Shorter Zarzuelas for Popular Tastes The rapidly changing social and political landscape during the late 19th century Restoration era widened the gap between the middle-class and the elite, aristocratic upper class, also exponentially multiplying the lower, working class.27 The Story of Spain, a book that recounts the popular history of Spain from its prehistoric times to the present, vividly tells of foreign visitors being most struck by the poverty levels in Madrid. “As in much of Europe, the urban poverty of ‘los miserables’ was creeping into Spain, and this new alienated working class would grow into a major force” (Williams 2004, 200). Regionalism fragmented the nation and at the prospect of anarchy or revolution from its people, any form of politically charged nationalistic ideology was subdued in attempts to demobilize conflicting sentiments. The zarzuelas that related more to the stories of Spanish people returned 27. The Restoration refers to the Restauración de la Monarquía (Restoration of the Monarchy) in Spain between 1874 and 1931. It marks the return, or restoration, of the monarchy with the return of a Bourbon monarch – King Alfonso XII – to the Spanish throne. During this era, the creation of a constitutional monarchy with limited suffrage rights and imbalanced political system fueled a period of distrust which served as catalyst for the Spanish Civil War of 1936 – 1939. 94 to earlier mythical and spectacular forms (fantasies, gods, and romanticism) in attempts to squelch anti-nationalistic sentiments. The middle class, however, had grown even larger than the aristocratic audiences, and it was thirsty for entertainment that suited their tastes and finances. While the upper classes enjoyed the mythical, four-hour long zarzuelas, the middle class craved quick, relevant, and cheap entertainment and the theatres wasted no time capitalizing on potential profit-making forms. As an alternative to the high-priced productions of El Teatro de la Zarzuela, a new form called teatro por horas (theatre by the hour) offered the new, “rising bourgeois” a more appealing format: hour-long musical versions of a zarzuela. These one-acts allowed producers to exponentially profit from a showing of multiple performances in the same day while minimizing production costs. At the center of this spotlight in 1873 was El Teatro Apolo of Madrid, the physical and symbolic center of this shorter form, now called género chico (small genre). These shorter zarzuelas were much more affordable, so they attracted a wider audience that were not usually accustomed to attending the theatre. At one time priced out of the zarzuela, the género chico finally opened the middle class up to a form of entertainment that spoke to them through popular language, music, styles, and price. Finally, audiences could see themselves portrayed on the stage. The shorter format allowed for up to four one-act zarzuelas to be produced in one evening. Songs were so popular that words were sometimes printed on the curtain to encourage the audience to sing along to these familiar tunes, a practice many zarzuelas continue today. Working class characters, once foolish stock stereotypes, took centerstage. Much like its musical theatre equivalent in the United States, this musical entertainment was grounded on the popularity of songs and stories of the 95 middle and lower classes. The appeal was so widespread, it drew people and artists to Madrid from the regions of Spain. The género chico peaked in 1886 with the premiere of a show called La Gran Vía by Federico Chueca and Joaquín Valverde. The show commemorated the opening of the large Madrid avenue of the same name with local tales, allusions, fashions, and musical stylizations of the moment (Alier 2002). Gran Vía, the famous avenue on which this short zarzuela was based (and the future “Broadway of Spain”), was transformed into a significant entertainment hub where social hierarchies prominently stood on display. Deborah L. Parson’s A Cultural History of Madrid illustrates an important historical perspective of 19th- century Madrid as “a space of spectacle” – where places of entertainment are most valued as a place to see and be seen (Parsons 2003). It is no surprise that the new bourgeois public recognized the potential of the theatre “as a social organ for the consolidation of status, affirmation of cultural taste and parade of wealth… simply being part of the crowd was as, if not more, important than the events of the stage itself” (68). The shorter género chico even began to appeal to the higher social classes – as having access to the latest novelty, or “cosa nueva en España”, was one way to project a sense of being fashionable and progressive among social peers. This access to the most popular forms of entertainment across many classes would extend the popularity of the genre for decades to come. In fact, popular songs like “La revoltosa” (1897), “El barberillo de Lavapies” (1874), “La verbena de la paloma” (1894), “Gigantes y cabezudos” (1898), and “La corte del Faraón” (1910) are still sung in rural parts of the country today. The 20th century, however, brought with it a radical ideology that politicized and transformed the musical culture of the nation. 96 Modernity and the Zarzuela Spain’s turbulent political and economic instability at the end of the previous 19th century had spiraled it into a quick economic decline, fueled even further by the disaster of the Spanish-American War of 1898. Radical advances in technology, philosophy, politics, and culture, which were accelerating at unprecedented rates throughout Europe, managed to reach Spain. For most of the country, Europeanization was the answer to replicating their industrially successful neighbors. Under a reborn nationalism motivated by the new powers – regions, armies, unions, and politicians – pride busted at the seams and the arts were used as a tool to reinforce both national and regional Spanish uniqueness. The local flavors and parodies of the género chico, however, did not reflect the taste of audiences of the approaching modernity and the longer, extravagant spectacles zarzuela underwent its final transformation. By the 20th century, the upper middle classes and aristocracy had appropriated the short form of entertainment – in many ways shutting out the lower classes by buying them out of tickets. The upper classes built new venues which inadvertently priced out the lower classes, thus making the upper classes the new audiences of the “popular” genre. Zarzuelas, once the bastion of Spanish nationalism and impermeable to outside influences, was ironically now the perfect vehicle for incorporating styles and rhythms from the modernizing world that attracted the higher classes. Composers and writers capitalized on the appeal of the variety and music-hall shows that slowly started to infiltrate the cultural landscape. Dances like the cake walk or the fox trot made their way from other countries into the zarzuelas. Theatrical melodramas in Europe and the Americas gained traction in popularity, especially among the bourgeoise, and elements were incorporated into the Spanish musical 97 genre. The longer zarzuelas became the better vehicle for accommodating the many styles of a more modernizing world. As a result, the resurrected longer-form zarzuelas of the past touted a new música nacional (a national music) based on the lighter operettas with the modern influences (music hall sounds, dances, melodramas) that were taking over Europe – a “distinctly modern and urban phenomena that catered to a contemporary audience craving brief, stimulating, and cheap entertainment” (Parsons 2003, 68). Spain did not want to be left out of the trend toward modernization. This final resurgence of the grand zarzuelas and the closing of el Teatro Apolo in Madrid all but eliminated the género chico as the most popular form of entertainment. An upswing of larger form zarzuelas gave way into the 20th century, during which some of the most currently performed zarzuelas were written – including La corte del Faraón (1910). Today zarzuela continues to reinforce its link to musical theatre even as far away as the United States. New York theatres such as Thalia Spanish Theatre, Repertorio Español, and Opera Hispánica promote zarzuelas in a city dominated by the Broadway musical, Opera Hispánica even including what they call “Spanish musical theatre” in their regular programming (Opera Hispánica Website, http://operahispanica.org/about/, accessed October 17). Zarzuelas in the United States have even been used to examine American audiences and their roles in defining American urban ethnicity (Sturman 2000). The acceptance of zarzuela as the equivalent of musical theatre is not universal, however, and there is some disagreement about the connection. In early 2015 Madrid’s own Teatro de La Zarzuela brought its audiences a double feature evening, a first act consisting of the American Gershwin brothers’ Lady Be Good! and Spanish Francisco Alonso’s 98 zarzuela Luna de miel en el Cairo. One online critic acknowledged the important connection between the two genres (Zarzuela.net, http://www.zarzuela.net/ref/ reviews/doble-gershwin-alonso15_spa.htm, accessed October 17, 2015): El planteamiento de partida del espectáculo no podría resultar más conflictivamente problemático: aunar en una misma noche dos títulos que en origen monopolizaban cada uno de ellos una velada teatral. Pero a la par dicho planteamiento no podría ser más atractivamente estimulante: integrar en una misma función sendas piezas de dos contrastantes, pero también emparentadas tradiciones músico-teatrales. The programming of the spectacle could not be more conflictedly problematic: to showcase in one night two titles (shows) that in their origins, each monopolized a theatrical event. But at the same time, this programming couldn’t be more attractively stimulating: integrating into one performance two contrasting pieces that share the same musical theatre family tradition. At the same time, the same online review foreshadows one of the conflicts of analyzed in this dissertation: La única mácula a esta parte del espectáculo hemos de ponerla en el hecho de no haber decidido versionarlo al castellano, algo que choca con la secular tradición de adaptación en todos los países del repertorio de teatro cómico- lírico foráneo a la lengua de sus propios públicos, que más tarde fue continuada por la del género del musical. The only flaw with this first act (Gershwin’s’ American Musical) is on the decision to not have translated it into Castilian (Spanish), something that clashes with the secular tradition of adapting lyrical musical comedies into the languages of their own audiences – a tradition which was later continued with the musical genre. (ibid) Political and cultural boundaries were modified to satisfy new nationalist imperatives through the zarzuela, signaling the transformation of tradition musical forms into political nationalistic tools. The politicization of autos sacramentales and zarzuelas in the 20th century subsequently set the musical stage for the invasion of the contemporary Broadway musical in Spain. 99 The Spanish Cuplé, Revistas, and Coplas The Spanish theatre scene had, toward the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century, attempted to integrate itself with other European countries. However, Spanish popular appeal demanded more downsized, smaller, and less-involved artistic genres. The short stories of the earlier tonadillas met those needs by infusing the Spanish genre with external musical styles, dances, and art forms. France popularized cabaret-style songs about lives, tragedies, and dreams through couplets sung in the Montmartre of Paris, and Spain replicated them with a style of their own. Their version, the cuplé, told uniquely Spanish tales in similarly small and intimate cabaret- like performances. Sometimes sexualized and somewhat lewd, they were only attended by men and performed by women (or sometimes men in drag). Spanish entertainment paralleled the trends of Europe and America. Cuplés were added to the increasingly popular variety shows, teatro de variedades, and these grew into full-on revues that very much mimicked the grandeur and spectacular ones seen in France. Barcelona created their very own version of the Moulin Rouge, El Molino, in 1910 to house these cabarets and variety acts. Similar to the variety shows and vaudeville of the United States, these revistas found new appeal with the popular tastes of audiences. However, what made them uniquely Spanish was the infusion of zarzuelas and sainetes. This “revista madrileña cómico-lírica-fantástico-callejero” (comic, lyrical, fantastic, street revue from Madrid), as often called by its own composer, worked well as an alternative to the more expensive traditional theatre of the zarzuela (Roman 2015).28 The genre and the cabarets in which many of them played were a much more “modern” answer for its people. The cabarets “dealt with dislocations of 28. Roman, Manuel Roman, “La revista musical española ha cumplido 150 años,” El País Online, March 29, 2015, accessed November 5, 2015, http://www.libertaddigital.com/cultura/musica/ 2015-03-29/la-revista-musical-espanola-ha-cumplido-150-anos-1276544225/ 100 modern life: the increased tempo of modern life and its inherent shocks created the need for an art form with variety as opposed to staid traditions of the standard theatre, born out of a slower-paced society” (Young 2008, 638). Revistas gained traction in popularity, becoming more extravagant and spectacular in nature. It also increased the need for attracting broader audiences, which meant making it more family-friendly. The more risqué cuplé turned into the more folklore-inspired coplas of the 20th century, which made their way into cleaner versions of the once politically and sexually infused revistas. Coplas were stories of love, joy, disappointments, and jealousy told through short songs which combined music, lyric, and interpretation from uniquely Spanish perspectives. The Parallel Avenue in Barcelona became one of the most emblematic streets for entertainment, due in large part to the abundance of revistas and cabarets featuring cuples. Until the 1960s, this famed Avenue provided a safe haven for creative expression during the Franco dictatorship. Much like vaudeville and variety shows had in the United States, revistas slowly fell into decline as a result of the proliferation of radio, film, and television in the 20th century. However, the political turmoil at the start of the 20th century put the copla and direction of musical theatre on a uniquely politicized path. Long before the Lion King’s main hero Simba made his way to the Teatro Lope de Vega’s stage in Madrid, Spain’s musical theatre scene had undergone drastic artistic shifts as a result of the significant (and devastatingly turbulent) internal political and social shifts of the 20th century. Despite internal political conflicts and reforms, the Bourbon monarchy continued their rule throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. At the beginning of the 20th century, however, due to large political unrest in cities across Spain, Alfonso XIII abdicated from the throne. It spun Spain into a 101 Civil War, and political Fascist dictatorship, that would forever change the Spanish cultural landscape.29 Social unrest and protests were fueled by a culture marred by artistic censorship, stringent moralistic control, and economic oppression. Spain found itself battling partisan politics in an effort to fight censorship. The century’s history is full of research on the subject of theatrical oppression, politics, and artistic development (see Attali and Arancibia 1978; Blanco 2002; Delgado 1988; and Flock, Vilches de Frutos, and Francisca 2004). Rather than focus on the political theatre of the 20th century, the following sections of this chapter provide the context for understanding how Spain’s sociopolitical and economic climate during the dictatorship helped shape the subversive counterculture that would provide fertile ground for the arrival of the new Broadway musical. Spanish cultural critic David T. Gies notes that “theatre in the second half of the [twentieth] century was built upon the middle class’s anxiety about its political and economic stability. . . Spanish society analyzed itself through the discourse of theatre” (Gies 438). Understanding the artistic community’s response to a newly found artistic freedom 29. Spain’s unstable political history at the beginning of the 20th century is much too broad to be covered at length in this dissertation, but the political motivations and movements that led to the Civil War and Francisco Franco’s rule are helpful in understanding the resultant cultural climate of Spain. In 1902 Alfonso XIII ascended to the throne, but his rule was consummated by his inability to give importance to the existing powers of state (legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government). The discontent of the lower classes and the attempts of Cataluña (region of Spain) to want to separate led to a coup d’etat in 1923, which led to the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. During Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship, workers’ parties grew in popularity as a result of poor working conditions of their class. In 1930, Alfonso XIII forced Primo de Rivera to step down and after a succession of unstable governments, the monarch authorized elections. Voters chose to abolish the monarchy in favor of a liberal republic and Alfonso XIII went into exile – establishing a Second Republic in 1931 dominated by middle-class liberals and moderate socialists. As the Catalonia and Basque regions began to gain autonomy and widespread liberal reforms took hold, conservative forces (including the Church, the aristocracy, and part of the military) fought back to regain control in a 1933 election. Conservative General Francisco Franco became army chief of staff, but another election swung the pendulum in the opposing direction – giving the Popular Front and leftist ideology the power. From the obscure command post Franco was sent to in the Canary Islands after this shift in power, he conspired with the conservatives to overtake the ruling government. This led the Spanish Civil War, which lasted from 1936 – 1939 and resulted in a conservative that established Francisco Franco as dictator of Spain for the following 40 years. 102 after the dictatorship will help bridge the gap to the arrival of Broadway in Spain. Francisco Franco, Power, and Spectacle El Generalísimo Francisco Franco has always been a difficult figure to study, particularly within the borders of the country he ruled as dictator for almost 40 years, from 1939 until his death in 1975.30 An elusive yet controversial figure, Franco’s dictatorship began after a Nationalist win over Republicans31 in the Spanish Civil War of 1936 – 1939. From one perspective, we encounter a military general – nicknamed by some as El Caudillo or Chief/Leader – who rises to power rather quickly. From another perspective, we witness a determination that drastically changes the face of Spanish society. To some today, his image nourishes a nostalgic void. For many others, he stands on a “podium next to some of the cruellest dictators of Europe, in the shadow of Hitler and steps ahead of Mussolini.”32 Because the economic and political phases of Franco’s dictatorship are intertwined in Spain’s cultural and social development, a brief overview of the major political and economic phases sheds light on the effects of franquismo on the importation musical theatre in Spain. Broadly speaking, el franquismo set out to demobilize political society and to create a central, unified state under the power of one general. The dictatorship itself 30. En el combate por la historia: la República, la guerra civil, el franquismo by Ángel Viñas and Julio Aróstegui (2012) presents a historiography that contains the fundamental concepts to understanding Spain’s evolution from the establishment of the Republic to the death of Franco. 31. Whereas a Republican in the United States falls on the conservative spectrum of ideology, a Republican during the Spanish Civil War generally supports the leftist, liberal ideology. In general, the Nationalists backed conservative and Catholic-based ideals. 32. Fresneda, Carlos Fresneda, “Franco es comparable con Hitler,” El País Online, September 11, 2015, accessed October 17, 2015, http://www.elmundo.es/cronica/2015/11/09/ 563cefd622601d073e8b465c.html. 103 underwent significant transformations, shifting from a harsh, fascist regime to a weaker and more modernized version of itself in the latter decades. The first of these was a post-war period of international isolationism (1939-1951) during which the policies of the reigning, conservative Falange party (the official party of Fascist Spain) relied on the principles of autocracy in hopes of distancing Spain from the outside competition of tariffs and international foreign policies. Emphasizing a national, economic independence heavily based on agriculture over industrialization was met with accompanying famine, hunger, and collapsed infrastructures during a period of time darkly known as los años de hambre, or the “years of hunger.” Culture and education were mostly the responsibility of the Church, which not surprisingly resulted in a period of creative and intellectual poverty as a result of censorship and a large artist exodus. “The defeat of the Republic in early 1939 and the subsequent dictatorship effectively removed all traces of theatrical innovation during the wartime years” (Delgado1998, 59). After the Civil War, an aesthetic of uniformity and regeneration forced a reversal to the Spanish dramas of the Golden Age and other associated artistic practices that encouraged national unity. The performing arts were regarded as an important instrument by which to influence public opinion and to improve the standards of Spanish cultural production, mainly by a) diffusing particular aesthetic values, and b) controlling theatre as a socio-economic activity. (Berghaus 1996, 210) Theatre for the masses, for example, could be used as a tool for arousing political sentiment and fostering national community. Mass events could be exploited for propagandistic purposes, by both the regime and its opponents.33 The regime 33. Public demonstrations or protests were less likely during the Dictatorship, as any public showing would attract official regime attention – and a likely punishment. However, large theatrical events were held covertly or under other guises in order to promote underground message (Bergaus 1996). 104 propagated the idea of a neoclassical Spanish theatre, bringing back “the splendors of an imperial past, that the new regime wished to inherit and continue: the artistic achievements of the Golden Age. . . the neoclassical tradition of the renaissance and the passionate Spirituality of the Spanish mystics” (Carr and Fusi 1981, 107). Catholicism and the ideology of an imperialist Spain were the principal tenants of Franco’s artistic initiatives. Regeneration and uniformity were based on ideas that pre-dated the bourgeoise society that was on the rise at the turn of the century. Musically speaking, the State co-opted the autos sacramentales and the zarzuela into its reformation and regeneration plan, stripping them of their traditional roles and into tools for pushing conservative, nationalist agenda. Franco was aware of the power of these past theatrical forms in shaping and influence society, he even founded El Teatro Nacional de la Falange (National Theatre of the Falange Party) as a flagship for its dissemination. Aware of the economic benefits of theatrical patronage, attempts were made to nationalize several theatre companies in hopes of disseminating propaganda while also capitalizing on the economic value of entertainment. The idea of a “New Spain” was guided by a revival of Golden Age classics and the allegorical autos sacramentales. Both these forms focused on larger themes like honor, country, and God – using mass gatherings as a way to further push their fascist propaganda. Allegory and dogmas were preferred in favor of characters found in género chico. Autos and zarzuelas were a way to unite the masses within vehicles of epic spectacle and mystical messaging. Günter Berghaus, author of Fascism and Theatre, points out the roadblock Franco encountered with reviving these classical forms, especially the religious autos sacramentales: This type of religious drama did not offer enough opportunities for the proposed reform of the theatre. In fact, in the Golden Age, religious theatre 105 represented the most conservative and anti-theatrical tendency, as it was more concerned with propagating religious dogmas than depicting individual characters. The problem was not that the Falange had any lack of regard for the theatre of the Middle Ages, but that the theatre-going public demanded more action-oriented drama. (Berghaus 1996, 215-216) In his paper “Theatrical Reform and the Emergence of Mass Culture in Spain,” Clinton D. Young (2008) unveils these attempts to force a nationalist image designed by the regime as having quite the opposite effect, of pushing zarzuela away from the people and actually widening the gap between popular and elite entertainment. The longer, traditional zarzuelas became a government propaganda tool for pushing forth the image of a more conservative, folkloric, and traditional Spain, but economic changes to the theatrical industry made entertainment like this even less viable outside of the elite classes. Surcharges of up to 15% on theatre tickets allowed the government to reduce tax on food and alcohol (ibid, 634). Taxes on theatre and entertainment were continuously raised as a way of offsetting food and drink prices, which greatly affected lower- and middle-class access to entertainment. This tax and skyrocketing ticket prices cemented a deeper split between the higher and lower culture by making prices unaffordable to the popular public – a trend that repeats itself today. At the start of the century, the ‘Sección de Espactáculos’ [Arts and Entertainment Section] was filled with ads for theatre, operas, and concerts. “By 1930 one was far more likely to encounter news about the movies and movies stars or sporting events” (ibid, 630). Theater audiences craved more action-packed, relevant entertainment and the financial sustainability depended on the tastes of its audiences for survival. Without financial support from audiences, theatrical reform – regardless of political message – would be unsuccessful. Even artists, who sought ways to advance theatrical 106 innovations within the regime’s artistic reformation, found it difficult to create work that could best serve the ideology of the state with the appeal of its audiences. Others combined used the ideology of the regime to mask symbolic political protests. Rafael Alberti’s La farsa de los Reyes Magos of 1939 (The Lie of the Three Magi) was one of those attempts to combine the principals of the autos with fables of the middle classes. Attempts instead resulted in “clumsy hybrid quality plays which sought to fuse dramatic fashions in vogue at the time with a political anger which was in direct opposition to almost every aspect of the financial and social apparatus of the traditional theatre” (McCarthy 1999, 10). Franco, however, understood the power of spectacle in controlling the ideology and nationalistic principles of his platform. What he could not accomplish through zarzuelas he accomplished through the Spanish copla. After the Spanish Civil War, the copla was a massively-consumed cultural product. Its lyrics and image presented an idea of femininity that went against the ideals of Franco and the Catholic Church. Co-opting this genre allowed his regime to use coplas as an instrument to disclose transgressive behavior and relegate this attitude or behavior to solely as a figment of the fictional entertainment world. Using the feminine body as his projection for moralization, Franco and his Regime discarded any notions that women singing about emotions and sentimentalism had any ulterior political motivations. During the early years of franquismo, Franco turned to famed copla singers Concha Piquer and Antoñita Moreno. While many men did take centerstage, it was more difficult for them to not be associated with political motivations or homosexual tendencies of artistic expression. Copla singer Miguel de Molina eventually fled Spain due to his open homosexuality. Singers like Conchita Piquer became part of a 107 type of “star-system” of folkloric singers, making a living from their art while still fitting into the cultural and political environment of Franco’s Spain. In Survival Songs: Conchita Piquer’s Coplas and Franco’s Regime of Terror (2014), Stephanie Sieburth explores how Piquer’s coplas allowed for persecuted Spaniards to subconsciously use music, role-play, ritual, and narrative to mourn through difficult times without repercussions from the State. The 1976 documentary Canciones para después de una guerra (Songs for After a War) also takes viewers on a journey through popular songs of the Franco dictatorship. The copla has often been studied as a response to Spain’s shift from a rural to an urban culture, in particular as it “recuperates a rural past as nostalgia and myth: urban culture appropriates and commodifies the rural, thrusting it into the commercial circuit of mass culture” (Geist and Monleón 1999, 153). Franco saw this as an opportunity to further his ideology and create a nationalistic image of folklore. As most opposition to Franco centered on the Northern provinces, the rural communities and provinces of Andalucía’s south provided the perfect vehicle for the projection of a traditional, ideal Spain. The folkloric-grounded tunes, often called nacional- flamenquismo for its primary focus on the southern region of Andalucía or its gypsies, “served to project a vision of Spain that meshed neatly with the ideology of the dictatorship” (153). Ese ‘flamenquismo’ se convirtió en identificación de todos los pueblos del Estado, y así pudimos observar con regocijo, cómo, en sus viajes, los catalanes se veían obligados a batir palmas, los gallegos a emitir ‘jipíos’ varios o las madrileñas o asturianas a vestir sus faralaes en cualquier recepción de corte ‘típico’. Todo este invento del que antes hablaba tiene unas raíces, raíces que se hunden en el espíritu del pueblo andaluz, manifestándose a través del canto. Canto y no cante. La copla popular no puede identificarse con el flamenco, aunque, como decía alguien, tengan la misma madre y el mismo padre. 108 That ‘flamenquism’ became the identification of all people of the State, and we were able to observe with joy how, in their travels, the Catalans were forced to beat palms, the Galicians let out several ‘jipios’ (sung lament in flamenco) or the women of Madrid and Asturian dress in their ‘typical’ fashions. All this invention, of which I spoke of before, has its roots, roots that sink into the spirit of the Andalusian people, manifesting themselves through singing. I sing and do not sing. The popular ‘copla’ cannot be identified with flamenco, although, as someone said, they have the same mother and father.34 Unlike the zarzuela, the copla continued successful growth through most of Franco’s dictatorship and spread into the imagined Spain of those at home and abroad. For many, it is a part of Spanish cultural identity and history. I remember growing up and listening to the songs of Lola Flores, Carmen Sevilla, and Conchita Piquer playing on the radio. In many ways, I often miss the days of watching the black and white films of Manolo Escobar next to my abuela, as he sung his way around the cobblestone roads of the villages of Andalucía. Today, la copla is thrust into the realities of a modern, global world every Friday evening on Canal Sur (the channel of the South): Se llama copla, a reality singing competition show of coplas in the style of American Idol and The Voice. My grandmother, at almost 99 years of age, prefers the black and white yesteryears of the films to the modern, club-like set of the game show. She says it reminds her of los buenos tiempos, the good times. After this research, I am not so sure my associations have remained intact. 34. José Manuel Costa, “La canción Andaluza, en superación del nacional flamenquismo,” El País Online, April 3, 197, accessed January 18, 2019, https://elpais.com/diario/1977/04/03/cultura/ 228866413_850215.html. 109 Tourism, Rock and Roll, and La Movida By the 1950s, the Franco era was entering its second phase.35 As Spain struggled to cope with its severely economically depressed rural regions and its unindustrialized urban centers, policies shifted to allow outside influences to trickle in to the country. During this opening of the once self-imposed isolated country, Spain slowly cracked its doors and let in influences from the outside world – a political move that also allowed the establishment of American military bases in the country. This new openness challenged the regime to adjust its policies to a more integrated and modern society while still trying to hold onto its moral and religious ideologies. The opening of the markets in the 1950s and 1960s were critical because they also lowered travel restrictions – which opened up its hundreds of miles of beaches up to tourists. The opening of inexpensive and accessible resorts on the Spanish Mediterranean mid-century enabled large and diverse populations to enjoy what had long been an exclusive pursuit. They brought with them the fashions and tastes of their time, frivolity, and related sexual attitudes that challenged the austerity and hierarchical authority embodied in the Franco regime. (Pack 2006, 1) Many of these tourists were from England, France, and the northern regions of Europe, looking to enjoy the latest “fashion for the sun” in the Mediterranean (Pack 2008). Individual travel was difficult during the regime, so most of the initial tourist boom was from agencies and travel agents that wanted to capitalize on low costs and undiscovered coastline. Coincidentally, the Americans and British were the first to jump on this opportunity and agents from these countries were more forceful than the 35. Economically, it is often discussed in terms of two phases. Politically, the years from 1950 – 1975 are often broken up into two separate phases: an era of world reintegration (1951 – 1958) and the age of technocracy (1959 – 1975). For the purposes of the dissertation and to its relevant musical development, it is only necessary to discuss this next phase, which focuses on the import of outside influences after the period of isolation. 110 regime in retaining strict control of their customers’ travel. They demanded freedom to move about the country for their guests, direct access to hotels, undisturbed boarding processes, and even better exchange rates (ibid). Tourism directly affected the cultural formation of Spain well into the post-Franco era – and the tourist has come to represent one of Spain’s greatest shifts during the Franco regime. Beginning in the 1950s, music, film, art, and eventually theatre, would feel the impact of the evolving consumer society, especially through an “American way of life” via Hollywood and other forms of U.S. culture (Marí 2007). Amongst one of the most important of these Americanizations: rock and roll. Perhaps it was not coincidental that this came off the heels of the creation of the Ministerio de Información y Turismo (Ministry of Information and Tourism in 1951). Ironically, outside of the occasional change of album covers or delayed premiere of films, there was not much censorship of rock and roll. Spain was almost as widely exposed to this new music as some of its neighboring European counterparts. Industrial areas grew as the rural farms suffered. Large migrations to the cities caused disorganized cosmopolitan growth, forcing many rural farmers to migrate to other countries for work. Over the years this back and forth migration created a larger middle class composed of many ideas from different countries, leading to one of Spain’s greatest periods of economic development of the 20th century. From the 1960s and into the 1970s, a period often referred to los años de desarrollo or years of development, Spain’s economy placed it in the world’s ninth industrial power (Hooper 1995, 18). Economic success was at the detriment of the dictatorship, which for some time had softened its grip and weakened as the country crawled its way into the 1970s. On November 20, 1975, Francisco Franco’s death abruptly ended his 111 dictatorship and Spain entered its second-most revolutionary cultural phase of the 20th century. Franco’s death is generally considered the start of La Transición (The Transition), a term used by both the Spanish people and its government to mark the country’s transition from a dictatorship to a parliamentary democracy.36 Its years signalled a cultural revolution and an exploration of outside influences including film, music, and theatre. Sudden freedom from the oppression of the dictatorship gave permission for the people in Spain’s major cities – first Madrid, then Barcelona followed by other major urban centers – to engage in almost anything and everything; what was once taboo was now publicly flaunted. In Madrid of the 1980s, the movida (the movement) emerged as a culture movement that served as catalysts for innovations in music, theatre, film, art, literature, and other forms of artistic expression in Spain, had its start in Madrid in the early 1980s. It was not officially recognized as a cultural movement in its day, depicted the rise of a new emerging Spanish cultural identity from the late 1970s through the 1980s. Spanish youth of these years embraced the sounds of rock, the music of international trends, and the universal symbol of freedom and power. Underground theatres flourished. Pedro Almodóvar, the now internationally acclaimed film director, was just one of those significant artists to come out of the movida.37 He once noted, 36. Spain’s new democratization during La Transición is often discussed as two phases. The first phase (1975 – 1978) focused on the dismantling of Franquismo and the establishment of a new democracy, which resulted in the Constitution of 1978. However, some of the most significant cultural shifts occurred during the socialist (PSOE) leadership of Felipe González (1982 – 1996), including the incorporation of Spain into the European Union in 1996. 37. Pedro Almodovar, who was already showing on screens in Madrid and actively participating in the cultural movement, claims to not have heard about la movida as an officially- recognized movement until at least 1978 (Lechado 2013, 19). 112 I am lucky that I appeared at a moment when Spain was undergoing a great change. And that in the rest of the world, for the first time – at least since I have been alive – there was a curiosity for what was happening in Spain. And a curiosity which was not full of superiority. Spain has always appeared to be culturally inferior. After the start of the new democracy during the post- Franco years, and after it became known that a lot was happening in Madrid, foreigners were coming and saying, what a happy city, fun, free, drugs are permitted. There began to be a curiosity. . . (Almodóvar and Willoquet- Maricondi 2004, 108) Spanish cities like Barcelona and Bilbao followed in their own versions of the movida. Eventually, a more organized government and lack of organized cultural entities faded la movida into a short and localized movement. Those who became famous from it tend to disassociate themselves so that there is no “end date” to their popularity or cultural relevance, while those who never fully achieved success try to revive it in attempts to mimic those who have achieved it. Some argue that the movement even created a countermyth of its own through “politicos profesionales, que han logrado convertir la Movida en un reclamo turístico de lo más hortera” (professional politicians who have turned la movida into a tourist reclamation of the tackiest kind), (Lechado 2013, 166). Some even criticized la movida as an official coverup of the counterculture of the Transition (see Méndez 2014). Although it was short-lived and fizzled by the end of the decade, it was culturally influential and the curiosity inspired indie rock groups influenced by British and American bands, producing Spanish icons such as Alaska y Los Pegamoides, Nacho Pop, and Mamá. Musical exploration was the trend and anything that faintly resembled the coplas or zarzuelas of Franco’s Spain was relegated to its rural corners. Thirsty for change, youth especially found relevance in the social and 113 political plights of rock music.38 And what better way to experience it than by moving from the poor, rural regions to an urban city full of opportunity? “Cualquier cambio, incluso el mero hecho de subirse al tren, ya suponía una mejora” (Any change, even the mere fact of stepping on a train alone, was already an improvement), (ibid, 103). I remember watching a children’s television show in the 1980s starring the iconic Alaska herself. Like the Mr. Rogers of my generation in Spain, this goth- meets-punk was the face of La bola de cristal (The Crystal Ball); a revolutionary and groundbreaking television show that, looking back, bluntly provided a running commentary of sociopolitical statements masked as children’s skits and musical puppets. Her electroduendes (a more surrealist version of Sesame Street puppets) would chant, “viva el mal, viva el capital!” (Long live evil, long live capital)! The evil witch Avería (an even more frightening puppet with electrical cords for hair) would threaten, “Me importa un vatio, soy Avería y aspiro a una alcaldía!” (I don’t give a watt, I am Avería and I aspire to be Mayor)! The politicization of art and culture in Spain during Franco’s dictatorship had cultural implications after his death. Newfound freedoms of expression made way for the arrival of a new musical change, one that stepped away from the traditional conventions of the zarzuela to embody the counterculture and musical transformation that was flooding Spain. Jesucristo Superstar Very little published research exists on musical theatre outside of the zarzuela genre during the post-Franco era. Press reviews, articles, and general popular belief 38. There is research that indicates the movement started earlier with events like “15 Horas de Pop y Rock”, considered the first great rock concert of Spain (Lechado 2013, 16). 114 credit Jesus Christ Superstar’s arrival to Madrid in 1975 as the first Broadway-style musical to hit a Spanish stage, but archives from the Centro de Documentación Teatral (see Appendix A) and other media indicate otherwise with records of Man of La Mancha (1966), Fiddler on the Roof (1970), American Folk Dancers (1973), Gigi (1973), and Godspell (1974). Despite this evidence, whenever I asked musical theatre aficionados or professionals around Spain which Broadway musical was the first to arrive in Madrid, most responded enthusiastically: “Jesucristo Superstar!” Jesucristo Superstar premiered at the then unheard-of price of 12 million pesetas (approximately $120,000) at the Teatro Alcalá Palace on November 6, 1975. Its co-translators were Nacho Artime and Jaime Azpilicueta (the latter also its director). It placed the famous Spanish singer and producer Camilo Sesto in a long line of other international stars to have played the iconic role of Jesus, his portrayal still considered the epitome of the Spanish-language production by many. The theatrical event became one of the most significant evenings for musical theatre in Spain, resulting in several Spanish-language revivals over the next few decades and ongoing productions today. Over and over critics praised not only the performances, but also the importance of its contribution to musical theatre development in the country. The following are all excerpts from press reviews obtained from the website Red Teatral:39 . . . Fue un estreno apoteósico y memorable. Un acontecimiento excepcional. Un triunfo total e inolvidable. Esa noche se hizo realidad. . . un desafío casi imposible: montar el mayor y más importante espectáculo que se haya realizado jamás en España. . . . Apostolic and memorable. An exceptional accomplishment. An unforgettable and total triumph. At last, that night became a reality…an 39. Francisco Javier Gómez Gómez, “El mayor estreno de la historia,” Redteatral Website, 2005, accessed October 15, 2015, http://www.redteatral.net/noticias-el-mayor-estreno-de-la-historia- 24. 115 almost impossible feat: mount the greatest and most important spectacle that has ever existed in Spain. (review by Julio Trenas, Diario Arriba) Por primera vez en un escenario español, todos los actores cantan, y muy bien además, mientras que el ballet aparece perfectamente integrado en el conjunto. For the first time on a Spanish stage, all actors sing, and very well, while the ballet looks perfectly integrated into the production. (review by Pedro Altares, Nuevo Diario) El mayor espectáculo jamás montado en españa. . . Harán hito en la historia del espectáculo español. The greatest show every mounted in Spain! . . . They will create a milestone in the history of Spanish spectacle! (review by Pepe Asensi, El Pueblo) Sentado en mi butaca de Alcalá-Palace no sabía dónde me encontraba, si en Londres o en Nueva York. Lógicamente, mi sueño no tenía ninguna consistencia desde el momento que estaba oyendo cantar en castellano. Lo que estaba ocurriendo es que el montaje, el tinglado, eran propios de esas dos ciudades, no de Madrid, que es donde estábamos. El Jesucristo Superstar español no tiene nada que ver con la película, ni con las versiones teatrales de otros países. Lo que sí es cierto es que está a la altura de la mejor. Sitting in my seat at the Alcalá Palace I wasn’t sure if I was in London or New York. My dream had no logic the minute I heard the singing in Spanish. What was happening on that stage was the stuff of New York and London, and not the Madrid in which we were. The Spanish Jesus Christ Superstar has nothing to do with the movie nor other versions worldwide. The truth is, it’s at the height of the best. (review by Fernando Salaverri, El Gran Musical) “Perfectly integrated. . . a milestone. . . the stuff of New York and London. . . modern. . . and the first musical spectacle of Spain,” were the terms now being associated with these new musical performances. It would be a simplification, however, to place the weight of such achievement solely on its rock score. After all, 116 the premiere of Hair eight days later on November 14 failed to capture the same mythological status – despite its rock foundation and historical significance in the development of the contemporary Broadway musical itself.40 In Jesucristo Superstar, the Spanish audiences had found a connection that resonated with Spanish culture and a newly freed artistic sensibility, as well as connections with the past traditions of music, theatre, and religiosity. With a headline that read, “El primer espectáculo de España” (the first “spectacle” or “large show” of Spain), one reviewer highlighted this perceived perfect integration of text, music, and story into Jesucristo Superstar: Para empezar, en España no se ha dado nunca un espectáculo Musical moderno de esta categoría. El riquísimo juego de luces, creador de emotividad teatral y de nitidez expresiva; la perfección del “ballet”, que, con los demás elementos, da a la obra una dimensión escultural soberbia; la dinámica interrelacionada de todos los actores, sumisos a una idea de colectividad. . . Todo esto fue admirable. El engrandecimiento simbólico de Jesucristo viene dado no por esa partición exaltada y generalizada que pueda dar Camilo Sesto, sino por la resultante de elementos muy diversos. Todos ellos mueven a una comunión real con esa famosa ópera, que es, sin duda alguna, un paso hacia delante en el camino de la cultura, justo en la medida en que lo es el rock. To begin with, in Spain there has never been a modern musical show of this caliber. The rich play of lighting, creator of theatrical emotion and expressive clarity; the perfection of the "ballet", which, with the other elements, gives the work a sobering sculptural dimension; the interrelated dynamics of all the actors, submissive to an idea of collectivity. . . All this was admirable. The symbolic grandeur of Jesus Christ is given not by that exalted and generalized performance that Camilo Sesto can give, but by combination the very diverse 40. So why was Hair not as successful? Not unlike the sentiment felt by Spaniards during the transition, it is as though the stage were set for theatrical representations of these political protests. However, Hair was countering a mythology of an already established American Dream, critiquing an established nation and political power that set the rules. The themes of the musical were too distant and unfamiliar for Spanish audiences. Hair also challenged the established artistic traditions of an already successful Broadway scene with an extensive historical background by experimenting within its constraints. The music score written by Grammy-award winning Galt MacDermot helped to bring brought rock music to the Broadway stage and challenging established notions of musical conventions on Broadway, while still being accessible to its audiences. It was a counter myth to not only the American Dream, but to familiar musical theatre conventions and structures. Spain’s musical theatre past was too distant for musical conventions to be similarly relatable or challenged. 117 elements. All of them create a communion with that famous opera, which is, without a doubt, a step forward in the path of culture, to the same extent as rock.41 It is possible that the controversial political motifs of Jesucristo Superstar and its timely premiere just weeks before dictator Francisco Franco’s death on November 20 propelled Jesus Christ Superstar to the historical protagonist status it holds today. One reviewer vividly put it: En noviembre de 1975 el dictador yacía agonizante en su cama mientras que, en las calles, la gente permanecía expectante ante los cambios que se producirían después de su fallecimiento. Los miembros de la ultraderecha católica se manifestaban en las calles al grito de "¡Viva Cristo Rey!” contra cualquier intento de modificar el orden hasta ahora establecido. Y en todo este maremágnum de acontecimientos se estrena Jesucristo Superstar. The dictator lay gravely ill in his bed, while on the streets people waited anxiously for the changes that would come after his death. The ultraconservative Catholic chants of “Long Live, Christ the King!” protested any attempts to change the status quo. There in the middle of the confusion, Jesus Christ Superstar premieres. (ibid) This new rock opera musical lacked the smooth transition between musical genres as what seems to have been the pattern throughout the evolution of Spain’s musical history – from autos to zarzuelas and coplas and to the new sounds coming out of the dictatorship. Instead, it came right on the heels of the now-Franco- nationalist-associated zarzuelas and the short coplas of the Fascist regime. The few zarzuelas that did make it the Madrid stage at this time did not often make it further than their premieres; sustainability of the productions depended on popular taste. Zarzuela scholar Roger Alier notes that, “Critics, afraid of seeming ignorant or uncultured – or worse, being labeled ‘fascists’, would often gloss over [zarzuela] reviews with glowing remarks and then they could forget ‘la novedad’ [the novelty] 41. Francisco Javier Gómez Gómez, “El mayor estreno de la historia,” Redteatral Website. 118 they just heard” (Alier 2002, 15). Their aesthetic appeal was even less inspiring and more dated, he asserts: ¿Cómo se ofrecen, cuándo se ofrecen, estas zarzuelas? Sencillamente, de una manera monstruosa, intolerable. Con decorados y vestuario de la época. . . del estreno, coros prehistóricos, orquestas sin el mínimo de ensayos, dirección de escena de colegio de párvulos, cantantes de ocasión. . . How and when are these zarzuelas offered? Basically, in a monstrous and intolerable way. With dated sets and costumes of the period of its [original] premiere, prehistoric choruses, orchestras with no rehearsals, kindergarten direction, and event singers. (ibid, 20) Jesucristo Superstar, on the other hand, was a performance that musically represented the idea of a more modern Spain. This postmodern political climate of Spain in the 1970s was fertile ground for a new popular culture for youth based on already popular outside influences; those playful artforms that fed off of “low” genres or marginal voices – new wave, British pop music, and rock music. Rock, sex, drugs, and money would become a driving symbol for the new democracy (Godes 2013). España, de repente, se había revuelto rica, moderna y liberada. Sobre nuestra vieja y oscura piel de toro se podía vivir con desenfreno y sin reglas. ¿Qué importaban las muertes por sobredosis? ¿Qué importaban los muertos en la vida, los talentos desaprovechados o los dolores de cabeza de los melómanos después de una velada en Rock-Ola atendiendo a la última y supuestamente triunfal revelación del nuevo pop español? Spain had suddenly become rich, modern, and liberated. In our old, dark bull skin we could now live carefree without rules. Who cared about death from overdose? Who cared about the living dead, the freeloader, or music lovers’ headaches after a night out at Rock-Ola [Festival] witnessing the latest and supposed revelation of the new Spanish “pop”? – Alaska, iconic movida star. (ibid, 17) Music went from being religious and politically-controlled to creating sounds that spoke to a counterculture of creative freedom – although it was ironically one that still utilized a Christian biblical story and moral themes. Jesus Christ Superstar, 119 as originally titled in English on Broadway, took centerstage with a rocked-based score that reinforced the counterculture of a liberating society and the musical’s status as a global form of entertainment brought Madrid – and in a way Spain – into the larger world community. The cultural appeal was already generating a buzz around the world. A concept rock album was released prior to any staged version. Released in 1971 by Decca Record, rock star Ian Gillan (lead Singer of the band Deep Purple) sung the role of Jesus. The double record made the music charts, becoming one of the biggest-selling albums of the year. Fans quickly came to love songs like “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” and the hits made it across the radio waves to Spain. Productions popped up on Broadway and in the West End (London), and a few years later the 1973 film version garnered Golden Globes – physicalizing 70s rock culture and fashion through the televised musical. The Madrid version, its title now the rechristened Jesucristo Superstar, broke through musical theatre forms that were uniquely Spanish – the zarzuelas and coplas – and offered an alternative form of entertainment that paralleled the tastes of other large cosmopolitan cities. It pointed at the possibility of catching up, of mounting the same hits that had just played in London and New York, of making its way to becoming Spain’s very own Broadway. Creating community involved negotiating the space with audiences through the latest popular taste in music, a key characteristic of musical theatre (See Figure 5). 120 121 Figure 5: Popular culture and the influence of Jesus Christ Superstar. On top, a poster announcing the musical’s arrival in Spain “at last!” On the bottom, a tabloid magazine with the musical and its star, Camilo Sesto, the primary and cover story. (Top picture: Original source, ABC Hemeroteca. Bottom picture: Original source, Colección Camilo Blanes. Both images obtained online at Marta García Sarabia Crowdfunding Webpage for her book Jesucristo Superstar 2018) Jesus Christ Superstar was also already loaded with an enormous amount of cultural controversy surrounding its content and themes. Based on the retelling of 122 Jesus’s last week leading up to his crucifixion – from the perspective of Judas Iscariot – the musical angered religious groups. The humanization of its characters, love relationships among its characters, and empathizing with Judas politicized the musical. In fact, the concept rock album was released before any production because producers feared to consider the material for the stage. “Controversy…swirled around it…[like] Christina Aguilera flubbing the national anthem before the Super Bowl," entertainment journalist Tim Cain once wrote.42 Religious groups like the American Jewish Committee and many evangelists berated the musical for its religious inaccuracies; Christians enraged by Mary Magdalene’s lust-like love for Jesus or the lack of Resurrection at the musical’s end. As far reaching as South Africa, countless groups protested the musical’s divine content. But even the Vatican itself recognized its importance when the Vatican Radio announced in 1971 that it would play the album in full, including commentaries from its cocreators writers Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. “Nothing like this has ever been broadcast on Vatican Radio until now,” a Vatican Radio spokesman said. “But we feel this is a work of considerable importance.”43 Considering that Franco’s primary interest in theatre was the dissemination of traditional Catholic values, staging Jesucristo Superstar in Spain’s capital was a political statement in itself. The themes were no longer the allegorical tales of the autos sacramentales; instead familiar Catholic characters and stories were humanized 42. Tim Cain, “Superstar Stirred Controversy As It Broke Musical Ground,” The Hearald Review Online, March 03, 2012, https://herald-review.com/entertainment/local/tim-cain-column- superstar-stirred-controversy-as-it-broke-musical/article_bcfddd10-45d5-11e0-a837- 001cc4c002e0.html. 43. “Reviving Jesus Christ Superstar,” Alive Publishing Online, accessed February 22, 2019, https://www.alivepublishing.co.uk/2012/08/reviving-jesus-christ-superstar/. 123 and brought closer to the people. Judas’s character opposed Jesus, and this symbol of conflict and freedom from religious oppression was of the moment in Spain. The show’s music was no longer grounded in folklore or traditions, but instead reflected the coming cultural revolution which Franco tried to avert. In fact, it took a few years and several attempts to get the musical approved by the Spanish censors. The 2018 documentary La ópera rock Jesucristo Superstar: un hito en la historia del musical español (Rock Opera Jesus Christ Superstar: A Milestone in the History of the Spanish Musical) by Marta García Sarabia discusses its early history, including how it took them three years (1972 – 1975) and several rounds through the censors to produce the show (Sarabia 2018). The short film shows a photo (see Figure 5) of some of the write ups, indicating which numbers were “light songs, transcendent- like” and therefore AUTORIZAR was its seal. Other songs like “Heaven on Their Minds” indicated “Modern song, a bit religious in nature, the ending is very subversive” and it received a DENEGAR (rejection). A reprise of “I Don’t Know How to Love Him”, first sung to Jesus by Mary Magdalene, was sung by Judas to Jesus and the censors had this to say about it (translated from Figure 6 below): Canción moderna. Presentada junto con los anteriores y del mismo autor, parece insistir sobre el tema religioso. Pero si la tomamos separadamente, sería homosexual. Por ello, aún de carácter religioso, resulta inconveniente. Modern song. Presented with the other themes and since it’s by the same author, it appears to still fall on religious themes. Taken separately from its connection to the other song, it would be homosexuality. For that reason, although religious, the result is inconvenient. 124 Figure 6: A censor report in Madrid for Jesus Christ Superstar, listing a short description next to the songs – along with a deciding “approval” or “denial” by the board. The production in Madrid would go through several years of denials on several songs before making it to the stage in 1975. (Image obtained online at Marta García Sarabia Crowdfunding Webpage for her book Jesucristo Superstar 2018) 125 The importance of Jesus Christ Superstar was much in line with scholar Javier Escudero’s observation of the movida cultural movement of the era: . . . el mayor legado de la movida reside no tanto en la importancia de sus contribuciones artísticas sino en haber abierto el camino a una nueva época estética e ideológica, la postmodernidad, en la que se practica un tipo de arte más lúdico, que se sirve continuamente de la ironía, la parodia y el pastiche, incorporando a su génesis los géneros "bajos", las voces. . . . . . the main legacy of la movida [like Jesus Christ Superstar] lies not so much in its important artistic contributions but in the fact that it opened a path for a new wave of aesthetics and ideology, postmodernity, in which a more playful artform is practiced – feeding off of irony, parody, and pastiche, incorporating “low” genres and marginal voices. . . (Escudero 1998, 159) Actor Juan Echanove and narrator of the documentary notes, “With Jesucristo Superstar, the black and white of Spain is over…color arrives…Until the arrival of Jesucristo Superstar, franquismo still cracked its whip.” Father Ángel, a Messenger of Peace who also appears on the film, adds that “[the musical] broke traditions that we have learned since we were children, that Jesus was a saint…now he is a man.” Ironically, even the Vatican did not prohibit or condemn it. Nacho Artime, who adapted Jesucristo Superstar into Spanish and also served as an Executive Producer, ponders: Tal vez alguien vio la posibilidad de que, dado los tiempos hippies que corrían y la espiritualidad que hoy tanto echamos de menos, Jesucristo tenía una nueva oportunidad con los jóvenes. Maybe someone saw the possibility that, given the hippy days that were running and the spirituality that today we miss so much, Jesus Christ had a new opportunity with young people. (Sarabia 2018, 176) Jesucristo Superstar occupies a significant place in the history of musical theatre in Spain because it sits at the intersection of musical theatre, pop culture, and one of the country’s most politically-significant moments. It set off new expectations 126 for musical theatre trends in Spain that reflected global trends in the industry, untethering it from Spain’s more narrow historical musical antecedents. Nacho Artime, who adapted Jesucristo Superstar into Spanish and also served as an Executive Producer, remembers the challenges vividly: En España no había tradición de musicales, nos fue muy difícil encontrar profesionales que supiesen cantar, bailar y actuar al mismo tiempo. Pero lo conseguimos, ¡vaya si lo conseguimos! Me produce un gran orgullo comprobar cómo hoy en día el teatro musical está más vivo que nunca en nuestro país. . . Es lo más grande que he hecho y, según entendido, lo más grande que se ha hecho en España. In Spain there was no musical theatre tradition, [so] it was very difficult to find professionals who could sing, dance, and act at the same time. But we did it, we sure did get it! It gives me great pride to see how nowadays musical theater is more alive than ever in our country. . . It's the biggest thing I've done and, as understood, the biggest thing that has been done in Spain. (ibid, 14) Jesucristo Superstar also combined the most current pop culture at the time into musical theatre, attracting a generation that no longer responded to uniquely Spanish art forms like zarzuelas, coplas, or regional music like flamenco. By bridging this gap between art and culture, it brought Spain’s newest generations into a more globally connected community. It also marked a cultural shift through new musical performances that broke through decades of artistic oppression and cultural stagnancy. Following in the path of Broadway’s own musical formation in the United States, it combined the most popular form of musical entertainment with personal stories Spanish audiences – even if through the subversion of a Catholic ideology that had dominated the cultural landscape for decades, even centuries. It is no surprise then, that almost wherever you go in Spain, there are countless productions of Jesucristo Superstar being produced throughout the year – especially at the local level as it has made its way down into the annals of Spanish musical theatre history. 127 Figure 7 shows one of these local incarnations, produced on a beach in my hometown. Figure 7. An old program for Jesucristo Superbeach, performed on the beach in Rota, Spain by the local high school and sponsored by City Hall. (Photo by Maria Jose Sanz Garcia, Facebook, 2019) 128 Camilo Sesto, who in addition to starring as Jesus also solely funded the original musical in Spain (introducing the idea of a self-funded producer of musicals into the country), best summarizes the musical’s importance in Spanish cultural history: En España se vivía un momento de profundo cambio que marcó definitivamente el estreno de la película, al igual que el de la representación teatral de Jesucristo Superstar. . . La musicalización de los textos e incorporaciones sonoras no codificadas por el público conducía directamente al afloramiento de intensas sensaciones, imprimiendo en el espectador una contundente carga emocional. La “Jesumanía” se desató vertiginosamente entre la sociedad del momento, calando muy especialmente entre los jóvenes. El impacto de esta macro-producción ha pervivido hasta la actualidad y ha dado lugar a un nutrido grupo de manifestaciones artísticas, poniendo en relieve la variedad de trabajos que se llevan a cabo y que son buena prueba de la vitalidad que a día de hoy conserva. In Spain, there was a profound moment of change that definitively marked the premiere of the film, as well as the theatrical production of Jesus Christ Superstar. . . The musicalization of the texts and sound incorporations not [yet] codified by the public led directly to the flourishing of intense sensations, engraining significant, emotional intensities into audiences. "Jesumanía" was wildly unleashed into society of the moment, especially breaking through the youth. The impact of this macro-production continues to survive in the present and has given rise to a large array of artistic manifestations, highlighting the variety of works that are performed and that are solid proof of the vitality that it still has today. (Sarabia 2018, 18) Jesus Christ Superstar broke through many conventions globally – religious, political, and cultural – and Jesucristo Superstar secured its place in Spain’s very own Broadway-like history. Over the next few years, from the 1970s and into the 1980s, a small handful of other musicals made their way to the Spanish stage, but not to the same level of success as Webber’s biblical rock musical. Chapter Summaries Following the success of Jesucristo Superstar, the marquees of Gran Vía (Madrid’s main theatre district) lit up for a wide variety of musicals performed in Spanish over the years: Sugar (1976), Evita (1980), Piaf (1980), The Sound of Music 129 (1982), Snoopy (1985), and even more resurrections of Jesucristo Superstar (1982 and 1984). Most of these musicals appeared in Madrid first, then Barcelona, and eventually to other major cities of Spain as tours or parts of festivals – all translated into Spanish or Catalán. In a way, their transfers mimicked the movement of the cultural revolution in Spain. Musicals, like jukebox show Hoy no me puedo levantar, try to capitalize on la movida, despite the themed pop/techno group’s little involvement in the initial movement. What is important is that these cultural moments served as scripts for musical performances that helped Spain construct a more modern and contemporary version of itself; one that made it susceptible to future forms of music as a means of artistic expression. Through a historical journey of some of Spain’s most significant musical moments – from the autos sacramentales, to the zarzuelas, and into the transition to musicals like Jesus Christ Superstar – I have provided a score that plays out the ways the identity of musical performances is transformed through changing cultural and political notions of Spanish-ness. Understanding how the function of musical performances can be manipulated sets the tempo of a dissertation which explores the transposing of Broadway throughout different social, cultural, and political spaces in Spain. Chapter Three takes us to the first of these three spaces: Madrid’s Gran Vía and “El Broadway of Spain.” The insecurities of globalized cities make the professional musicals of Gran Vía an ideal site for interrogating the performance of Broadway against a backdrop of Spanish urbanity and economics. The corporate world of Stage Entertainment and its production of El Rey León in Madrid sets the 130 stage for how Broadway is performed in a cosmopolitan space pressured to keep up with the pace of the supersonic speed of globalization. 131 Vamp B Somos las calles, somos las plazas We are the streets, we are the squares y callejones de Madrid, and allies of Madrid, que por un recurso mágico that for a magical purpose nos podemos hoy congregar aquí. we are here united. Es motivo que nos reúne The reason for our meeting perturbador de un modo tal is so perturbing that only he could que solamente él causaría cause such a phenomenal disorder. un trastorno tan fenomenal. Va a dar a luz una Gran Vía, A Great Street will be born, que de fijo no ha tenido igual. unlike any other. Cuando yo lo escuché When I heard about it, asombrada me quedé; I was shocked. todo aquí que oyó When everyone heard about it, asombrado se quedó. they were shocked. A decir la verdad To tell the truth, esa vía está de más, that street is one extra, porque todos aquí Because everyone here tienen calles para sí… has streets of their own, para una Gran Vía for Gran Vía no habrá personal. there will be no one left for it. Porque si esa vía, por llamarse grande, Because that street, by calling itself cuando nazca a todas trata de humillar, Grand, va a llevar un susto de seguro tried to humiliate us when its born, la seña Municipalidad. The city itself will surely get a fright. Gran Vía by Chueca and Valverde (1886) Translation by author 132 Chapter 3: The Business of Culturally Relocating Professional Broadway October is the perfect weather for visiting Madrid; its temperature hovers at the halfway point between something spitefully frigid and something viciously scalding. El Parque del Retiro (Park of the Pleasant Retreat), Madrid’s very own Central Park, sits in an enclave where the urban forest’s leaves provide signs of the encroaching winter. From its park benches, you can gaze at the back and forth of the row boats that dot the lake as their “captains” calmly and delicately row patterns of unmarked circles. It’s an urban oasis for both locals and tourists, but the sensory temptations of its vibrant exterior are never far. Walk a block or so from El Retiro’s northwest corner past the arch of La Puerta de Alcalá (Alcalá Gate) and you’ll hear the sounds of Spain’s largest city pulling you further into its frenetic yet titillating soul: honking cars ignoring traffic signs; flights to and from everywhere roaring overhead; undecipherable chatter in multiple languages; and the -nnnt -nnnt -nnnt beats emanating from its underlit hipster-infused restaurants. And you keep walking for fear of missing out on something. But you’ve felt this rush and “the call” of this excitement before. It followed you across the River Thames in London as you gawked at Big Ben. It shadowed up the steps of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It also sat with you at brunch in the trendiest of restaurants in New York’s Soho. Urban centers across the world are keepers of a similar sense of progress, heightening the expectations of those that enter their space. Madrid is no exception and you can get a sense of that progress minutes after you leave El Retiro, as you reach the end of Calle de Alcalá (Alcalá Street). For right where the Banco de España’s (Bank of Spain) dominating façade overlooks the tourist-gawked Cibeles Fountain, you look up the 133 hill to the bright lights of a grand boulevard disappearing up into the distance. You see the lights of the start of Gran Vía: El Broadway Español (The Spanish Broadway). The curtain rises on my musical theatre journey throughout Spain in the Madrid Metropolitan area, in an effort to discover how Broadway is culturally relocated to this European capital. Many factors play into how culture, through artistic forms of expression, is reterritorialized. Economics, identities, and power influence this cultural transfer, dictating a politics of space that determines how a new genre like Broadway musicals will land in a cosmopolitan city like Madrid. With over 6 million inhabitants sprawled out over 20 municipalities, Madrid is the fourth most populated in Europe after Paris. More than just an urban center, it is a space of culture, identity, and an imaginary collective which simultaneously opens itself up to not only those on its exterior, but also to those within its permeable boundaries – a “world city” (Soja 2000, 77). It is also the home of most professional Broadway musicals brought into Spain, making it a worthy starting point of exploration. Retracing a journey that included stops at many of the city’s major professional musicals, I delve specifically into Madrid’s urban identity in an effort to contextualize the shifting forces that prime the city for the proliferation of Broadway musicals. I then localize my discussion to the cultural transformation of Gran Vía into Madrid’s very own version of New York’s 42nd Street. I end the chapter by exploring how the business and artistic practices of two professional musical theatre companies on Gran Vía help create “the Broadway of Spain.” I look into global company Stage Entertainment and its local subsidiary Stage Spain, taking a seat at their Madrid production of Disney’s El Rey León (The Lion King) to discuss how the global 134 becomes local. Seeking the perspective of a locally-founded and operated company, I also briefly discuss Madrid’s SOM Produce and their production of Priscilla, reina del desierto (Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) to uncover whether there are significant differences from a local company going global. Analyzing the way Gran Vía’s Broadway is performed from a business perspective in Madrid allows me to draw parallels to New York City’s professional, business-driven Broadway. Through this chapter, I consider how musical theatre companies negotiate the politics of place and national belonging by commercializing identity on international and professional theatre stages. Madrid, Global yet Spanish Madrid is one of more than 400 global cities with over one million people, a figure adding to the mind-numbing statistic that 54 percent of the world’s population is urban (United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision, 2014).44 After Franco’s death in 1975, Spain’s population shifted from rural, agrarian, and homogeneous communities to urban centers concentrated around the heavily industrialized and commercial urban cores of cities of Madrid and Barcelona. Downtown Madrid was the epicenter of business, civics, capital wealth, and thus, art and performance, especially after a surge of middle-class populations moved out of the city and into the new suburbs. New forms of exchange and interdependence came to life in a city where groups of diverse people lived in tight proximity, where available activities were tenfold, and where technological advances were abundant. In A Cultural History of Madrid: Modernism and the Urban Spectacle, Parsons (2003) 44. More impressively, the same study predicted that by 2050, only 34 percent (one-third) of the world would be rural while 66 percent (two-thirds) would be urban. 135 captures this euphoria of modernization in our subject city of Madrid, while simultaneously foreshadowing the consequences of the looming globalization: As electricity illuminated Madrid by night, the first skyscrapers pierced its skyline, and the metropolitan railway transported passengers through its subterranean depths, practices and perceptions of urban space were profoundly altered the city becoming at once newly ordered and newly mysterious. (ibid, 77) As Parsons describes, the urban space transforms into new, complex spaces – almost taking on “human” personalities and “mysterious” identities of their own. Cities project images of themselves, which is important in helping us understand how Madrid, its professional theatre companies, and artists play roles in the construction and negotiation of a cultural or artistic place. Marketing Place: Attracting Investment, Industry, and Tourism to Cities, States, and Nations (Kotler, Heider, and Rien 1993) provides research on the idea that specific places should reinforce their character through aspirations of how they want to be seen. It uses the example of Singapore wanting to be seen as the financial capital of Asia. In similar ways, Madrid culturally performs itself through promotions of events at the Prado Museum, the hosting of Madrid Fashion Week, and through the production of Broadway musicals that put the cosmopolitan city on the global map. Through their performances, cities reinforce the power structures in place that create a sense of specific place where its inhabitants can be secure and part of a larger community. In the telling words of urban and global theorist Edward Soja, places like Madrid are then able to become important centers of innovation. Its people live in tight proximity, so aspects of social interactions and daily lives create experiences in which “social life is both structured by and materially manifested in the ongoing process of producing urban spatiality” (Soja 2000, 26). 136 At the same time, Madrid has become homogenized urban centers – an ever- evolving myth with undefined layers and commoditized by an endless shopping bag of global brands. Quaint boutiques and shops engulfed by names indiscriminately traversing borders of recognition: Zara, Prada, Nespresso, Dior, Diesel. One editorial in the Spanish newspaper El País duly antagonized the effects of this rapid progress on its capital city: ¿En manos de quién estamos dejando el paisaje urbano, algunas de sus vías más definitorias, para que estén perdiendo cada día su carácter particular y se conviertan en una copia más de Times Square? Y una cosa más que me pregunto siempre, ¿qué parte, aunque sea mínima, de responsabilidad tenemos nosotros?. . . Nos lamentamos con frecuencia por la amenaza que las franquicias están suponiendo para el pequeño comercio, ¿pero quién está dispuesto a pagar unos euros más a fin de favorecerlo? In whose hands are we leaving this urban landscape, some its streets more defining than others, so that every passing day its unique character gets lost and transformed in another copy of Times Square? And something I always ask myself, what part (as minimal as it may be), is our responsibility?. . . We frequently lament the threat of franchises on small businesses, but who is prepared to pay a few more euros to rectify it?45 One question that Spanish politicians, artists, and also residents have often asked since the mid 20th century move to “modernity” and internationalism is whether Madrid is a “city of the world” or “a city of Spain.” Do its residents frame themselves in relation to other world cities? Do Spaniards living outside of Madrid frame the capital city from a global perspective or just a national one? The answers to these questions provide perspectives of how the Spanish connect themselves to Madrid, their communities, and Spain as a country, simultaneously pointing at the ways they relate to the cultural products coming out of them. Spain’s “Broadway” is inextricably connected to Madrid and it is important to contextualize the cultural 45. Elvira Lindo, “Adiós, Gran Vía.” El País Online, February 17, 2017, accessed April 4, 2017, http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2017/02/17/actualidad/1487345719_203711.html. 137 production site within its global or local space. I asked almost everywhere I went. I asked a few people while attending various Broadway musicals brought to the Spanish stage in Madrid. I asked in Cádiz at yet another Broadway musical that was on tour throughout Spain. It became such a habit, that I started asking anytime I got the chance – theatre and non-theatre people alike. I even randomly asked my Pilates instructor during a private training session. “Madrid: español o mundial?” (Madrid: Spanish or global), I asked. Surprisingly enough, my colleagues, friends, and even random others like my Pilates instructor led with a rather nationalistic foot. One replied, “Madrid es lo más español” (Madrid is the most Spanish). Another said, “Primero español, después mundial” (First Spanish, then global). Regionally the answers were a bit more varied. One man replied, “Bueno, como capital que es, debería serlo, no?” (Well, like the capital that it is, is should be global right?). The further removed from the city and the more into the country I dove, the more tainted with hints of political suspicion the answers became. One person down in Southern Spain said, “Con los chorizos que hay en Madrid, esos van a lo suyo. Ni español ni na…[nada]” (With as many sausages [a rather negative connotation for politicians in Spain] as there are in Madrid, they do their own thing. Neither Spanish nor nothing).46 Despite this polarizing identity, or perhaps as a result of it, Madrid has secured its place on the global map. While writing about “el Broadway madrileño,” one journalist bragged about Madrid’s wide appeal: 46. As mentioned in the Introduction to this dissertation, my research unfortunately did not cover all regions of Spain. Certainly, areas with strong separatist ideologies and conflicts with Madrid would have resulted in much different responses. The overall point here is to show that there was definitely a consistent theme of situating Madrid on the same level as other global cities, while still differentiating it as uniquely Spanish. In her work Trumpets in the Mountains: Theatre and Politics of National Culture in Cuba, Laurie A. Frederik draws a parallel picture of the cultural politics involved in the artistic practices between urban and rural communities. Although her focus is on Cuba and the performances of the campesinos, her ethnography provided valuable insight into the complex layers of the creative process in different national spaces (Frederik 2012). 138 Madrid es una de las ciudades más visitadas no solo de España, sino de toda Europa Occidental, teniendo una mezcla de atmósfera cosmopolita, de actividad gubernamental, de historia y de modernidad. Madrid is one of the most visited cities, not only of Spain, but of all of Western Europe, having a mix of cosmopolitan atmosphere, political activity, history, and of modernity.47 Like New York City did with 42nd Street, Madrid transformed a part of their city into a hub of entertainment that encompassed this blend of cosmopolitanism, modernity, and cultural and economic power. They found it in the city’s own avenue, Gran Vía. One culture critic noted in the press: Ya no hay que ir a Broadway para ver Los Miserables, Jesucristo Superstar o El Rey León. Hoy, con cerca de 20 musicales en cartel, Madrid es una capital del género y la Gran Vía, un pequeño Broadway. You don’t have to go to Broadway anymore to see Les Miserables, Jesus Christ Superstar, or The Lion King. Today, with over 20 musicals on the marquees, Madrid is the capital of the genre and Gran Vía, a small Broadway.48 Gran Vía: A Symbol of Progress Gran Vía, Madrid’s most prominent and widely identifiable landmark, radically shaped the social and cultural identity of a capital city longing to jump into a new era of modernity. In this section, I am interested in the origins of this central Madrid avenue and its transformation from an urban residential neighborhood to a cultural hub of entertainment, paving the way for a new “Broadway” to Spain. Built over 108 years ago, the “grand avenue” was to connect the different areas of Madrid and decongest the winding, narrow streets of its city center. Over 50 streets of old 47. Martiza Cárdenas, “La Gran Vía, el Broadway madrileño” Ser Turista Travel Website, 2015, accessed July 20, 2018, https://serturista.com/espana/la-gran-via-el-broadway-madrileno/. 48. Patricia Ortega Dolz, “Y la Gran Vía se hizo Broadway.” El País Online, December 17, 2011, accessed March 13, 2017, https://elpais.com/diario/2011/12/17/ madrid/1324124654_850215.html. 139 Madrid were demolished, along with over 300 homes – causing fury and protest over this encroaching modernization at the turn of the century. This modernization also turned it into a major symbol of progress for Madrid. Cafés, restaurants, and shops turned it into a prime social center for the city. The cars that traveled up and down its pavement prominently displayed a never-ending cavalcade of materialized luxury. The buildings, many taking their inspiration from the architecture of major cities in the United States, were physical symbols of growth and advancement. Spain even boasted its first skyscraper with the Telefónica Building in 1930. Although it was devastatingly the most targeted street during Spain’s Civil War by Franco’s troops, Gran Vía lived its “first” heyday in the 1930s and 1940s. Supplies and transport still made it into the city and people did not stop seeking entertainment. “The cafes, cinemas, theatres, and brothels were full of people who, despite the unpromising progress of war, were curiously optimistic,” (Elizabeth Nash quoting from Pedro Montoliú’s Madrid en la Guerra, Nash 2001, 172). Buildings first constructed as theatres began converting to cinemas all around the thoroughfare; the periods during and after the war it served as entertainment to help people escape their darker reality. The most popular films were the ones headed by American stars like Greta Garbo, Laurel and Hardy, Mae West, and more. Through entertainment, Madrid jumped on the bandwagon with the rest of the world. The same was especially true after World War II in the 1950s and 1960s, when the capital city began opening its doors to outside cultural influences. During the day, Gran Vía was the right spot for catching a glimpse of the latest international car or for shopping the latest fashions. By night, it was a glamorized film hub – Madrid’s most immediate connection to the quickly advancing and modernizing world on the other side of Spain’s borders. 140 A little under a mile long, this road (and now theatre zone) was not officially named Gran Vía until 1981 – although already known to everyone as La Gran Vía. Political motivations had previously earned it a slew of names: Avenida de Rusia (Avenue of Russia), Avenida de la Union Povitica (Avenue of the Soviet Union), and Avenida de Jose Antonio (after Primo de Rivera, founder of the Falange Party I discussed in Chapter 2) to name just a few. Built in three phases, Gran Vía retains its three visibly different sections today – each varying places of social function. The first section from Alcalá to la Red de San Luís is comprised mostly of financial institutions, government administration buildings, and offices. Here you find a large number of newer hotels here and the emblematic Metropolis building flanking one of its corners. Located on a highly visible fork in the road, this French-inspired, beaux- arts building is often considered the start of Gran Vía. Its ornate façade has become synonymous with Madrid, appearing in postcards and drawing tourists to its corner for inspired photos. Between San Luís and Callao, the second section hosts global franchises, corporate businesses, large fashion stores, and a heavily commercialized retail zone. One of the metropolitan areas many El Corte Inglés stores (Macy’s-like department stores) is right around the corner. The third section begins at Callao, once and today a large entertainment hub of Madrid, and ends at the imposing Plaza de España and Telefónica Building. See Figure 8 for a map of Gran Vía and a delineation of the three sections. This third section from Callao to Plaza de España contains a majority of Madrid’s current theatres, although many of them are not physically located on Gran Vía (as discussed in the next section of this chapter).49 49. It is difficult to find an accurate count of theatre spaces, as there are numerous private organizations and government bodies conducting surveys at different levels – grouping theatres by entire autonomous regions (Madrid Province rather than just City of Madrid) or association membership (Federación Estatal de Asociaciones de Empresas de Teatro y Danza or “The Federal 141 Madrid claims to be the fifth capital in theatrical production, with over 60 theatres maintaining continuous programming throughout the year.50 Here is where you find some of Madrid’s most famous theatre buildings, host to various Spanish productions of Broadway musicals. The theatre buildings have been listed with original inauguration dates, although most – if not all – have been refurbished since then into their current state. • Capitol Cine and Teatro (Inaugurated in 1933) • El Coliseum (Inaugurated 1931 and host of musicals like Hair, Cats, Chicago, My Fair Lady, Sound of Music, Beauty and the Beast, The Bodyguard) • Lope de Vega (Inaugurated 1950 and host of musicales like Jesus Christ Superstar, Mamma Mia, Les Misérables, Phantom of the Opera) • El Rialto (Inaugurated 1930 and host of musicals like Cabaret, Grease) • Teatro de la Luz Philips Gran Vía (Inaugurated 1944 and host of musicals like Young Frankenstein) • Pequeño Teatro Gran Vía (Inaugurated 1911 and home of smaller plays and productions) Association of Theatre and Dance”). According to the Anuario de estadísticas culturales (Annual Cultural Statistic) from Spain’s Ministry of Eduction, Culture, and Sports, there are 1,569 theatres in the country and 279 theatres can be found in the entire Community of Madrid (“Anuario de estadísticas culturales 2018” (Annual Report of Cultural Statistics). November 2018. Accessed February 09, 2019. DOI: 10.4438/030-15-291-3). 50. Susana Pérez, “Madrid, un referente cultural,” Madrid Diario Online, March 13, 2015, accessed January 23, 2019, https://www.madridiario.es/noticia/420665/cultura-y-ocio/madrid-un- referente-cultural.html. 142 143 Figure 5: The first map shows the selected map area of the second map. In the second map, Gran Vía is indicated using three differently-colored dashed lines (one for each of the sections discussed). A wider area has been selected so you can see that many of the theatres still considered “Gran Vía shows” are far from the actual avenue. Priscilla at the Nuevo Teatro Alcalá, for example, falls way to its east and right above El Retiro Park. Map by Google Maps. Gran Vía is sometimes referred to as “El Broadway madrileño” (Madrid’s Broadway). Other times it’s referred to as “El Broadway Español” (The Spanish Broadway). Some even credit it as “El Broadway de Gran Vía.” The next section highlights the ways Broadway is culturally relocated to Gran Vía. The Road to “El Broadway Español” I stayed in the famous Macy’s-like department store, El Corte Inglés, for hours longer than I anticipated, so I needed to take a taxi or I would be late to the 144 show. I had gone to the department store to get tickets to that night’s performance of 50 Sombras de Grey: El Musical (50 Shades of Grey: The Musical). It felt odd to buy theatre tickets at “Macy’s,” but I also discovered they sold tickets to the Madrid’s world-famous Prado Museum, excursions to Toledo outside of Madrid, and even international trips. The department store was ready to be a part of the Madrid experience of any visitor. El Corte Inglés is a seller of consumer experiences in Spain, and thus, holds tickets to almost all professional musicals in the city. I hopped into the taxi and immediately began a little conversation on the way to the theatre. Me: El Teatro Nuevo Apolo porfa. Driver: ¿Vas a ver a los Morancos? Me: No, voy a ver a 50 Sombras de Grey. Driver: ¿50 Sombras de Grey? Ah entonces vas al cine. Me: No, es un musical. 50 Sombras es un musical. Driver: Ah, entonces es un musical, como en Broadway. Me: The Nuevo Apolo Theatre please. Driver: Are you seeing Los Morancos? (a Spanish comedy duo) Me: No, I am going to see 50 Shades of Grey. Driver: 50 Shades of Grey? Oh, so you’re going to the movies. Me: No, it’s a musical. 50 Shades is a musical. Driver: Oh, so it’s a musical, like on Broadway! “Yes, like a Broadway musical,” I said to myself. I thought I might confuse him if I clarified that it was actually an Off-Broadway musical when it showed in New York. In New York, it was called 50 Shades of Grey: The Parody Musical. Here, it was just 50 Sombras de Grey: El Musical. There was no indication of a parody in their title, which explained the driver’s confusion between film and musical. We engaged in some small chatter while I watched the major monuments of 145 Madrid whisk by the windshield of the taxi. One particular part of the conversation stood out, so I did my best to scribble notes throughout the dark, bumpy ride. Driver: No he estado en Broadway, pero he visto el Rey León aquí. Me: ¿Sí? Driver: Gran Vía tiene muchos musicales. Siempre llevo a la gente a los espectáculos. Turistas y la mayoría son españoles. Me: Hoy no es la Gran Vía. Driver: Bueno, Tirso de Molina es el sitio donde vas esta noche. Pero normalmente se le dice Gran Vía si están hablando de los espectáculos grandes. Driver: I haven’t been to Broadway, but I have seen Rey León here. Me: Yeah? Driver: Gran Vía has a lot of musicals. I always take people to the shows. Tourists, and a large majority are Spanish. Me: Today it’s not Gran Vía (where I was going). Driver: Well, Tirso de Molina (a square) is the place you’re heading tonight. But normally, you refer to Gran Vía if you’re talking about larger shows. This brief discussion in the taxi illustrates the idea of Gran Vía as not just a famous street in Madrid, but as a center of culture and entertainment. Gran Vía’s entertainment and theatrical scene is no longer only relegated to venues with that specific street address and, like noted by the taxi driver, has become synonymous with the larger musicals appearing on the stages of Madrid. Much like Times Square and Broadway’s 42nd Street in New York, Gran Vía reflected the changing times in Spain while retaining its social symbol in Madrid. “The Gran Vía remains what it was from the start, and ambiguous frontier zone where smart and louche [disreputable], high and low [class and tastes], rub along side by side, constantly eyeing each other and acknowledging the presence of the other” (Nash 2001, 180). As the cosmopolitan center of Madrid, the 1980s brought with to Gran Vía a similar fate to that of Times Square. Prostitution, drug lords, and crime proliferated the area. “High” and “low” 146 cultures co-existed on this thoroughfare. Although you still find pockets of prostitution and seedy nightlife, Gran Vía has succumbed to the same globalized franchising that has commercialized Times Square. Big name global brands like McDonald’s, retailers like Primark, and millions of visitors help build up the area as center of entertainment that was ripe for the reception of Broadway musicals. Aquellas cafeterías donde se puso de moda tomar café en la barra, las antiguas boutiques en las que se organizaban desfiles privados para sus mejores clientas y hasta los teatros cuyos neones anuncian hoy numerosos musicales, todos los comercios han dejado huella en esta avenida y han reflejado la evolución de la sociedad madrileña. Those cafeterias where it became stylish to have coffee in the bar, the old boutiques which hosted private fashion shows for its most exclusive clientele, and even the theatres whose marquees today announce any number of musicals, all businesses have left their imprint on this avenue and have reflected the evolution of Madrid’s society.51 According to a marketing study of one of Madrid’s larger theatrical producers, el turismo de musicales (a self-labeled category of “musical tourism” used to describe tourists who go to Madrid for its Gran Vía musicals) reported around 200 – 250 million Euros ($300 – $390 million) per year of generated income to the capital of Spain. Of that audience, fifty percent were from out of town – specifically from other major cities that are well connected by the high-speed train (putting you only two to three hours away from Madrid’s musicals). In other words, most “musical tourism” seems to come from other cosmopolitan-minded cities in Spain like Barcelona, Sevilla, and Málaga. The CEO of the production company responsible for that marketing study commented, “La mayoría no había pisado un teatro en su vida. . . El género musical ha servido para popularizar otra vez los teatros” (Most [audiences] 51. “100 años de Gran Vía,” n.d, Hola Online, February 15, 2010, accessed January 28, 2019, https://www.hola.com/viajes/2010021512912/gran-via/madrid/centenario/. 147 have never stepped into a theatre in their lives. . . the musical genre has helped to popularize those theatres once again).52 For years now, Madrid’s local government has promoted musicals alongside their art and gastronomic offerings – maximizing Gran Vía as their space of entertainment. Logistically it makes sense, as the large size of the theatres on this thoroughfare make them ideal spaces for the technical requirements of these musical spectacle requiring large spaces and complex technologies. In another interview in the press, the same producer reinforced the idea of the musical as a catalyst for transforming the entertainment space: Los musicales se veían como algo rancio y hortera para gente mayor. Ahora se perciben como algo sofisticado y especial en lo que te gastas el dinero. Musicals used to be considered something rancid and tacky for old people. Now they are seen as something sophisticated and special on which you spend your money.53 Madrid, now one of the top cities with the most Broadway-style musical offerings on continental Europe, is, in the eyes of many, just the place to spend it when it comes to entertainment. After New York City, London, and Hamburg, Madrid is the fourth largest city in the world for the production of musicals. It would make it the third largest in Europe, without counting New York City. Tourism in Madrid has been used as a powerful tool to cement Gran Vía as its own version of Broadway, in what can be seen as a system of symbolic transfer of meaning, power, and goods – like economic resources and artistic capital. (Bruner 2005; Lanfant, Allcock, and Bruner 1995). One such symbolic performance occurred in 2010, when 52. Dolz, Patricia Ortega Dolz, “Y la Gran Vía se hizo Broadway,” El País Online. 53. Ana Belén Garcia Flores, “'El Rey León' impulsa a Madrid como capital en español del turismo de musical,” RTVE Online, December 18, 2011, accessed March 24, 2017, http://www.rtve.es/noticias/20111218/rey-leon-impulsa-madrid-como-capital-espanol-del-turismo- musical/481700.shtml. 148 the New York City and Madrid’s marketing initiatives joined to rename Broadway in New York City to “Gran Vía” for a day in honor of the Spanish avenue’s historic 100th anniversary celebration. In an official ceremony in Times Square, New York City officials proclaimed (“New York City and Madrid Sign Tourism Agreement and Rename Broadway ‘Gran Vía’ for a Day,” NYC & Company Website, 2010):54 It’s vital that we collaborate with other destination locations like Madrid, as our economies depend on visitors. The travel and tourism industry remain New York’s fifth-largest industry. . . Both Madrid and New York City represent history, culture and modernity – this moment in time encapsulates our cities’ similarities and reinforces our ties. We are important destination locations for one another, as we share comparable interests, energies and passions in life. The Spanish representative from Madrid seconded those sentiments: We are pleased to pay tribute today to our famous Broadway right here on the Gran Vía. Today we are bringing a piece of New York to Madrid as a way of acknowledging the special relationship our two cities share. . . We encourage all Madrilenians to give the gift of New York City this Christmas through a great promotion in partnership with Viajes El Corte Inglés. The Gran Vía is one of the most iconic visitor attractions, serving as a magnet for cultural and leisure activity in Madrid. It is an honor for our city to be able to showcase the best of Madrid on Broadway in Times Square in joint celebration of our greatest symbol’s 100th anniversary.55 NYC & Company and Promoción Madrid worked together since 2007 on promoting travel between the two cities, through an exchange of outdoor media and promotional events. In 2009, Madrid promoted New York City on its park benches and other street 54. Press Release on New York City & Company: Official Marketing, Tourism, and Partnership Organization Website, October 13, 2010, accessed January 28, 2019, https://business.nycgo.com/press-and-media/press-releases/articles/post/press-release-new-york-city- and-madrid-sign-tourism-agreement-and-rename-br/. 55. “New York City and Madrid Officials Rename The Gran Vía ‘Broadway’ as A Part of A Daylong New York City Celebration in Madrid,” N.d. Press Release on New York City & Company: Official Marketing, Tourism, and Partnership Organization Website, December 12, 2010, accessed January 28, 2019, https://business.nycgo.com/press-and-media/press-releases/articles/post/new-york- city-and-madrid-officials-rename-the-gran-va-broadway-as-part-of-d/. 149 furniture, also helping celebrate the Big Apple’s 40th anniversary of the gay rights movement. As part of that exchange, NYC & Company worked on promoting the 100th anniversary of Gran Vía. In Madrid, the day was commemorated with the installation of a Broadway street sign on one of the buildings near Callao, the last section and concentration of most entertainment on Gran Vía. Banners promoting travel to New York City lined the blocks surrounding sections of the thoroughfare and a DJ even played outdoors to promote the energy of the Big Apple. With videos in the background displaying images of Madrid and New York City, the event was used to promote the image of New York City through the Broadway brand. Broadway encapsulates an experience and energy that is “translatable” to Madrid audiences, already emulated by the musicals they attend on Gran Vía. George Fertitta, a delegate of the event’s parent organization New York City & Company, proclaimed that the two cities share many “symbols of identity” and that the Madrid tourists in New York City “are the ones that enjoy the Big Apple the most. . . they do everything, they’re never in their hotels, and they’re always out doing things – the ones that close the bars and restaurants down.”56 While Madrid boasted Broadway on their streets, New York City carried on with a regular seasonal offering. Restaurant Week, NY Broadway Week (discount show tickets), and Off- Broadway on the House (discount show tickets) were promoted to the madrileños, although they are promotional offers that have existed before and after the event. In my research, the only promotion or offer tied to the event that focused exclusively on 56. “Gran Via se convierte en Broadway por un día con la instalación de una placa con el nombre de la avenida neoyorkina,” n.d. December 13, 2010, accessed November 20, 2018, http://www.europapress.es/madrid/noticia-gran-via-convierte-broadway-dia-instalacion-placa-nombre- avenida-neoyorkina-20101213120805.html. 150 touting Madrid as a sister city in New York City was a video spot of Gran Vía that played on the screens in Times Square. According to the New York City & Company Press release for the event, 357,000 Spaniards made their way to the Big Apple that previous year (an impressive 60% of Spain’s total visitors to the United States). In return, Madrid received about 405,000 American tourists. Broadway was used to draw strong emotional attachments from the madrileños in hopes of enticing them to visit the physical Great White Way. Broadway was capitalized as an important place of symbolic exchange, a site with agency through which emotions could be manipulated. “A site may be generative and may construct meaning not as a salient text, but in action, in social practice, by the responses of the visitors to its physicality” (Bruner 2005, 25). Companies like El Corte Inglés, the department store where I bought theatre tickets, are quick to capitalize on these touristic opportunities. By offering a 5-day/3-night stay in New York City for around $1000, the Broadway experience can be completely fulfilled by the company. Gran Vía and the Madrid professional stage has been home to some of the most globally successful Broadway musicals since Jesucristo Superstar first took the stage in 1975 including all-Spanish translations of Grease, Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Les Misérables, Sound of Music, Hair, Cabaret, Chicago, Shrek, Rent, and Sweeney Todd. Are all of these shows professional just for the mere fact that they are playing on Gran Vía? My entire professional career has been based in the United States, so it helped to find the associations between location of theatre and professional status of a musical. 151 The Spanish Professional Stage In New York City, a musical playing on Broadway is known to be professional. Specific regional theatres are also known to only produce professional shows. Did Gran Vía follow the same trend? On Broadway, professional theatres are considered Equity Houses – meaning that its actors are contracted through Actors’ Equity Association (AEA, or what is simply sometimes referred to as “Actors’ Equity” or simply “Equity”) as the body representing professional actors in the United States.57 In Spain, there is a set pay scale for theatres and companies employing artists, actors, and bullfighters under El Régimen General: Colectivo de Artistas y Profesionales Taurinos (General Regime. Collective for Artists and Bullfighters). Following a rate card that is set yearly, fees are determined by type of performance (or bullfighting), role(s) played, and number of days for rehearsals and performances. In Spanish theatre, and somewhat similarly to Equity, there is a distinction between leads, supporting roles, and chorus members – even further differentiating chorus/ensemble roles separately from walk-on or minor roles. By counting the 57. Founded in 1913, Actors’ Equity is a labor union for more than 51,000 professional actors and stage managers across the United States In addition to negotiating wages, providing benefits like health insurance and pension plans, they oversee the professional contracts of all artists performing on Broadway. To become a member, an actor may be directly offered a show contract with AEA membership or they are offered Equity Membership Candidacy (EMC), which allows them to accumulate points for every week performed in a professional show. After collecting fifty points, the EMC gives access into full membership. All members pay dues, regardless of entry route. As per the Actors’ Equity Association website, it “seeks to foster the art of live theatre as an essential component of society and advances the careers of its members by negotiating wages, improving working conditions and providing a wide range of benefits, including health and pension plans” (Actors’ Equity Association, www.actorsequity.org, accessed December 09, 2018). Through membership, actors are afforded: health insurance, pension plans, 401(k), and workers’ compensation insurance; contract negotiations; work regulations and oversight, sick and vacation pay; dispute resolutions and mediations; members-only auditions; and many other benefits to ensure the well-being of its members. While the entirety of Equity’s benefits is not relevant to the scope of this dissertation, some of this information was provided during the lecture and likely inspired many of the discussion questions brought up by the attendees. 152 espacios mecanografiados (mechanographic spaces) of the lines – meaning a count of every letter, symbol, and space character in the typed-text – the collective agreement sets limits to prevent abuse and misinterpretation of categories. A small part in theatre, for example, must be less than five lines long – with a maximum of 60 counted spaces, characters, and symbols. Companies may adhere to the national collective bargaining rates for national productions, but most will abide by the local rates and agreements dictated by their provinces. Madrid has its own rate card for artists, which is based on the national figures and adjusted for necessities of the community and its artists. There is also a private-sector Unión de Actores y Actrices (Actors’ and Actresses’ Union), providing similar services to that of Equity. See Appendix E for a section of their 2017 rate card. Somos un sindicato profesional e independiente creado para la defensa y reivindicación de los intereses de nuestra profesión en el orden cultural, social y laboral. Nace con espíritu unitario, representativo, asambleario y democrático, por lo que garantiza la verdadera unión de todos los actores y la fuerza necesaria para lograr una acción justa y eficaz. Nuestros objetivos prioritarios son velar, defender y dignificar la profesión de actor, para así poder incidir, de manera positiva, en la creación de una sociedad más justa y de una cultura libre y no dirigida. We are a professional and independent union created for the defense and vindication of the interests of our profession in the cultural, social, and labor sector. It is born with a unitary, representative, assembly and democratic spirit, which guarantees the true union of all the actors and the necessary strength to achieve just and effective actions. Our priority objectives are to ensure, defend, and dignify the acting profession, in order to influence, in a positive way, the creation of a more just society and a free and non-directed (controlled) culture. (Unión de Actores y Actrices Website, www.guiadeactores.com, accessed December 12, 2018) While the various collective agreements set the going rate for actors, the private union provides the representation during negotiations or disputes of contracts. 153 Unlike Equity, it is simple to join the Spanish actors’ union. They only require proof of a professional acting contract or certified studies/training in the Dramatic Arts. Fees are EUR 75 euros ($85) initial fee followed by a trimonthly payment of EUR 33 euros ($37). Equity membership fees in the United States are around $120 per year and getting in is much more difficult. There is a so-called "catch-22" (Chi 2001) in Equity. To be in a union show (or even audition), the actor must be in the union; but to be union, you have to first get the part. Spanish professional actor Fernando Ramos Mena points out that, “Las condiciones para los actores no están mal, pero para los que somos productores, el IVA se lo carga todo” (Actors’ benefits are not bad, but for those of us that are producers – the cultural tax messes it all up). Mena was talking about the cultural tax imposed on theatres and cultural events. He adds: Si para un boleto de EUR 10 euros, le tienes que pagar el 21% al IVA, el 10% al autor, el 4% a entradas vendidas por internet – y a eso le sumas gastos de actores, artistas, equipo y materias, ¿que le sacas a esa entrada? ¿Uno o dos euros de los diez? If for one EUR 10 ticket ($11), you have to pay a 21% tax, 10% licensing fees, 4% internet sales fees – and you add expenses for actors, artists, production team, and materials, what do you make off that single ticket? One or two euros out of the ten [$2 - 3 dollars]? (Fernando Mena, “Cosas a Tener en Cuenta a La Hora de Producir Mi Propio Montaje,” Festival Lecture, October 26, 2014.) Fernando is not alone in his pessimism. In an interview for El Diaro Online, Sol de York Theatre owner in Madrid best expressed the collective sentiments around the country regarding the cultural tax: Si quieres cumplir con las leyes, lo haces todo legal, pagas a los actores y ofreces un trabajo digno, tienes que cerrar porque el riesgo es desmesurado. Ahora todo te aboca a una programación que excluye cualquier riesgo artístico… ni siquiera hay ya giras porque las compañías no se lo pueden permitir y los ayuntamientos no pueden pagar. If you want to obey the law, do everything legally, pay your actors, and offer a 154 decent job, you end up closing because the risk is disproportionate. Now all that leads to programming that excludes artistic risks. . . there are hardly any tours because companies cannot afford it and the municipalities are not able to pay.58 In Spain and specifically on Gran Vía, a professional musical is all or nothing. Any theatre claiming promoting a professional musical needed to be paying their actors, staff, and crew as per the collective agreement rates. If you are a company interested in renting out the theatres, it is completely possible. In fact, theatre rentals on Gran Vía are a large aspect of the business strategy, as I will discuss a little later in this chapter. All a company needs to do is produce insurance papers and contracts for the employees that are associated with the visiting production, and they can produce their show on the professional stage. On Broadway, actors must go through Equity59. In United States regional theatres, Equity also allows a mix of union actors working with non-union actors through any one of their special contracts granting special permissions60. I have personally worked on productions where I was earning $200 per week as a non-union working next to Equity actors earning their minimum weekly $2034. I also produced shows where a major of the actors were non-paid volunteers working alongside paid Equity actors, granted special guest star contracts for the show. From my observations, this versatility of contracts and allowances by Equity 58. Corroto, Paula Corroto, “La burbuja del teatro off madrileño Javier Ortiz, dueño de la sala El Sol de York,” El Diario Online, March 25, 2013, accessed December 15, 2018, https://www.eldiario.es/cultura/teatro/burbuja-teatro-off-madrileno_0_370263233.html. 59. On Broadway stage manager, musicians, directors, choreographers, and crew must also be properly contracted through their respective unions. 60. Equity operates over 40 national and local contracts including Production (Broadway and touring), Stock, LORT (League of Resident Theatres), Small Professional Theatre, Western Civic Light Opera, Dinner Theatre Contracts, Theatre for Young Audiences, Live Corporate Communications, Off-Broadway, Chicago and Hollywood Area Theatres, and others specifically aimed at non-profit theatres. 155 ensures that professional actors in the United States still have access to work on smaller projects, especially in the regions. In Spain, the all-or-nothing approach to categorizing a professional musical means less shows are produced by investors willing to risk. It also leads to less work, which snowballs into more out-of-work actors and less on-the-job training for actors. Most importantly, the absence of a single oversight organization affects quality and caliber on the professional stages of Gran Vía, giving much of the freedom to producers and particularly the press. The night I stepped out of the taxi at El Teatro Nuevo Apolo to see 50 Sombras de Grey: El Musical, I was immediately taken aback by the almost- confusing marquee at the theatre. Nestled amongst the historic homes of the diverse, immigrant neighborhood of Lavapiés, the outside of the theatre looked like an advent calendar advertising many shows, movies, concerts, and logos at the same time. Like a little corner of Times Square, the corporatization of the theatre lit my face like a supernova. 50 Sombras, I read. Produced by Summum Music, SOM Produce, and Arequipa Producciones. There are a lot of producers for an Off-Broadway type show, I thought to myself. Then again, musicals are costly and not many companies in Madrid could afford to produce a grand spectacle on its own. In the last sections of this chapter, I will focus on the two of Madrid’s largest professional producers of musicals, comparing how Broadway is performed from both the perspective of a global company and a local Spanish company mounting similarly-sized musicals. I start with Stage Entertainment, a global conglomerate and their production of El Rey León (The Lion King), and finish with SOM Produce, a local Spanish-only company and their production of Priscilla, reina del desierto: El Musical (Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: The Musical). I looked for ways each of these companies made their 156 musical theatre practices more relevant to Spain and its audiences, seeking to also uncover how producing a Broadway musical in Madrid provides revealing insight into the global and local relationships businesses establish within their communities. Stage Entertainment, From Global to Madrid Founded in 1998 by the Dutch-based media entrepreneur Joop van den Ende, Stage Entertainment is a global conglomerate based out of Amsterdam with separate offices and owned theatres in eight different countries. They present both self-created productions as well as the musicals from other leading international producers such as Disney Theatrical Productions, Andrew Lloyd Webber/The Really Useful Group, Littlestar, and Cameron Mackintosh to name a few. Their 2018 Corporate Profile, based on statistics from 2016 through 2017, includes the following useful information in demonstrating the size of what they call their “European Footprint” (“2018 Stage Entertainment Corporate Profile,” Stage Entertainment Website, https://www.stage- entertainment.com/about-us/press/, accessed November 20, 2018): • 20 theatres in 11 cities • Productions in 8 countries including: o Netherlands o Germany o United Kingdom o Spain o Russia o Italy o France o United States • 6.7 million visitors annually • 6,639 performances • 33 productions running in Europe • 38% of visitors are under 34 years old • 46% of visitors are between 35-54 years old • 16% of visitors are over 55 years old 157 Although they fall under the larger umbrella of the company that is based in Amsterdam, each country has their own offices and productions particularly designed and marketed for their unique markets. In Madrid, it is called Stage Entertainment Spain (hereafter referred to as “Stage Spain” for the Madrid office and “Stage Entertainment” for the larger umbrella company). Now in its 15th year of producing musicals in Spain, Stage Spain hits include translated versions of Broadway musicals such as Mamma Mia!, Cabaret, Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Beauty and the Beast, Chicago, Les Misérables Jesus Christ Superstar, My Fair Lady, Sister Act and its biggest ongoing hit The Lion King. They are one of the only producers in Spain that had simultaneous productions occurring in Madrid (The Lion King), Barcelona (Sister Act), and on tour in the provinces (Les Misérables). Their productions are responsible for about 75% of the Madrid market according to an interview with Julia Gómez Cora in “El teatro debe buscar la rentabilidad sostenible.”61 Frequently just called Stage by musical theatre aficionados in the country – pronounced “es-stage” through the Spanish accent – the global company employs more than 3,000 people worldwide and about 400 of those employees work in the Madid office alone (including actors, crew, staff, etc. as well). The night I went to see their production of El Rey León (The Lion King) in Madrid, I became just one of the over 10 million visitors to attend a Stage Entertainment production in that year and one of a million in Spain (Stage Entertainment Website, https://www.stage-entertainment.com, accessed October 25, 2018). Feeding the insatiable Spanish appetite for musicals, Stage Entertainment Spain introduces large-scale musicals into the Spanish market by leveraging the 61. Teatro a Teatro Website, September 21, 2015, accessed May 16, 2017, http://www.teatroateatro.com/julia-gomez-cora-el-teatro-debe-buscar-la-rentabilidad-sostenible/. 158 quality, prestige, and recognition tied to the Broadway brand. Their privileged position as a global business allows them to reterritorialize the Broadway through performances that link them directly to Madrid’s urban space while touting a global cosmopolitanism, asserting their place as the authoritative cultural ambassadors in Spain for this newest genre. Stage Entertainment’s global strength and cosmopolitan image were further strengthened this year when Advance Publications Inc. acquired 100% of its shareholders stock in August 2018. Advance Publications Inc. is a multimedia conglomerate responsible for heavy-hitting brands like Conde Nast’s Vanity Fair, GQ, The New Yorker, Conde Nast Traveler, and shares in Discovery Channel and online forum Reddit. Including Stage Entertainment’s musicals in the same portfolio of brands extends their potential reach and audience. Steven Newhouse, co-president of Advance, proudly touted: “Stage Entertainment has an outstanding track record of bringing world-class musicals to audiences worldwide. With our deep roots in creative storytelling and appetite for additional investment, we believe we are the right long-term owner for Stage Entertainment.”62 As part of the larger global company, Stage Spain feeds into Stage Entertainment’s three pillars of strategy (“2018 Stage Entertainment Corporate Profile,” Stage Entertainment Website, https://www.stage-entertainment.com/about- us/press/, accessed November 20, 2018): • Producing a wide range of leading international content, including shows like Mamma Mia!, The Lion King, Tarzan, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera, War Horse, Mary Poppins, and Wicked; • Owning and operating a network of musical theatres; 62. Georgia Snow, “Vanity Fair Publisher Acquires Stage Entertainment,” The Stage Online, August 29, 2018, accessed October 20, 2018, https://www.thestage.co.uk/news/2018/vanity-fair- publisher-acquires-stage-entertainment/. 159 • And developing new musicals and shows, such as international productions Sister Act, Rocky and Anastasia. Using this brand power, Stage Entertainment’s priority is to create the “European footprint” of musicals – to become the brand itself; in a way, to channel Broadway through their company. As per now CEO Arthur de Bok, In countries like Germany, the Netherlands and Spain where a musical market was already in place, the company’s goal has been to increase the quality of our productions to a level matching those found on Broadway and the West End, thereby satisfying the increasingly demanding and sophisticated expectations of our musical audiences. (ibid) While working as Head of Publishing at Dewynters Ltd., a marketing agency specializing in West End theatre and musicals, I was able to sit down with newly appointed CEO James Charrington in our London office to discuss some insights into some of these strategies and how it might relate to the idea of bringing Broadway abroad. Coincidentally, Charrington had previously touted Stage Entertainment as clients of his own advertising agency in Hamburg for over ten years. He worked on launching well-known Broadway brands like Mamma Mia!, Disney’s Aida, and Lion King in the German city. In 2005, Charrington then became the International Responsibility and Commercial Director for Stage Entertainment itself. Fortunately, his role also included the transfer of musicals to Madrid, beginning with the arrival of Mamma Mia!, Cabaret, and Chicago. “The focus at the time was moving from the Netherlands, and Germany, and Spain into Russia, France, Italy, Belgium so you would have an international group,” he told me during our interview (James Charrington, personal interview, May 17, 2016). During our conversation, I was curious to find out if he uncovered what Spaniards thought of Broadway through his 160 work at the company and how Stage Entertainment approached a market as unique and specific as Madrid (ibid): There is just an understanding that great musicals come from London and Broadway. Broadway is a much stronger brand than the West End, where as you just have to say “Broadway” and a lot of people get what that is. You have to make a bit of distinction though because for a lot of markets Broadway’s heritage and history really isn’t relevant. I asked what went into Stage Entertainment’s decision on the type of show to bring to Madrid. [Musicals like] Singing in the Rain or Carousel, Rogers and Hammerstein are not necessarily known composers, brands, entities…It’s hard to see what you see in London and New York which is revivals of heritage musicals really finding a two to three year sit down. Unless you have a brand like Cabaret or Chicago which through clever marketing and a certain amount of updating could be brought to Spain. Chicago and Cabaret seemed like odd choices to me. “Why specifically those musicals?” I asked. You have a production that has had an interesting and cogent update (with Sam Mendes’ production). You have a production whose historical relevance is still very much interesting dramatically and historically. And you have a production that’s not super expensive. It’s also a great star vehicle. . . It’s about media, manipulation, it was only helped by the movie. . . The songs have a modern feel. . . and it’s affordable [for the company]. Not surprisingly, for Stage Spain and the professional companies of Madrid show selection is completely dependent on the bottom line. You think about a market such as Madrid or Barcelona or Milan, you can’t be sure that you can play a show for more than a year. You better be able to recoup your costs in a year. So, you’ve got to have a capitalization and running costs that make it possible for you to recoup in a year – that’s why you look at the Italian and Spanish theatre producer landscape and the competition is really cheap. 161 So how much of their strategy had to shift depending on the country? A Madrid market would certainly require a different approach than a British or German market. I wondered if this was the reason Stage Spain never ventured into the market of new musicals, or unknown material. Madrid doesn’t have tourists who go to the theatre in the summer. Or if they do, they only go to very strong, well-known shows. So you better have a strong brand that can play through that shoulder into the following season. Which is why it’s not about being conservative [in the type of show choice]. It’s about holding onto your money. Charrington was in a way asserting that the name of the show – and its particular association with Broadway – was the pull for audiences. The fact that it was a musical was not the deciding factor. Stage and Broadway resonates in cities – I think it’s more about the show specific rather than the genre of musical theatre itself. . . [Ultimately] you have to make sure it’s quality. Educate the public so that they get to associate the higher price with value. It’s worth the money. Deliver quality that justifies. This is difficult in Spain considering that audiences, especially the local ones, are not accustomed to paying higher prices for theatre. Carlos Jiménez, ex-Cultural Program Manager for the City of Madrid made an excellent point in an article that explored the epidemic of empty theatres in Madrid. El teatro español es presa de un mal endémico. Con el inicio de la democracia los políticos entendieron que había que socializar la cultura y destinaron grandes inversiones a hacerlo, de modo que lo subvencionaron. Crearon un montón de teatros y los llenaron con público, acostumbrándole a ver cosas muy caras por poco dinero. Se pagaban unos caches altísimos, grandes retribuciones. . . Hubo una inflación brutal en el sector y el espectador dejó de valorar el coste real del hecho escénico. Ahora el sector público abandona esta política y les pide a los teatros que continúen, pero claro: ¿cómo le dice el teatro al espectador que entrar no vale tres euros, que en realidad nunca valió tres euros? 162 Spanish theater is prey to an endemic evil. With the beginning of democracy, politicians understood that culture had to be socialized and they invested heavily in doing so, so they subsidized it. They built a lot of theaters and filled them with audiences, accustomed to seeing very expensive things for little money. They paid very high-ticket prices, and high compensations. . . There was a brutal inflation in the sector and the viewer stopped being interested in the value of the theatrical event. Now the public abandons this policy and asks the theaters to continue, but of course: how does the theater tell audiences that admission/ticket is not worth three euros, and that in reality it never was worth (only) three euros?63 While branding and the marketing techniques discussed by Charrington during my interview with him may themselves be effective tools, they tend to hide the reality that lies behind the commodity they promote. Arjun Appadurai reminds us that there are an infinite number of “disjunctures” and countering forces that shuffle cultural differences and instead reinforce heterogeneous identities and cultures (Appadurai 2001). Among them are the realities of the economics and politics of business that enclose a space like Madrid. Growing opposition to globalization, fragmenting, economic concerns, and the growing wave of populism has resulted in a politicized consumerism that seeks stability in the high-risk musical theatre business. Is it possible for a large theatrical business to preserve their local individuality while surviving the economic realities of the industry? They are torn between the pressure of providing for the nomadic tourists or catering to the unique needs of its “local” audiences, placing them at the chasm of a great divide – local and global identities. I set out to find out how Stage Spain “glocalized” themselves through the business of producing Broadway musicals. 63. Rubén Díaz Caviedes, “Madrid, de paseo por un cementerio de teatros,” El Confidencial, June 17, 2013, accessed December 20, 2018, https://www.elconfidencial.com/cultura/ 2013-06-17/madrid-de-paseo-por-un-cementerio-de-teatros_495373/. 163 Buying Theatres, Becoming Local In the introductory remarks of the El Rey León (The Lion King) program, Stage Entertainment founder Joop van de Ende’s notably highlighted the following: We also cannot forget the effort of El Teatro Lope de Vega, who in order to be able to show the public this production in its full glory, had to undergo major building renovations. (El Rey León Theatre Program, n.d., 2015, Madrid: Teatro Lope de Vega, 3) Madrid offers endless channels and spaces for the localization of this identity, but perhaps none is more advantageous to Stage Entertainment and other production companies than the offering of the city’s theatrical buildings. As previously outlined, there is tremendous value in brands that have significant attachment to particular places. There is extreme market value in associating products with place, like The Lion King (Sassen 1991). Due to its financial advantages, Stage Spain is also able to physically create their own version of Broadway, while localizing themselves as a Spanish product, through purchases of significant Madrid theatres. One need not go further than their Madrid office to understand the economic strength the company encapsulates. Located in the Salamanca District (one of the richest neighborhoods in the city), Stage Spain’s one-block proximity to Hacienda (Spanish IRS) was not lost on me the day I tried to secure an interview with its then President Julia Gómez Cora. Housed in an immaculate and ornate Baroque-style building on a tidy block, the doorman and Art Nouveau wooden elevator somewhat hinted at my possibility of scoring an actual meeting with any executive in the office. Its contrastingly modern interior was more reminiscent of a sophisticated magazine or advertising agency office, and I would not have known I was in a theatrical production office if it were not for the several Lion King costumes staring at me as I 164 explained my request to the headset-decorated receptionist. I should have known that it was going to be difficult to get direct access to one of the city’s key players. It is no secret, especially in a globalized community, that multinational corporations like Stage Entertainment leverage the economic value they bring to a city and country. Often, they reap these benefits in the form of tax incentives, special legislation accommodating services, or perhaps even the deregulation of other market constraints. Despite this, the-Argentinian-bank-financier-turned-musical-producer Gómez Cora (through words in a separate online interview) still conveyed the challenges of working against the 21% cultural tax discussed in the Introduction. Invertir cuatro o cinco millones de euros para montar un gran musical es muy difícil en un país con un IVA cultural del 21% y sin una ley de mecenazgo como existe en otros países. . . Las artes escénicas no tienen ningún tipo de beneficio fiscal en este país. La cultura está muy castigada en España, no nos están tratando bien. Investing four or five million [The Lion King is above ten million] euros to mount a musical is very difficult in a country with a 21% cultural tax and no charitable laws that exist in other countries. . . The performing arts has no fiscal benefit in this country. Culture is very punished in Spain; they do not treat us well.64 Nonetheless, they are in a financially privileged enough position to have completed purchase of the Lope de Vega Theatre and The Coliseum, two significant pieces of property in downtown Madrid.65 Their sheer seat capacity reflects the types of shows hosted in their venues (“2018 Stage Entertainment Corporate Profile,” Stage 64. Prado Campos, “La gran multinacional de los musicales denuncia el castigo cultural en España,” El Confidencial Online, November 27, 2014, accessed March 20, 2017, https://www.elconfidencial.com/cultura/2014-11-27/la-gran-multinacional-de-los-musicales-denuncia- el-castigo-a-la-cultura-en-espana_506407/. 65. Stage Entertainment also owns 13 theatres in Germany, two in the Netherlands, one in Italy, and one in France. 165 Entertainment Website, https://www.stage-entertainment.com/about-us/press/, accessed November 20, 2018): Teatro Lope de Vega (Madrid) Gran Vía, 57 Constructed: 1949 Seats: 1456 Broadway Musicals by Stage: The Phantom of the Opera, Mamma Mia!, Jesus Christ Superstar, High School Musical, Les Misérables, and The Lion King Teatro Coliseum (Madrid) Gran Vía, 78 Constructed: 1931 Seats: 1422 Broadway Musicals by Stage: Mamma Mia!, The Bodyguard, and the 2018 European Premiere of Anastasia Previously owned by La Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (SGAE), a writers’ union, Stage Spain jumped on the opportunity to pay up around 58 million Euros to settle the 83 million Euro debt (and trouble) surrounding the Lope de Vega. For many, it was a blow that foreign capital was taking over two such iconic and emblematic symbols of Spain. However, looking back in El Rey León’s program, it is clear to see how equally valuable Stage Entertainment as a global company understands these theatres to be. In its own section, appropriately titled “The Lope de Vega Theatre: An Emblem of the Madrid Broadway,” one finds the following foretelling descriptions (El Rey León Theatre Program. n.d. 2015. Madrid: Teatro Lope de Vega): Currently, Madrid’s Gran Vía is a reference point at the national level in the world of musicals, to the point of being known as the “Spanish Broadway,” for the large number of spectacles that fill their legendary theatres. Among them, the mythic Lope de Vega. . . Our most international stars have stepped on its stage more than once, and those who have not yet, are dreaming of doing so one day. In the purest Broadway style possible (and after its remodeling in 1999), the theatre opened 166 a new musical chapter with the premiere of Beauty and the Beast and launched a new musical impulse in the capital. . . After the success of this unforgettable musical, the Teatro Lope de Vega became a lucky charm from the genre. . . [hosting shows such as] Jesus Christ Superstar, Phantom of the Opera, Mamma Mia!, Les Miserables, and The Lion King. For Stage Entertainment, “a good theatre is in the heart of the cultural life of a city and a great theatre is, in addition, a place where people, art, and entertainment hold. . . The 30 [theatres of the company] play an important part in the philosophy. . . the mythic Mogador Theatre in Paris, the Oberhausen Metronom, the Beatrix Theatre in Holland, or New World Stages in New York City…” (ibid, 52). We can reference Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of cultural capital in order to realize that this is a way to reinforce symbolic power through accumulation of physical cultural capital (1977; 1993). Through direct purchase of theatres in the city, Stage is incorporating some positive Madrid images into their developing Spanish brand. Urban branding has been explored as a concept which creates place-myths associated with cities (Shields 1991). In one particularly telling press image, the (now-ex) Mayor of Madrid stands proudly with the stars of El Rey León and ex-President of Stage Spain Gómez Cora in front of another emblematic landmark, the Banco de España building in Madrid. As Brunner reminds us, photographs like these (and the souvenir program referenced throughout this chapter) “may have intrinsic value in themselves, but they also perform the key function of providing tourists an opportunity to tell and personalize the story of their journey” (Bruner 2005, 24). These images help to also engrain a collective identity by aligning it to the city narrative, a topic which Sharon Zukin unpacks in further analysis in The Cultures of Cities to (1995). At one point the 167 interviewer asks Gómez Cora if El Rey León should become an emblem of Madrid. Her response: En Madrid El Rey León no tiene previsiones de cerrar, de hecho aspiramos a que se convierta en parte del paisaje, del mismo modo que tenemos el Bernabéu, la Cibeles o el Museo del Prado, estará El Rey León ahí instalado. In Madrid, El Rey León does not anticipate closing, so our goal is to make it part of the landscape, the same way we have Bernabéu (Real Madrid’s soccer stadium), la Cibeles (a famous fountain), or the Museum of El Prado, El Rey León will be installed right there.66 Figure 8: Ex-President of Stage Spain Julia Gómez Cora with (ex) Madrid Mayor Alberto Ruiz Gallardón and the stars of El Rey León Madrid, standing in front of El Banco de España (The Bank of Spain). Photo by Love For Musicals. Stage Entertainment is also not oblivious to the economic advantages of expanding their brand through corporate “collaborations” in their respective markets, thereby strengthening their ties to local business as well. “Our landmark theatres 66. Interview with Julia Gómez Cora. 2013. n.d. Love For Musicals Website, December 12, 2013, accessed April 15, 2017, https://www.love4musicals.com/2013/12/12/entrevista-a-julia-gomez- cora/. 168 located in leading cities across Europe offer many creative opportunities for companies looking to expand brand awareness in key markets,” reads their corporate material. “Large theatres are iconic urban structures well known to visitors and residents alike” (“2018 Stage Entertainment Corporate Profile,” Stage Entertainment Website, https://www.stage-entertainment.com/about-us/press/, accessed November 20, 2018). The recognition and association with high quality value means companies like Barclays Bank flock to be associated with the Lion King all across the world. For example, in a market like Madrid, Stage Spain appeals to local culture and flavors by customizing their concession stands and bars to serve local beers, snacks, and treats during intermissions. The bar’s intermission included uniquely Spanish products, like Mahou beer and serrano-jam-flavored potato chips. The reterritorialization of the Broadway brand, through business practices linking them directly to Madrid’s urban space, allows producers like Stage Spain to assert their cultural authority over professional musical theatre in Spain. It is through the specific production of El Rey León, however, that Stage Spain has further cemented Madrid’s musical theatre scenes as a major player on the world stage. I was curious to explore how El Rey León itself incorporated the “glocal” strategies inherent in many of today’s successful multinational and global companies, shedding light on the (un)necessary balance of local and global influences in cultural performances. El Rey León: King of Madrid? I arrived at the steps of El Teatro Lope de Vega on October 28, 2014, crowds gathered on the steps leading up to doors framed by pictures and television screens displaying supersized versions of Rafiki, the prophetic baboon in El Rey León (The Lion King). It was practically a live-action version of the iconic scene in the opening 169 number of the animated film, where Rafiki holds up little Simba to the rest of the Pridelands Kingdom. See Figure 9. Figure 9: Night of El Rey León as the herds gather. Photo by author. I took my seat as soon as possible, so I could listen in on the conversations of the herds as they took their seats in the Lope de Vega watering hole. My eighty-euro “Club” seats (a VIP seat equal to around one hundred dollars) on the mezzanine level were affordable enough for families with multiple children and much less than the exclusive Butaca de Oro (Gold) Orchestra Seats at 150 euros (closer to 180 dollars). Tickets were still relatively much cheaper than they would have been on Broadway or the West End, but I wanted to sit amongst the most varied and non-discounted audience members. Soon after sitting, a familiar conversation surfaced between the Spanish parents of two different families sitting directly in front of me. 170 Parent A: ¿Es la primera vez que vienes a Madrid? Parent B: Pues no, vengo siempre de negocios. Pero es la primera vez que viene la familia y no paran de darme la lata para venir a Madrid a ver El Retiro, La Plaza Mayor y El Rey León. Parent A: Is it your first time coming to Madrid? Parent B: It’s the family’s first time and they’ve been bugging me to come to Madrid to see El Retiro (the city’s equivalent of New York’s Central Park), La Plaza Mayor (an old plaza in the city center), and The Lion King. The second parent sounded a bit disappointed, as I imagine attending the family musical was not his idea of Madrid nightlife and they both did seem young enough to enjoy a night out on the town. The tourist spots he mentioned are typical of visitors from outside of the city, but their accents still assured me they were Spanish. As I continued eavesdropping, I caught myself looking at the African-inspired design of the stage curtain in front of me (see Figure 9). Figure 10: The African-inspired Rey León curtain in a very Spanish setting. Photo by author. 171 It signaled of an exotic far-away land, yet the conversations around me were in Spanish and about the landmarks and culture of Madrid. I resisted the urge to lean over and impose on their conversation, so I kept listening. Parent A: Estamos aquí de cumple (años) y mi hija tenía muchísimas ganas de verlo. No soy persona de teatro, pero no creo que esto sea tan aburrido como esas otras obras. Parent B: Menos mal que esto no es todos los días, si no, no comemos. Parent A: ¿A quién se lo cuentas? Se querían sentar allí abajo, pero para una familia de cuarto – no había manera. Me enteré de que es bueno y merecía la pena. Parent B: (Nodding in agreement) Parent A: En fin, este es “el Broadway” y no como los teatros de mi pueblo. Y a mi niña le encanta la peli de Disney. [Parent B: We’re here on a birthday trip and my daughter really wanted to come see this. I am not a person of the theatre, but I don’t think this will be as boring as those other shows. Parent A: At least this isn’t every day, otherwise we wouldn’t eat. Parent B: You’re telling me. They wanted to sit down there [the orchestra seats] but for four [in the family], there was no way. I heard it was good and worth seeing. Parent A: (Nodding in agreement) Parent B: Anyways, this is the Broadway and not like the theatres of my town. And my little girl loves the Disney film.] Despite the higher prices of these tickets, the event as part of the Madrid experience was as ever appealing to the family. Disney’s The Lion King is indeed el rey (the king) of professional musical theatre, advertised in Spain as a “grandiose spectacle that has been seen by 95 million spectators, won 70 awards, and spent the last 20 years on the Broadway stages [in New York]” (El Rey León Website, n.d., Madrid, https://www.elreyleon.es/el- musical/, accessed November 11, 2016). It surpassed the $6 billion worldwide gross amount years back, outdistancing entire franchises such as 007 and almost 172 unbelievably catching up to Harry Potter’s over $8 billion.67 This is quite a feat considering that one stage adaptation is outdoing entire film series, with tickets still selling at prices ten times higher (and then some) per person over past two decades. It is no wonder megaproducer Cameron Mackintosh called it “the Pride of Broadway” after welcoming it to the “6-billion plus club”.68 This was my fourth time seeing Disney’s ferocious hit. The first was on New York City’s Broadway shortly after its premiere; fueled by an intense urgency to be “in-the-know” about Director Julie Taymor’s creative perspective on what many of us into the musical theatre scene thought was an odd pairing for such a mainstream family classic. The second time was on tour in Baltimore in 2012, as I accompanied the next musical theatre friend in their Lion King initiation. The third was back in New York City a year later, this time because my cousins visiting from Spain wanted to see a quintessential Broadway show. In their minds, this was “king” and it was still years before its arrival in Madrid. Another feline spectacle, Cats, takes credit for being my own introduction to Broadway musicals decades earlier. Coincidentally, its marketing and branding is largely responsible for many of the approaches being discussed in this chapter.69 67. Melissa Unger, “Top 10 Highest Grossing Movie Franchises Worldwide,” Film Website Screen Rant, July 25, 2015, accessed October 30, 2015, http://screenrant.com/top-10- highest-grossing-movie-franchises-worldwide/?view=all. 68. Lion King dethroned the Phantom of the Opera phenomenon, which as been running since 1988 in productions around the world. Although Phantom is currently the longest running show on Broadway, Lion King surpassed their sales record in a shorter amount of time. Jeremy Gerard, “The Lion King” Becomes Highest-Grossing Show Ever at $6.2 Billion,” Deadline, September 22, 2014, http://deadline.com/2014/09/disney-lion-king-highest-grossing-show-at-6-2-billion-838482/. 69. When Cats opened at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York, it boasted the highest ticket advance in history with $6.2 million (Sternfeld 2006, 352). More importantly, Cats was “a product, a trademark”: print ads months before it opened; recognizable logos; merchandise; and endless promotions. It did not hurt that the music was pop-friendly and the material family-friendly – especially of interest to the cleaner audiences of the 1980s and early 1990s. Cats set the precedent for the large spectacle-driven musicals of future Broadway. The history of Broadway and West End 173 What I heard from conversations in the Madrid theatre that night illustrates some familiar assumptions. They supported the idea that consumers must equate global acceptance and accessibility to higher quality and/or prestige – much like Stage Entertainment’s capitalization of a global brand like Disney. It seems unlikely to Spaniards that a “bad” product could come from Broadway. Bad products, according to those parents, came from los teatros de mi pueblo (theatres from my town).70 The value of global brands has been covered extensively in marketing research, equating global brands to a higher level of luxury, prestige, and as general “references of good taste” (Kapferer 1997, 253). Research shows that most ticketholders would probably prefer the global Rey León over local productions, even if those other musicals are objectively superior (Steenkamp, Batra, and Alden, 2003, 53). To the audience members sitting directly in front of me, simply attending that night was a way to be associated with Broadway and Disney; its higher price and exclusive accessibility further proof that it was a once-in-a-lifetime event for a limited population. They were living a Disney experience. As Roy Disney once put it: The Walt Disney Company is more than just a business. It’s an authentic American icon, which is to say that over the years it’s come to stand for something real and meaningful and worthwhile to millions of people of all ages and backgrounds around the world. . . (Stewart 2005, 108) Stage Spain, due to its privileged business position, is quick to capitalize on this narrative through their Rey León offering. Bringing this world-iconic musical (and brand) to Madrid connects its audiences and city to a successfully global trend. musicals is less important in this research than are the newer approaches in branding an marketing, as consequence of the effects of globalization I have been discussing throughout this chapter. 70. Los teatros de mi pueblo is loaded with the implication that since the productions are produced and staged in the rural areas, the quality is not up to par with what you might see in the city. It is the equivalent as referring to community theater in the United States, as regional theatre stateside is often just as equal (at times more) than what you might see on Broadway in New York City. 174 According to a tourism study through La Dirección de Turismo de la Comunidad de Madrid, about one in five Spanish tourists visiting Madrid see a musical while in the city; of those, 82% choose El Rey León.71 For the General Director of Tourism Carlos Chaguaceda, this type of cultural offering is the priority, especially at the national level. Madrid as a brand itself would not be recognizable without its cultural offerings. To have profitable tourism, you have to create an excuse, a reason, or appeal to an experience. . . in this case, El Rey León is a hook so that tourism comes to Madrid and then they can see the rest [of what Madrid has to offer]. (ibid) Quique Comyn, Communications Director as Stage Spain, agrees. “Some weeks, ticket sales are 80% national tourism…They buy tickets in advance, come see the musical, and then see the rest of the city de paso [as they pass through] (ibid). In fact, according to Gómez Cora, 30% of their audiences will wait to book all of their travel arrangements until they have secured their Rey León tickets.72 The cover of the Rey León program proclaims its status as “El musical que conmueve el mundo” (the musical that “moves” the world), though it still visibly notes the Teatro Lope de Vega, Madrid location. Here, we start to see how the artistic choices of Stage Spain shape its performance of Broadway in Madrid. Some select passages from Stage Entertainment President van den Ende’s opening page introduction are insightfully informative: It’s gratifying to know that [so many] have enjoyed this musical in the Broadway madrileño (a Madrid Broadway). And that is Gran Vía: the perfect equivalent to Broadway in Spain, as much for the high expectations that each 71. Milagros Martín-Lunas, “Las claves del éxito de ‘El Rey León’,” El Independiente Online. October 23, 2016, https://www.elindependiente.com/tendencias/2016/10/23/leon-industria-mismo/. 72. Patricia Ortega Dolz, “Y la Gran Vía se hizo Broadway,” El País Online, December 17, 2011, accessed March 13, 2017, https://elpais.com/diario/2011/12/17/madrid/ 1324124654_850215.html. 175 premiere generates among the public, but for the obligation that every producer has to surpass them. . . especially when we are dealing with expenses as high as The Lion King. The merit of this corresponds to its director, Julie Taymor, who introduced elements and traditional Asian theatrical techniques thereby introducing a new a revolutionary vision of the musical genre (El Rey León Theatre Program, n.d., 2015, Madrid: Teatro Lope de Vega, 3). Through these selected passages, Joop van den Ende narrates the different ways Stage Entertainment plays Broadway, both in Madrid and around the world through a musical like El Rey León. The first paragraph reinforces the global connection to Broadway – both through the city of Madrid and through his mention of Gran Vía. The second passage illustrates the use of multicultural perspectives to promote world inclusivity and being cosmopolitan. Van den Ende’s acknowledgement of Director Julie Taymor, a name that is largely unfamiliar to the target audiences in Madrid, further infuses a multicultural perspective into the audience’s experience. Highlighting and emphasizing Director Taymor’s use of Asian theatrical techniques in the creative process reinforces the multicultural aspects of the production. Culture in itself becomes a process by which tourists (and locals exoticizing the distant) seek authenticity and meaning through their experiences. “The very presence of tourists leads to the creation of cultural manifestations specifically for tourist consumption. In other words, culture as a process is transformed through tourism into culture as a product” (Richards 1996, 21). In her book, Public Place, Private Journeys: Ethnography, Entertainment, and The Tourist Gaze (2003), author Ellen Strain notes that: When one’s culture becomes denaturalized through the experience of the wide range of diversity possible among cultures, boundaries of the self-appear disturbingly diffuse as one tries to separate self from the arbitrarily formed armature of culture. The traveler slips into the uncomfortable weightlessness of 176 culture shock. The illusion of the autonomy of selfhood whole separable from the body and surroundings suffers a blow, unless that blow is parried. Exoticization is this fetishization process at work during the confrontation with extreme cultural difference. And the tourist gaze is the solidification of this process within the tourism industry…and within the viewing strategies mobilized by the conventions of classical film and other immersive entertainment forms. (ibid, 18) As such, our Rey León audience’s tourist gaze is a transformative process that exoticizes the experience of the show through its multicultural differences. Stage Entertainment capitalizes on the multicultural aspects of their show in order to delineate their connection to the cosmopolitan, and thus the global Broadway brand. “Brand imagery framed as cosmopolitan is instrumental in acquiring social capital, especially through brand communications. . . a cosmopolitan brand typically is perceived as exotic” (Warde 2014, 285). This creates an experience that makes the audience feel like they are part of a larger world community, while also singling out their unique elite status as being a select part of the cosmopolitan crowd with access to this experience. The emphasis of a global, multicultural experience to imply cosmopolitanism is evident across almost all of the introductory remarks of its key players in the first few pages of the program. From then Stage Spain President Gómez Cora: The Lion King is a milestone, an obligatory stop in the excellent cultural and entertainment offerings of the City of Madrid, which draws people from all over Spain and even Latin America. It’s definitely something no one wants to miss. That’s why I wish that, the same as has happened to the over 70 million plus people that have seen it all over the world, you are infected with the show’s spirit and exoticism – finding your own “circle of life (El Rey León Theatre Program. n.d. 2015. Madrid: Teatro Lope de Vega, 4). 177 Internationally-renowned Director Julie Taymor acknowledges its global inclusivity as well as its important connection to Madrid. Interestingly enough, she is the only one to have a photograph in color above her remarks. Perhaps the color photography makes it easier to emphasize the “ethnic” characteristics of the puppets that surround her. My idea was to combine different theatrical styles with traditions from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, and combine them all into one special and unique thing. My happiness has been to observe how world audiences, with different backgrounds and languages, have similarly connected to the same history with exactly the same enthusiasm. It does not matter where you are from; people connect with The Lion King… And now Madrid. Our cast, made up of different artists from many parts of the world, show the Spanish audiences this powerful story. (ibid, 7) The cast of El Rey León also physically embodies the idea of a global community; its multicultural aspect touted as a unique offering in the genre of musicals in Madrid. Looking through the program, it offers much of the same information you would find in other programs and musical playbills: name, role(s) in the show, credits, training, etc. However, the very first piece of information listed under their picture is something I have not typically encountered in programs: lugar de nacimiento (place of birth). They must really want their audiences to notice this, especially since their respective countries are also listed in ALL CAPS (unlike the remaining information that follows). Looking through the program is like glancing through a world catalog of actors and artists (ibid, 16-34). The varying international backgrounds of their principal actors, most of whom have moved to Spain simply for this production, only serve to reinforce a performance of a Broadway that is globally inclusive: 178 Scar: Spain Mufasa: Panama Rafiki: South Africa Zazu: Spain Timon: Spain Pumba: Spain Simba: Mexico Nala: Brazil Hyena Trio: United States, Spain, Spain From the remaining cast of singers and dancers, the number of singers and dancers from different countries is globally impressive: Cuba – 12 South Africa – 8 Spain – 6 Dominican Republic – 4 Brazil – 2 Mexico – 1 Philippines – 1 Italy – 1 South Korean – 1 Alexandria (listed city) – 1 Galicia (listed province in Spain rather than country) – 1 Through this very concrete visualization, El Rey León promotes inclusion in the global community; an imagination of globality that Anna Tsing terms a “conjuring of dramatic performance” (Tsing 2001, 159). Through such a display of international “goods” or “assets,” they are performing new images and signs to feed into the audience cultural experience. As one reviewer noted of this potpourri of international singers, “this gives way to an accent salad that does not bother too much, and although it will eventually homogenize with each successive performance, it enriches the multicultural vibe of the matter.”73 It is interesting to note that throughout the program (and many of its promotions, interviews, and media 73. David Bernal, “Lo mejor y lo peor de ‘El Rey León – El Musical’,” Cinemania Website Review, October 21, 2011, accessed May 20, 2017, http://cinemania.elmundo.es/ noticias/lo-mejor-y-lo-peor-de-el-rey-leon-el-musical/. 179 appearances), the Broadway brand is used more prominently than the Disney brand to force a global perspective. Perhaps it is because The Lion King and its many translated versions around the world needs no further promotion? I have worked on some Disney marketing work myself, so I believe that the need to associate Broadway with Disney is highly unlikely. This world inclusion through Broadway and multicultural diversity, however, does create an image of cosmopolitanism and sophistication that is not readily “promotable” for other musicals in the city with limited access and, more importantly, limited resources to stage such a “global community.” It is perhaps a different level of sophistication and seriousness that requires Stage to don a Broadway “costume” of symbols over a Disney one. I still was unsure how the “local” came through in their creative musical process. During our interview, Dewynters CEO Charrington had attributed the success of musicals to a historically relevant story, less expensive production budgets, or star power. None of these seemed to support the case for El Rey León’s success (it’s not relevant to Spain’s history, it’s expensive, and it’s not dependent on star power). However, to be “positioned in locally ‘sensitive’ ways…is of paramount importance” (Amis and Silk 2010, 175). Stage Spain balances its “glocal” juggling act through some artistic revisioning – or purposeful performances of difference – that promote local inclusion of the community. When branding at a local level, businesses must also respond to local stimuli by adapting to local interests and markets, tailoring their products to their audiences. “When introducing new products in high uncertainty avoidance cultures, it is important to position the new product as a continuous innovation that does not require radical changes in existing consumption patterns. The product itself also may need to be adapted, depending on the degree of 180 uncertainty avoidance of the country” (Steenkamp, Hofstede, and Wedel 1999, 65). Stage Entertainment prides itself on its ability to understand its local market and adapt itself to its cultural differences. CEO Arthur de Bok recently boasted: We are so proud of the way this company understands the local flavor in our markets. That is the key to being one company. We have the expertise to deal with all the differences, whether they be in relation to language, local culture and sense of humor, costings or labor rules.74 I went to El Rey León ready to make note of countless local cultural differences, hoping to uncover the negotiation of identities through the dramaturgy of the musical. Unable to get a script of the musical due to licensing restrictions, I depended mostly on the attendance at the musical itself – also admittedly making it difficult to spot all translation differences without a proper script. I watched the musical as carefully and attentively as possible, somewhat disillusioned by the lack of cultural transpositions or changes made to the musical. There was a noticeable difference in the scene where Zazu, main character Simba’s servant bird, sang to the villainous Scar as he was held in captivity. In the original English Broadway version, he sings “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,” a 19th century African-American spiritual song originating during the slavery period that has been referenced throughout pop culture. Scar asks Zazu to “Lighten up. . . sing something with a little bounce in it,” to which Zazu starts to sing “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast. Scar’s “Anything but that!” response clearly indicated his sarcastic fear of having to listen to an overplayed song. While in the film version Zazu’s response was to sing “It’s a Small World,” neither one of these options conveyed the idea of an overplayed 74. Lisa Martland, “Stage Entertainment: the Europe-Wide Powerhouse Producer with a Local Touch,” The Stage Online, November 29, 2017, https://www.thestage.co.uk/features/2017/stage- entertainment-the-europe-wide-powerhouse-producer/. 181 song to Spanish audiences. (It’s interesting to note both songs are Disney material, so they seemingly wink at their oversaturation in their market.) Instead, Spanish Zazu in the Madrid production offered to “annoy” scar with songs from Joselito, El Pequeño Ruiseñor, or singer Georgie Dann’s “El Chiringuito.” Joselito’s songs proliferated Spain during the 1950s and 1960s; the child singer’s overplayed coplas during the Franco years certainly drew audience chuckles. “El Chiringuito” was another summer song in the 1980s that was difficult to get out of your mind once you heard it. While I could not draw large conclusions from this alone, it did signal that many of these references were from a Spain of the past. It is no wonder that those references drew laughs from the adults in the audience. A more significant cultural change occurred with Timón’s character, the meerkat (mongoose) half of the comedic duo that travels with warthog Pumba. As one of the comedic characters in the musical, the translators and creative team decided to give him an accent from Cádiz. What I saw as an extreme caricature of a person from Cádiz (perhaps it is because it is where I am from), the rest of the audience enjoyed as a joke they were all in on. In fact, the slang, mannerisms, and even flamenco dancing is not an unfamiliar stereotype of folks from Cádiz – no matter where you go in Spain. In a scene where he is supposed to be distracting hyenas, he jumps out in a flamenco dress and starts to dance the traditional sevillanas dances of the south. Perhaps it was the only way to localize the themes of El Rey León to fit within a production playing in a city with no nationally identifiable cultural references. It was the dismay of one Rey León reviewer. Guiños locales: ¿Eran necesarios? Pese a que prácticamente no se ha cambiado una coma del montaje original, se han introducido algunos guiños de carácter local con el fin de hacer más cercano el humor y algunos personajes. Esto le imprime un innecesario toque casposo que sin embargo es 182 celebrado por una parte del público con carcajadas. Que el pájaro Zazu se arranque por Joselito, el Pequeño Ruiseñor, o cante El Chiringuito de Georgie Dann como forma de torturar a Scar, puede tener su gracia, pero el deje andaluz de Timón tiene los mismos efectos que tendría meter a uno de los Morancos en un montaje shakesperiano. Ozú, ¡qué coraje! Local winks. Were they necessary? Even though nothing was changed from the original production, a few winks with local character have been introduced to bring some of the characters and humor closer (to audiences). This flaky and unnecessary change was nonetheless to joyously celebrate through the uncontrollable laughter of its audience. That the bird Zazu references Joselito, El Pequeño Ruiseñor, or singer El Chiringuito Georgie Dann, as ways to torture Scar, is cute, but Timón’s Andaluz accent has the same effect as putting one of the Morancos in a Shakespeare production. Ozú, ¡qué coraje! (“Oh my! How frustrating” sarcastically written as a person from Cádiz may pronounce it).75 His reference to the Morancos, the Spanish equivalent of a “Saturday Night Live” television comedian, questions the artistic choice in cultural adaptations taken on by this Spanish production. I found it interesting that the actor himself was also not from Cádiz, hearing the inconsistency of his accent throughout the performance. While the oft-used stereotype of the humorous and friendly character from Cádiz does not provide all the answers, it does highlight questions about what might be considered uniquely Spanish. A regional characteristic or trait does not represent all of Spain, despite the fact that it is easily identifiable by the audiences. It did, however, reinforce the need for these translated musicals to be modified to bring a uniquely Spanish perspective to them. As David Savran reminds us, “codifications thus manage to ‘preserve something of the uniqueness’ that has always been expected of a theatrical performance” (Savran 2014, 335). Disney musical reproduces The Lion King globally across many cultures and in many different languages. It is likely that any cultural changes within the script 75. David Bernal, “Lo mejor y lo peor de ‘El Rey León – El Musical’,” Cinemania Website Review, October 21, 2011. 183 occur at the same moment in the musical across the different productions. Finding unique balances of a “glocal” identity turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated, especially from the perspective of a cookie cutter, mass-produced musical. I set out to find out whether or not a local production company with similarly sized musicals and budgets differed from the approach of a globally- centered company like Stage Spain. The Locally-Grown SOM Produce According to the English site of their webpage, SOM Produce (hereafter referred to as only “SOM”) is “the main Spanish company in the local production of international musical plays” (SOM Produce Website, https://somproduce.com/en/ quienes-somos/, accessed January 20, 2019). Currently one of the largest producers of musical theatre in Spain alongside Stage Spain, SOM has a list of both plays and musicals produced in Madrid and on tour throughout Spain including: Sonrisas y lágrimas (The Sound of Music), Avenue Q, Chicago, El Mago Pop, Cuatro milenio, 40: El Musical, Más de 100 mentiras, Grease, El zoo de cristal, Buena gente, Priscilla reina del desierto, Cabaret, Mayumaná, Carmina Burana, Néron, Billy Elliot, and West Side Story. Founded by Spanish entrepreneurs Gonzalo Pérez, Marcos Cámara, José María Cámara, Pilar Gutierrez, and Juan José Rivero, this locally-created and operated production provides another perspective in how the business of Broadway musicals is transformed abroad and culturally. The production company was originally set up specifically to “exploit licensing rights” to produce a Spanish version of the musical The Sound of Music throughout Spain. The original production played in Madrid from 2011 – 2013 and drew over 500,000 audience members throughout the run. It subsequently embarked 184 on a tour that covered provinces and cities across Spain including Madrid, Madrid, Tenerife, Las Palmas, Pamplona, Valladolid, Valencia, Zaragoza, Alicante, Córdoba, Santander, Sant Cugat, Palma de Mallorca, Murcia, Málaga, Sevilla, Altea, Gijón, Vigo, La Coruña o Bilbao. While the company is locally formed, it is interesting to note that the catalyst for starting the company was the American iconic Broadway musical Sound of Music by Rodgers and Hammerstein. In fact, the name SOM is an acronym for that very same source of inspiration. Over the years, its varied programming and growing production credits forced it to modify its business objectives to include: • Creación e interpretación artística y literaria; • Gestión de espacios escénicos ya sea en régimen dé propiedad o de alquiler; • Representación de cualquier tipo de espectáculos, ya sean propios o ajenos, así como para la explotación de cualquier actividad o ingreso conexo a las anteriormente descritas, tales como venta de merchandising; • Fomento de las artes y la cultura, promoviendo la organización, desarrollo y explotación de espectáculos públicos y todo tipo de reuniones de carácter socio cultural. • Artistic and literary creation and interpretation; • Management of scenic spaces either in property or rental regime; • Production of any type of spectacles, whether their own or those of others, as well as for the exploitation of any activity or income related to those previously described, such as the sale of merchandise; • Nurturing of arts and culture, promoting the organization, development and maximization of public shows and all types of socio- cultural gatherings. Unlike Stage Spain, SOM’s production credits include a combination of international musical imports, as well as some locally-inspired original musicals. More than two-thirds of the hits produced by SOM are foreign source materials, including El zoo de cristal (Tennessee William’s The Glass Menagerie). The marquees of shows running in 2018 embodies a more “glocalized” programming 185 itinerary than that of Stage Spain, as it includes hits from England (the musical Billy Elliott), Spain (magician show El Mago Pop), Barcelona (La Fura del Baus’s Carmina Burana), and the United States (the musical West Side Story). See Figure 12. Figure 12. A poster display of SOM Produce productions showing its local and international flavors in programming choice. Photo from SOM Produce Company Dossier (SOM Produce Corporate Dossier, http://somproduce.com/descargas/Dossier_SOM_Enero_2017.pdf, accessed January 20, 2019). 186 The diverse material acknowledges SOM’s connection to its own Spanish culture, while accenting the need to expand at a global level through inclusion of international hits like West Side Story and Billy Elliott. Additionally, SOM produced successful, original Spanish musicals like 40: El Musical (a jukebox musical based on top 40 radio hits) and Hoy no me puedo levantar (another juke box musical based on this hits of 1980s pop group Mecano). The following list of its tours, however, notes the more global hits that are distributed throughout the regions of Spain. Many of these are globally recognizable names and brands, adding to the argument that riskier ventures (like touring to areas removed from Madrid) calls for a more universally familiar cultural product. • Priscilla reina del desierto (Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) • Cabaret • El Mago Pop, La gran ilusión • Cuarto milenio • Grease • Sonrisas y lágrimas (The Sound of Music) • 40: El Musical • Chicago • Avenue Q • Mamma Mia! • Fiebre de sábado por la noche (Saturday Night Fever) • High School Musical • Jesucristo Superstar • Hoy no me puedo levantar • Fama (Fame) • Cabaret • We Will Rock You Like Stage Entertainment, SOM much more literally attaches itself to Madrid through the purchase of historically significant theatres throughout the city. With the recent addition of El Teatro Nuevo Apolo in October 2018, the Spanish-based company also owns Teatro Rialto, Teatro Nuevo Alcalá, and Teatro Calderón. 187 Although SOM’s office location on Gran Vía (number 73) further articulates its close ties to Madrid and accentuates the company’s importance in the entertainment scene of Spain, it is interesting to see how other marketing materials contradict this very correlation. In Figure 13 below, many of SOM’s show credits have been superimposed into an image of Broadway and Times Square in New York City. While the posters highlighted on the marquees reflect a somewhat international flavor, the image still grounds them firmly in New York City’s Broadway. Figure 13. A SOM musical history, as told from the marquees of Broadway in New York City. Photo from SOM Produce Company Dossier (SOM Produce Corporate Dossier, http://somproduce.com/descargas/ Dossier_SOM_Enero_2017.pdf, accessed January 20, 2019). 188 Wanting to uncover further differences in the ways a local company like SOM would differ from Stage Spain in their staging of an international Broadway musical, I made my way to one of their theatres with notepad in hand. Nestled a few blocks from the lanes of Gran Vía in the upscale and luxurious Salamanca neighborhood, I located the inconspicuously Teatro Nuevo Alcalá (New Theatre Alcalá). Its façade painted away the gray of the city to reveal a supernova of fluorescent fuchsia, lavender, and turquoise extravagance. A fusion of classic architecture and flamboyant pastiche, the unmistakable outline of a neon heel crowned the edifice as audience members paraded through the entrance, past the replica red carpet (photo-call backdrop included), and into its semi-circular atrium. I took my seat in the VIP Butaca Nightlife section, a glamorous package that a best view seat, or butaca, in the house, a program, and a feather boa. Not used to the later 8:30pm curtain time, my early arrival meant I had time to sip a vodka cranberry while observing the other boas take their seats around me.76 I quietly sipped my cocktail and watched different audience members sporting their own boas. It’s as if the boas came to life themselves. The green boa sitting next to me was ecstatic about being here for the third time, a fact he proudly touted to the rest of his flock. “Qué ilusión de verlo. Mira que ir a Madrid y no ver Priscilla” (I’m excited to see this. I mean, go to Madrid and not see Priscilla), he said from his seat. “Y encima esto finaliza pronto. Tenemos suerte. Siempre nos traen los espectáculos del Broadway aquí. Yo ví Annie y Avenue Q” (On top of that, it’s closing soon. We’re lucky though. They always bring shows from ‘el Broadway’ here. I saw Annie and Avenue Q), green boa proudly added. The pink boa on his other side was clearly a Priscilla virgin as he replied, “Que suerte!” (How 76. Evening curtain for most Broadway shows is normally 8:00 p.m. London’s West End shows are even earlier, starting at 7:30 p.m. 189 lucky). From my aisle seat, I could also hear the usher selling a program to two boa- less women: “Un Euro por favor” (A Euro please). The woman protested as she handed her euro to the usher, “Por Dios, como todo, hay que pagar para disfrutar de un poco de arte” (My God, just like with everything else, you have to pay to enjoy a little bit of art). Eighty euros to be exact, but the pre-show alone was already worth it. I floated out of the boa chatter as my mind focused on the “lipstick painted” abstract map of Australia that illuminated the proscenium of Priscilla. Two points connected a dashed line indicating a twisting, looping, and chaotic journey. One point: Sydney. The other point: Alice, a place I am not sure many outside of Australia would know anything about. And floating off the continent somewhere in the middle of the proscenium’s “ocean”: an arrow pointing into the unknown with an ambiguous indication that “Estás Aquí.” (You are here.) I was not in the African-inspired show of El Rey León, but not sure I was as I watched the show. The musical takes place in Australia, but some of the songs were in Spanish. Songs like “It’s Raining Men” are well-known from the radio, needing no translation into Spanish. A translation of well- known popular English radio songs into Spanish automatically take away the nostalgia for the listener. On the other hand, songs like “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” are less popular and help move the story along. In these instances, those songs were translated into Spanish – prioritizing narrative content over nostalgia. Perhaps that is why the “you are here” fell somewhere off the map into the middle of nowhere. See Figure 14. 190 Figure 14: Top picture, outside of the Teatro Nuevo Alcalá and Priscilla: The Musical. Bottom picture, proscenium curtain before the show with lipstick and map. Photo by author. 191 This boa-banter and pre-show map very opportunely points us to a similar discussion of key themes seen with Stage Spain and El Rey León. I think back to the Priscilla fans and the sheer adrenaline that permeated their voices, “I mean, go to MADRID and not see Priscilla!” They sounded like they were speaking about visiting a monument or a close friend. In fact, the entire evening at the theatre seemed to mimic the embodiment of the city’s energy: the red carpet upon arrival; the VIP experience with private bar area overlooking the streets below; the conversations between audience members trading work stories; and the excitement of the escape from reality through these musicals. There was almost a personification of Madrid – bringing to light ideas and attitudes about cosmopolitanism that were associated with life and work in the metropolis. Louis Wirth, of the aforementioned Chicago School, attributes large population size and density, along with social heterogeneity, to a specifically distinct way of “urban way of life” and an “urban personality” in large cities (Wirth 1938). For Wirth, the bigger the city, the more variability for social differentiation, anonymity, and nonparticipation in larger group memberships. A dense city like Madrid is considered a source for the diversification of markets and social differentiation. The city is, rather, a state of mind, a body of customs and traditions, and of the organized attitudes and sentiments that inhere in these customs are transmitted with this tradition. The city is not, in other words, merely a physical mechanism and an artificial construction. It is involved in the vital process of the people who compose it; it is a product of nature, and particularly human nature. (Park 1984) Broadway-like musicals like Priscilla, much like the neighboring Rey León, are also able break through the spatial-temporal barriers of nation and globe. Also built on popular songs and themes, the musical conventions allow for the medium to 192 connect audiences to a large, cosmopolitan community as well. “Musical comedy, [f]or a fast, new times world … was a vital, energetic culture which both utilized modern processes in its making and reproduced the modern world in its most compelling disguises” (Platt 2004, 27). They are the “transnationalisation of the new and fashionable now rendered as cosmopolitan” (Platt and Becker 2013, 5) as they move from metropolitan center to metropolitan center. Globally recognized cultural symbols are appropriated by these musicals as currency for crossing international borders with ease. Disney’s Beauty and The Beast and The Lion King needed no cultural introduction when it made its way over to Madrid almost two decades ago. The Sound of Music (Sonrisas y lágrimas in Spanish) had already made its way into the homes of Spaniards through television before landing on the musical stage in the capital. Jesus Christ Superstar, as discussed in the previous chapter, had secured its cultural relevance through the pop and music counterculture, especially through records. Broadway musicals capitalize on the popular and Priscilla in Spain was no exception. Whereas Disney capitalized on the international animated film hit and its brand, Priscilla needed to rely a bit more on content. Both times I saw the show, audiences were up on their feet dancing along to its musical soundtrack. In fact, the audience I saw at production I saw in Cádiz – a southern province in Spain, far removed from the cosmopolitan pull of the capital – was exponentially more engaged with the material than their Madrid counterparts. If we take a look at the soundtrack for Priscilla, it’s not hard to see how this cornucopia of pop hits is used to capsize audiences around the globe. • It's Raining Men (The Weather Girls, 1983) • What’s Love Got to Do With It (Tina Turner, 1993) • Don’t Leave Me This Way (Thelma Houston, 1976) • Material Girl (Madonna, 1985) 193 • Go West (Pet Shop Boys, 1993) • I Say A Little Prayer (Aretha Franklin, 1968) • I Love the Nightlife (Alicia Bridges, 1978) • True Colors (Cyndi Lauper, 1986) • I Will Survive (Gloria Gaynor, 1978) • Girls Just Want to Have Fun (Cyndi Lauper, 1983) • Like A Prayer (Madonna, 1989) • We Belong (Pat Benatar, 1984) This malleability of the Broadway musical form alone enables Madrid’s professional producers to situate their idea of Broadway somewhere between the global and national. Unlike El Rey León, the theatre at the evening’s performance of Priscilla I attended in 2014 was at around 40% capacity when I arrived – and would remain that way throughout the evening. It is hard to say if it was attribute to the number of years it had already been playing in Madrid or whether it had to do with the LGBT+ content and themes. SOM, although uniquely Spanish in some of its programming options, was also tied to its own economic restrictions. I needed to leave the world of professional theatre to discover cultural implications and negotiations of identities of local musical theatre groups not as limited by economic restraints. Chapter Summaries I set out to the city seeking ways professional musical theatre companies negotiated their place in Madrid, while touting their importance on the global stage. I immediately ran into the difficulties and the roadblocks of collecting ethnographic data at the professional level in Spain, especially in a city where I was now seen as a foreigner and an industry where marketing and money took precedence over scholarly research interviews. Interviews with creative staff were difficult to obtain, or flat out denied. Licensing restrictions made it difficult to get scripts for further dramaturgical 194 or translation dissection. One musical theatre friend in Spain adamantly believes that my work and training experience is responsible, especially in the small, competitive musical theatre community of Madrid. Without my extensive musical theatre network and community from the United States, cracking the professional musical theatre scene proved to be difficult. Ironically, it points to the chapter’s themes of cultural transfers in a globalized world that is shaped by politics of business and space. Globalization has expanded this idea where a city’s brand – or performance – is no longer on view to simply the local area. New spatiality makes it difficult to separate the urban from the non-urban, the city from the suburb, and city from city. This creates a weakening of the idea of place and definition of social communities, even within the different areas of a city like Madrid. “The boundaries of the city are becoming more porous, confusing our ability to draw neat lines separating what is inside as opposed to outside the city; between the city and the countryside, suburbia, the non-city; between one metropolitan city-region and another; between the natural and the artificial” (Soja 2000, 150). What it suggests is that the accelerated globalization process is defined by new regionalized versions of the city. The central is becoming peripheral and the peripheral central, as best described by Soja: “The postmetropolis can be represented [or performed] as a product of intensified globalization processes through which the global is becoming localized and the local is becoming globalized at the same time” (ibid, 152). Big-theatre businesses like El Rey León’s Stage Spain or Priscilla’s SOM Produce understand the importance of a brand like Broadway, as well as the necessity of tying it to a specific location and space. They are curators of a performance that reflects the song of themselves that they want seen and heard – through their 195 branding. The top ten global brands have a combined value of over $900 billion.77 In his book The Philosophy of Branding: Great Philosophers Think Brands, Thomas Braun writes that “brands and branding are fundamental to the way we experience modern life – and the way we give ‘meaning’ to it” (Braun 2004, 180). Brands are intrinsic to culture and are indispensable tools in the performance of identity. When we buy a Picasso over the painting of a local artist, we may be unintentionally defining ourselves in particular ways. When we listen to classical music over hip-hop it generates ideas about us to others. When we go see Lion King in Madrid over the local production of Lorca’s Bernarda Alba, we are unconsciously performing a self to others. We continuously look for ways to edit the world around us, and we can do that by playing with a branding that helps us modify our performances of self to fit to desired imaginations. In this way, Stage Spain and SOM tailors their own performance of the Broadway idea to fit the imaginations of Madrid and the people of Spain. Brands are much more than interesting logos or marketing techniques. Rather, we suggest that brands can usefully be understood as institutions. We argue that the logic of branding can be seen as an institutional setting that lends structure to many industries’ underlying economic arrangements and market processes. Within this setting, economic actors, not least firms, use brands as a core focus for their innovative and competitive activities and their market actions. (Power and Hauge 2008, 125) They have unequivocally counted on their stage musicals as “future transnational currency, available to franchisors in the elsewhere that accords Broadway its status” (Bennett 2005, 418). By connecting itself to the Broadway global brand through its 77. Jessica Tyler, “The 10 Most Valuable Brands in 2018,” Business Insider of Inc. Website, February 5, 2018, accessed April 23, 2018, https://www.inc.com/business-insider/amazon-google- most-valuable-brands-brand-finance-2018.html. 196 marketing, professional companies in Madrid take on its cosmopolitan role.78 Broadway, much like Stage Entertainment now, is inundated with everything commercial, marketable, artificial, and profitable. The marketing boom of megamusicals in the 1980s amped the value of the Broadway spectacle itself over the artistic content of the individual shows themselves. Brands, like Broadway for example, in essence are carriers of symbolic and cultural capital (Power and Hauge 2008). “Brands are thought to represent powerful forces shaping the identity politics of our age. Our tastes in brands are seen as social tools and indicators that work alongside a host of other symbols, objects, and activities as weapons and reflections of our identities and aspirations. In more circumspect accounts they represent a forest of logos, slogans, and messages—a nebula of information—that carpet our everyday lives and landscapes” (ibid, 125). In Chapter Four, I exit Madrid and make my way south to the Andalucía region of Spain to explore how Broadway plays out in a different space. Through the creative process of a community theatre group’s production of Rent, I will explore how cultural translations of Broadway play out against a backdrop of traditions that challenge difference. More than providing a survey of amateur musical production in Spain, it allows me to take the Broadway out of business and place it in the bodies and process of actors. Looking at the ways a Broadway musical is translated – socially and textually – provides insight into ways unique cultures factor into the creative process. 78. The idea of cosmopolitanism has been explored (Thompson and Tambyah 1999). 197 Vamp C How do you leave the past ¿Cómo olvidar lo que pasó behind sigue haciendo When it keeps finding ways to Daño a tu corazón? get to your heart Se agarra dentro y duele, It reaches way down deep and explota en tears you inside out Tu interior y llega el adiós. Till you're torn apart ¡Paga! Rent! How can you connect in an age ¿Cómo soportar cuando ves Where strangers, landlords, traicionarte lovers a un hermano o a tus células Your own blood cells betray T? What binds the fabric together ¿Qué afianzas nuestras When the raging, shifting costuras contra winds of change aquellas quemaduras Keep ripping away cuando el cambio implacable Draw a line in the sand nos quiere descoser And then make a stand Traza un mundo ideal y ponte Use your camera to spar Filma un documental Use your guitar…everything’s Grita al pintar! Rent. Rent by Jonathan Larson (1994) Translation from La Bohéme 198 Chapter 4: The Amateur Scripting of Linguistic and Cultural Translations I was part of the first generations of the musical Rent’s superfans, otherwise known as “Rentheads.”79 There was a time when I could relate the musical Rent to any aspect of my life. Almost twenty years later in 2014, I am on my trek across Spain to seek out different manifestations of Broadway, and the 1996 Tony-Award- and Pulitzer-Prize-winning rock opera80 is again playing on a repetitive loop through my earbuds: “To days of inspiration, playing hooky, making something out of nothing; the need to express, to communicate, to going against the grain. . . ” The lyrics from the first act’s closing number bounced off my eardrums as I set across Sevilla to meet Manu for a local company’s rehearsal of Rent. Manu (short for Manuel) and I had spoken several times online ever since I found out about La Asociación de Teatro Musical de Sevilla (Musical Theatre Association of Sevilla, hereafter ATMS) and their rehearsals of Rent, now titled Bohème: El Musical.81 As a performer in the troupe and also one of its creative team directors, Manu was my ticket to observe firsthand the creative process of a musical from inside of Spain. From his perspective, I was “the Broadway expert” and “musical theatre scholar” and “without a doubt becoming part of the group’s dynamic process would be beneficial for [me] as a scholar and for [them] as a company.” I spent my entire research trip 79. Name given to the superfans of Rent during the first few years of its popularity. These were the fans that also lined up overnight to score the Rush Seats for the following night’s performance – only 25 seats sold nightly for 25 dollars each. 80. The musical’s rock sound and sung-through book led it to be labeled by many as a rock opera. Like in opera, the musicals scenes and “text” are musically sung – leaving little to no speaking dialogue. 81. From here on out, I will refer to the production as Rent when referring to the musical’s original incarnation and as Bohème when referring to the ATMS version. There were actually many times in conversation, the actors of Bohème would still refer to it as Rent in discussions. 199 fighting that idea, just trying to blend in to the background so I could quietly observe. For that reason, I was thankful for our initial cross-Atlantic chats over a series of emails and Google Hangout Video calls; by the time I got to Sevilla, it felt like we had been working together for months. “What specifically are you looking for at ATMS and how long do you think you’ll be with us – and in Spain?” he inquired during our first email conversation. His written communication was mostly in English, although later in person he often switched between English and Spanish. I enthusiastically told him about my interest in the growth of musical theatre in Spain, ideas of Broadway and American musicals from the perspective of Spanish artists, and how Spanish traditions affect artists working outside of Madrid. These initial conversations replayed through my mind as I walked through cobblestone streets of Sevilla to a rehearsal. Sevilla, approximately 330 miles from Madrid, is also a major tourist destination on the Iberian Peninsula. While forward-thinking and similarly cosmopolitan to other capitals within Spain (as evidenced in the restaurant scene options, efficient urban tram lines, brand-name shopping, and city bicycle program), Sevilla’s quaint size keeps it anchored to rich cultural traditions and a Spanish cultural identity that is unique to that region. Far removed from the big lights of Gran Vía and the commercial motivations (and limitations) discussed in the previous chapter, I set off on a creative journey to uncover the process of artists within local non-professional theatre communities. Choosing a city like Sevilla afforded me the access to engage with artists on an individual level. It also gave me the chance to investigate how their theatre making choices were reconciled against the longstanding culture and also theatrical traditions of their own community. By observing actors 200 engage in the creative process, I planned to focus on how they created musicals in ways that allowed them to reconcile the cultural differences between an original Broadway musical and its Spanish translation (and adaptation). My research zeroed in on the creative process and the examination of specific linguistic and cultural differences that resulted from ATMS’s interpretation of Rent and their overall “translation” of the process associated with producing a Broadway musical. Through my observations, I noticed intriguing patterns come into focus. Linguistic changes to the text revealed important cultural conflicts with Spanish tradition. The cultural translation of the relationships represented on the stage uncovered challenges in how these artists decided to present these characters to their communities. It also highlighted culturally-embedded power structures in Spain that played a key factor in defining the relationships of the translated Spanish text of the musical. Ultimately, observing how the artists engaged with the Broadway musical during the creative process revealed multiple and complex levels of translation on and off the stage, conflicting with their attempt to make Rent the ground for aesthetic innovation and social protest in their community. By focusing on ATMS and its musical Bohème, this chapter surveys the how the nonprofessional musical theatre landscape in local communities of Spain functions and provides insight into the relevance of linguistic and extralinguistic factors in the translation of a Broadway musical and its creative process. In contrast to the bigger professional theatre industry in Madrid, the textual, social, and cultural transposition of musicals in a community theatre is not restrained by the same financial limitations. In addition to looking at how the Broadway experience is translated in distinct ways in other Spanish contexts, the cultural complexities at the 201 artistic level also reveal some of the implications of bringing Broadway musicals to Spain at the local level. La Asociación de Teatro Musical de Sevilla La Asociación de Teatro Musical de Sevilla was born from co-founders Nacho Micheo and Jesús Feás in 2005, as an endeavor that sought to promote the musical theatre genre through theatrical productions, masterclasses, cultural events, and other participant activities. In Spain, ATMS is officially an association because they operate sin ánimo de lucro (not-for-profit) and meet an objectivo social (a social objective or purpose). Spanish “associations” most closely resemble non-profit organizations in the United States, although obtaining the financially-desired 501(c)3 stateside is much more complicated. Many community theatres in the U.S., the model most similar to ATMS, function as regular businesses years before applying for non- profit status. In contrast, large Broadway musicals are usually run as limited-liability corporations, although there are not-for-profit theatres (i.e. Roundabout Theatre) and organizations which produce musicals on Broadway.82 There is abundant research on the differences between professional and community theatre in the United States (Donahue and Patterson 2010; Rosenberg and Harburg 1993). In Spain, becoming an association requires less financial manipulation – although patience is required for the usual two- to four-month processing of bureaucratic paperwork in the country. After satisfying the three-person member minimum required by the government, ATMS was tasked with choosing the type of organization they wanted to 82. Broadway companies can be full corporations, but usually are not for financial reasons. The corporation itself is taxed on earnings and the shareholders are taxed on any dividends the corporation pays out. Earnings are, in essence, taxed twice. More importantly, corporations are unable to pass off any losses as write-offs as quickly. Broadway shows, with large potential for losses, want to be able to quickly write-off losses on their taxes. 202 create and their social objective. They were dedicated to the “creation, preparation, representation, and dissemination of musical theatre works,” so the choice to register as a cultural “association” with a defined social mission was clear (La Asociación de Teatro Musical de Sevilla, https://www.teatromusicalsevilla.com, accessed April 20, 2018). The group then registered through the different registros, or Registration Offices, in order to make their information and status public. The Ministry of the Interior of Spain oversees the National Registry of Associations, while the autonomous region of Andalucía (Sevilla’s region) and the corresponding Municipal Registry in Sevilla (city) manage their own respective registros. Proper registry gave ATMS access to the use of civic (government-run and funded) rehearsal and performance spaces, while allowing them to apply for grants and other assistance from the government. After ensuring there were no company name duplicates in the additional Mercantile/Business Registry, they were able to draft and formalize their constitution. Their constitution outlines member requirements in their constitution, officer positions and titles, voting rights, rules and duties of the association, membership fees (and corresponding Tax ID number if applicable), and other pertinent information for the financial and logistical operations of the of the group. ATMS’s broad value statement outlines objectives which are not far from the non-professional groups I have worked with in Baltimore. Their dedication centers on the work and the artistic process – and not driven by its profit-generating potential (ibid): • Somos servidores del arte. • Somos mejores cada día. • Somos currantes, no estrellas. Desde esta perspectiva, todos y todas somos protagonistas. • Trabajamos con calidad, no [tanto] con cantidad. • Aprendemos, dentro y fuera de ATMS. 203 • We are servants of art. • We get better each day. • We are hard workers, not stars. From this perspective, we are all protagonists. • We learn, inside and outside of ATMS. Capitalizing on the uniqueness of their musical theater offering, their vision statement also includes a few noteworthy points. ATMS promote themselves as “the first group to do musical theatre.” While still promising to deliver quality productions, the organization has made it a point to assert that they have no intention of becoming a professional theatre company. Their goal since 2005 has always been to serve as a reference point for other musical theatre groups while maintaining their spot as a “top, regional and amateur” theatre company. Their objective to purposely steer clear of any “insane competitiveness” in theatre seems to counter the competitive nature of the regional festivals responsible for awarding “the top, regional, and amateur groups.” More on regional amateur musical theatre festivals will be discussed in the next chapter. To fulfill their mission, their website also outlines the following commitments to their community: • La selección de obras teatrales y adaptación de las mismas al género musical y la creación de nuevas obras o espectáculos musicales. • La creación y desarrollo de uno o varios grupos de actores, actrices y técnicos. • La formación técnica y artística de sus miembros. • La planificación, programación, organización de la temporada y ensayo de la obra objeto de representación. • La participación en certámenes y festivales de teatro, así como su organización. • El establecimiento de relaciones e intercambio de experiencias con otros grupos de teatro. • Selection of theatrical works and their adaptation to the musical genre and the creation of new works or musical shows 204 • Creation and development of one or several groups of actors, actresses and technicians • Technical and artistic training of its members • Planning, programming, organization of the season and rehearsal of the chosen work • Participation in contests and theater festivals, as well as their organization • Establishment of relationships and exchange of experiences with other theater groups I would like to draw attention to specifics of the first point: “selection of theatrical works and their adaptation to the musical genre.” Listed in addition to “the creation of new works or musical works,” it conveys that their selection of the musical for the season involves either an adaptation of a theatrical piece to a musical or a new creation. It limits their selections to plays that need to be adapted to musical theatre form or to new musicals with original book and music. If that were the case, Broadway musicals would not fit into the picture as they are already existing musical theatre pieces. Their production history does sing a different tune. For their inaugural production, ATMS intended to produce a musical adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, translated and renamed as Mucho ruido y pocas nueces (a lot of noise and a little nuts). After failing to find the actors necessary to cast a musical that required so many characters, they postponed the musical and instead settled on Chicago as their inaugural musical production. I had many run ins with Chicago: el musical de Broadway all over Spain, having seen the production of it in Madrid. Chicago was already a musical show, so ATMS’s objective to adapt theatrical works into musicals was a moot point. In 2005, the company premiered the first show in the Salón de Actos (a Hall of [Official] Acts) in a local grade school. After the success of Chicago, ATMS attracted more interest in its company, including actors from other regions. It was then able to return to its initial plan to 205 produce Mucho ruido y pocas nueces. Chicago had proven the group’s ability to produce a musical and garnered the press it needed to entice others to join the organization. ATMS further developed other mostly-original Spanish devised productions, including many of which were actually musical revues comprised of songs from extant musical theatre shows. • Las plagas de Egipto (The Plagues of Egypt) was a retelling of the biblical tale in a completely original musical written and composed by ATMS. With a cast of over 60 artists, it surpassed the casting needs of Mucho ruido y pocas nueces but was still successfully staged. Coincidentally, Plagas inspired them to move forward with smaller musical formats. • MUSICAL.es was a chronological revue of musical theatre songs set to an original book. The title is a word play combining the English word for “musical” while highlighting the Spanish uniqueness of it with “.es”, the internet domain extension for websites in Spain. In the United States, a historical musical may include significant songs from shows such as Oklahoma!, West Side Story, Guys and Dolls. This song list was a reflection of contemporary musical songs and older historical Broadway tunes, or what one ATMS member called “the classics of Broadway”: o Popular (from Wicked) o Sweet Transvestite (from The Rocky Horror Picture Show) o Guido (from Nine) o Summertime (from Porgy and Bess) o The Movie In My Mind (from Miss Saigon) o La Vie Bohème (from Rent) o America (from West Side Story) o Big Spender (from Sweet Charity) o Anything I Can Do. . . (from Annie Get Your Gun) • Ordenando el cáos was a musical revue based on many of Stephen Sondheim’s musical theatre songs – from shows such as Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, and Company. • Musicals of the 21st Century included a collection of songs from musicals of this new century. • And Bohème, El Musical – known in most other parts of the world as simply Rent. 206 Figure 15. History of ATMS productions through their posters. Photo from ATMS Website. La Asociación de Teatro Musical de Sevilla, accessed April 20, 2018, https://www.teatromusicalsevilla.com. The ATMS board members, most of whom direct the productions, are self- labeled and admitted “hardcore Broadway musical fans” and their approach for the season is to choose a line of research or theme each year that can be further developed through their artist workshops. Performers select songs in the theme of the year (or are assigned songs by the directors) and a show is created through the song list by scripting an accompanying book connecting them into one story. On the surface, song choices for these “original” productions read like an interpretation of Broadway musical theatre history. However, I am not merely interested in a historical interpretation of Broadway; but rather an interpretation of Broadway as a creative process at the artistic, local level in Spain. In the four weeks that I spent with them at rehearsals, ATMS was in the midst of applying a new organizational structure to their creative process that would address the needs of their participants while maximizing its low enrollment numbers. From its website (ibid): En 2015, fruto de un profundo autoanálisis y orientados a conseguir cada vez mayores niveles de calidad artística y efectividad, ATMS crea el Taller de Teatro Musical, cuyo objetivo es trabajar desde el juego (o jugar trabajando) las tres disciplinas del teatro musical: el canto, el baile y la interpretación. También se convierte en la vía natural para la adquisición de nuevos talentos 207 que, con unos adecuados niveles de compromiso, puedan pasar a formar parte de la compañía. El trabajo de ésta última se materializa bajo la forma de un Laboratorio de Teatro Musical, un espacio y tiempo para la investigación, la experimentación y la creación artística (compaginado con las representaciones de nuestros espectáculos). In 2015, as result of an in-depth self-analysis and in hopes of achieving higher levels of artistic achievement and efficacy, ATMS creates the Musical Theatre Workshop – whose prime objective is to work through play (or play through work) the three disciplines of musical theatre: song, dance, and acting. It “also turns into a natural route through which to obtain new talents, with adequate levels of commitment, to form part of the company. The work of the (company) materializes in the form of a Musical Theatre Laboratory, a space for research, experimentation, and artistic creation (through our musical theatre stage productions). The ATMS Taller (ATMS Workshop) meets at least once a week and is comprised of members refining their skills through activities, exercises, and training methods. Workshop members are admitted every September using an admission process and they work throughout the fall/early spring to mount a showcase of their selected scenes. Using scenes selected from that season’s production choice or theme (for example, Bohème), Workshop members meet Saturday mornings and are guided by the more senior artists of the ATMS Laboratorio (ATMS Laboratory). The Laboratory is reserved for the more experienced ATMS members, chosen by members of the same group and the assigned members of the board. While the Workshop rehearses in the morning, the Laboratory members meet Saturday afternoons to rehearse the mainstage show for the season. The Laboratory members were the cast of the Bohème production that was performed for the public. Workshop members rehearsed scenes from Bohème with Laboratory members, but they were not a part of the final performance. Laboratory members are not required to be at the Workshops unless they are part of the day’s lesson plan or are teaching. During the 2014 – 2015 season, the ATMS Workshop included 13 actors and despite the required 208 20 euros per month (around $17) membership fees, the rehearsals I attended had around 50% participation. “It’s like our own Equity!” Manu joked. I was surprised he knew about Broadway’s professional union for actors and found myself thinking about ATMS as their own local, Spanish version of it. In creating an organization and sets of rules to embody their own version of Broadway, it somehow helped them establish a tactile and physical connection to their larger imagined community. According to its artistic directors, there is a structure within the group that maximizes the flow of creative freedom. The Laboratory structure allows the more trained and experienced members to guide those coming into the genre for the first time. Pure authoritarian control would stifle that freedom in their eyes. How did Bohème’s director Nono think he differed from Broadway in his process? When asked, Nono was clear about these differences: No creo que somos como el Broadway, aunque intentamos ser igual de profesionales. Hay mucho dinero, y creo más normas. Pero eso no es nuestro grupo. Somos más como una comunidad y más de las personas. No del dinero. Así podemos tomar las decisiones juntos. Y a veces es eso más orgánico. I don’t think we are like Broadway, although we try to be as professional. That’s a lot of money, there are definitely stricter rules. It’s just not who we are in this group. We are more of a community and about the people. Not really money. So we can make choices together. And sometimes that is more organic. (Nono Gándara, informal conversation with author, October 10, 2014) The process came across as more approachable, my perception may have been influenced by the more cynical experience of having worked in high-stress, competitive musical environments. I immediately thought back to a text message conversation I had with Manu about theatre in the United States. “Are all theatre people in the United States shady?” he wrote. Broadway is as capitalist as it gets, so perhaps he was on to something. 209 Although most of Sevilla was unfamiliar with the musical Rent, ATMS’s choice of translating it was not surprising. Rent is a musical hyping freedom of expression and individuality. In a city like Sevilla with so many longstanding traditions and customs, it is a likely selection for a theatre troupe hoping to bring “new” and “different” forms of artistic expression and ideas. Through their adaptation of Rent into Bohème, they were bringing a little bit of New York City 1990s cultural life and Broadway into the Sevilla of 2014. Before discussing ATMS’s cultural motivations for bringing this particular story to Sevilla, it is important to understand Rent’s cultural impact and significance in New York City and Broadway. Rent on Broadway in New York City, 1996 Loosely based on Puccini’s opera La Bohème, Jonathan Larson’s Rent brings to life the story of a group of Bohemian New York City dwellers in the 1990s coping with issues that have been seen as “threats” in any number of communities – drug addiction, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, homelessness, sexuality, homosexuality, corporate gentrification, and poverty to name a few (certainly not all-inclusive). Broadway’s rock musical version adapted the opera’s original characters to fit into the struggle of Lower East Side inhabitants of the 1990s: Roger Davis is the punk- rocker recovering addict with HIV; Mimi Marquez lives as an exotic dancer who is also a drug addict and HIV-positive; Mark Cohen, the aspiring film maker, is framed as the narrator of the musical; Angel Dumott-Schunard and Tom Collins embody the epitome of a loving homosexual couple who happen to both be HIV-positive; lesbians Maureen Johnson and Joanne Jefferson (both not HIV-positive) paint the picture of a tumultuous relationship that always makes it back to happy ground; and a supporting 210 list of secondary characters such as bag ladies, homeless wanderers, drug sellers, agents, and irritating parents that make up the world of Larson’s Rent. Like Hair a generation earlier, Rent brought a downtown sensibility uptown as it presented a group portrait of community of your people who reject the norms of contemporary society, and who express themselves in doing so in a rock-based musical idiom. (Stempel 2011, 673) Rent’s success on Broadway was largely attributed to its contemporary stories and characters, the social inclusion of often marginalized groups, and an optimism in “celebrating life in the face of death and AIDS’ all told through musically-edgy rock score” (675). The desire to connect and to strengthen community is at the forefront of the musical, as loudly rocked out by the cast of characters in the opening number of the musical’s titular song “Rent”: How can you connect In an age where strangers, lovers, landlords, Your own blood cells betray What binds the fabric together When the raging, shifting winds of change Keep ripping away. (Larson, Jonathan, 1996, Rent MTI Script, New Hartord: Skeeziks) Composer Jonathan Larson’s Rent glorified artists and the counterculture of 1990’s New York City through his re-envisioning of the opera La Bohème. In a Playbill Online article titled “The Creation of Rent: How Jonathan Larson Transformed an Idea into a Groundbreaking Musical,” early idea collaborator Billy Arson revealed that the concept was for an “idea for a Bohème for now [1990s] – for our generation that had sort of ‘noise’ and captured the un- Bohèmeness of it: not 211 sweet and not luscious.”83 Rent was a way that Larson wanted to bring in the younger audiences to the theatre. This is Hair for our generation. . . I’ve been waiting for a chance to bring the MTV generation to the theatre. Nobody goes to the theatre who likes MTV or who likes rock music, and we have to change that, and this will do it. (ibid) Rent reflected not only a more contemporary storyline and musical score, but artists and a creative process that embodied the very concepts and principles of bohemia, creating art with little to no money, rebelliousness, and originality the musical conveyed through its script. Larson’s ex-roommate Jonathan Burkhart described him as if he were speaking about one of the musical’s characters: For years, he was truly flat broke. He didn't have a fucking penny. Couldn't rub two pennies together because all he did was conduct his life so that he could barely pay the rent and just write music, so he was not aggressive towards working to make money; he was aggressive in his composition and storytelling. (ibid) Broadway in New York City was also radically transformed by Rent. An initial staged reading in 1993, followed by a two-week workshop in 1994 and full production in 1996 was unheard of for a musical composed and performed by unknowns. An Off-Broadway show at the newly opened and not-yet-iconic New York Theatre Workshop was of little appeal to Broadway actors, especially with its $300 paycheck on the initial project. Its then unknown actors – including the likes of Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal, and Anthony Rapp – have skyrocketed to fame as a result. Large Broadway musicals were suddenly outshined by Rent’s minimalist and bare set, an assortment of metal tables, chairs, and scaffolding that also embodied the 83. Michael Gioia, “The Creation of Rent: How Jonathan Larson Transformed an Idea into a Groundbreaking Musical,” Playbill Online, February 05, 2016, accessed January 31, 2019, http://www.playbill.com/article/the-creation-of-rent-how-jonathan-larson-transformed-an-idea-into-a- groundbreaking-musical. 212 idea of a more current New York City and its artists. It relied on the imagination of audiences to create the world of the musical through simply rearranging of stage furniture by the actors. The angst-ridden sounds of rock music and singing further enhanced the artistic plight of the characters. Off-Broadway was now becoming “regular” Broadway. Rent went on to win the 1996 Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The death of composer Jonathan Larson on the final night of previews Off-Broadway gave the musical an added authenticity of the musical’s main theme of living for the moment as if it were one’s last: “No Day But Today.” One student director at Dartmouth exclaimed, “I picked ‘Rent’ because it is so well known, and I hoped that that would help bring attention to both PRIDE Week and to the issues that it covers.”84 It is no surprise then that this particular musical, which hypes freedom of expression and individuality, appealed to the younger generations on Broadway, across America, and later around the world. Bohéme’s director Nono conveyed that same idea at one of our many conversations. He said, “Queremos compartir algo fuera de lo normal con los de aquí” (We want to share something out of the ordinary with people from here). The “ordinary” in this case were usual local forms of artistic expression such as flamenco, zarzuelas, bullfighting, or even Spanish pop music heard on the radio. He stressed the importance of offering something different for local artists and audiences: Nos interesa compartir algo fuera de lo normal con los de aquí – algo que tenga gran impacto. Ese es nuestro objectivo, de desafíar no solo a nuestros artistas, si no a nuestro público. 84. Trevelyan Wing, “Students Explore Sexuality, Relationships in Renowned ‘Rent’,” The Dartmouth, Dartmouth, May 24, 2011, accessed January 31 2018, http://thedartmouth.com/2011/05/24/arts/rent. 213 We’re interested in sharing something that is out of the norm for those from here – something that has great impact; that’s our objective, to challenge not only our artists, but also our audiences. (Nono Gándara, informal conversation with author, October 10, 2014) In this research, I wanted to know what they were protesting and how their messaging would come across in this Sevilla-based Spanish language version of this musical. From New York City 1994 to Sevilla 2014 Despite the number of times I have circled the picturesque riverside city, this time was a bit different. I had often experienced Sevilla through the lens of a Spaniard showing other Americans around the romantic sights – La Giralda, La Catedrál, the endless tapas bars, vintage shops, and the oft-requested flamenco haunts. From that vantage point, Sevilla felt more like a village rather than the fourth largest city in Spain – after Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia. It is a proud city; and its approximately 700,000 inhabitants are known for their blatant and unapologetic displays of overwhelming city pride while traveling outside of its borders. “Aquí viene er míarma,” (Here comes the ‘my soul’),85 you might hear a Spaniard say of a Sevillano visiting their town. I had often navigated the winding, cobblestone streets of its old Jewish Quarters, a neighborhood that seemed to oversell the traditions of this Spanish jewel around every corner. Site of three UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the famous annual Feria de Abril (Spring April Fair), and the overcrowded Holy Week religious processions, culture and art are at the heart of this capital city of Andalucía, Spain’s largest and most southern autonomous region of eight provinces. Before the 85. Er míarma is basically how a Sevillano/a might say el mi alma, which means “the ‘my soul’.” It is a term of endearment very often used by those from Sevilla. The word has even been accepted into the Official Spanish Language, as one of Andalucía’s unique dialect-specific words. As an example, a waiter might ask a customer, “Is there anything I can get for you, míarma?” 214 research began, I considered these streets and wondered how the socioeconomic context of Rent might appeal to the audiences of Sevilla. As an association, ATMS also represents the middle class of Sevilla and seeks to tell the stories that reflect them the most. Bohème’s characters are, as one ATMS member put it, “city characters like us, with problems like us – so we totally get it in Sevilla.” In fact, ATMS members are a collage of different facets of Sevilla’s working class: architects, engineers, students, teachers, stay-at-home mothers, and aspiring professional actors. During its inception, first President Nono Gándara was studying at the School of Architecture in the city and simply searching for an artistic escape, one with which he could “put his work skills to use for the good of the community” (Nono Gándara, informal conversation with author, October 10, 2014). Although the group does not live off of theatre, they pride themselves on the professionalism they bring to the table while offering a cultural benefit to the community. “I am an architect and scenic designer, we have students, dentists, engineers, and some that are even professional singers and dancers. It is a passion, but we live it as if it were our profession.”86 Culture and the arts in Spain have been greatly affected by politics and those ideologies occasionally surfaced at ATMS rehearsals, much like politics and the climate surrounding the AIDS epidemic shaped the original Rent of New York City in the 1990s. Spanish has a multiparty political system, although two major parties have shaped Spain since its transition to democracy. El Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), or the Spanish Socialists Worker’s Party, was originally founded on Marxist principles before centrally grounding itself on socialist-democratic principles. 86. Nono Gándara in an interview with Ana Díaz, “Teatro al ritmo de la música,” ABC de Sevilla Online, February 13, 2013, http://sevillaciudad.sevilla.abc.es/noticias/cerro-amate/cultura- cerro-amate/teatro-al-ritmo-de-la-musica/. 215 Promising power to the working class through socializing means of production, PSOE took its place as Spain’s ideological left. The party appealed to the liberal artistic community through legislations such as the legalization of gay marriage and adoption in 2005 by Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. El Partido Popular (PP), or The Popular Party, stands on the opposing conservative and religious end of the spectrum. Theatre took a hard hit from the PP when in 2012 they raised the cultural tax from 8% to 21%, promising a decrease to 10% in 2017. As with most artistic communities, Spanish theatre groups tend to favor the left-leaning policies of the PSOE – although today’s political climate has left most Spaniards cautiously suspicious of all parties. ATMS’s description on their website was right in line with this attitude: Bohème es un espejo donde se refleja la situación social insostenible en la que vivimos desde hace ya demasiados años (especulación, estafa, corrupción. . .); un espectáculo que, sin perder una buena carga de entretenimiento, lanza nuestro particular mensaje de protesta. Bohème is a mirror that reflects the unsustainable social situation we’ve been living through for far too many years (speculation, fraud, corruption. . . ); a ‘spectacle’ that, without losing its decent charge of entertainment, launches our very own protest message.” (La Asociación de Teatro Musical de Sevilla, https://www.teatromusicalsevilla.com, accessed April 20, 2018) The incumbent Mayor of Sevilla at the time (2014) was from the PP, conservative wing. To intentionally disassociate themselves from the political constraints and logistical complexities of the usual civic space in which they normally perform, ATMS premiered Bohéme in La Sala Fanática – an edgier, underground rock concert venue. “We had to cover those expenses, but we were able to from ticket sales. What could be cooler and more appropriate than doing a show like Bohème in La Sala Fanática,” affirmed Manu. 216 The Spanish language and culturally Spanish translation offered a space for ATMS to freely (re)codify the text to their cultural ideas. It then simultaneously justified the play’s validity by grounding its ties to the “sacred” Broadway original. Director Nono explained: Mira, hemos ganado muchos premios en los festivales, que creo que deja bien claro la visión única de Broadway que nuestra obra trae. Fíjate. Hicieron una obra profesional en Barcelona no muy bien recibida y mira el de nosotros. Eso ya lo dice todo. Our work has won some festivals, which I think speaks of our unique vision of Broadway we bring with Bohème. I mean, a professional production of it in Barcelona did not do well and we did. That says it all. (Nono Gándara, informal conversation with author, October 10, 2014) Among theatre artists in Spain (especially musical theatre), Barcelona has a history, like Madrid, of being a hotbed of theatrical innovation. Dagoll Dagom is a multimedia company based in Barcelona and it specializes in writing new musicals and bringing prominent Broadway productions like Into the Woods and Spring Awakening to Spain (although translated into the Catalán regional dialect). By emphasizing their accomplishments over Barcelona, AMTS is reinforcing the impact of the positive response of their own audiences. They recognize the association of comparing themselves to the ground-breaking artists of the Barcelona theatrical market, while simultaneously edging themselves up by touting their audience success. Their observations do not take into consideration the regional and cultural differences that may impact the reception of a musical like Rent. There are also different benchmarks for measuring success between the commercially-motivated Barcelona production and the community-led Sevilla production. At the same time, there is a parallel undertone of regional competitiveness that reflects the ongoing tensions between the Catalán region and the rest of Spain. Through this association to 217 Barcelona, ATMS is setting itself up as a main player in the Sevilla theatre scene – touting an equivalence to the larger, professional theatres of Barcelona. Here I was in Sevilla, writing an original score of my own. The night before rehearsals, I reviewed the ATMS company overview. I refamiliarized myself with their production history. I listened to Rent non-stop. I felt ready, and that next morning I was finally on my way to rehearsal of Bohémé: El Musical to observe the ATMS process of bringing Rent to life in Spanish – both on and off the stage. Gone were the roadblocks I encountered in trying to connect with Madrid’s artists. In this little city of Sevilla, I was finally able to watch Spanish artists produce a Broadway musical. My methodological and ethnographic goal was to attend simply as an observer or at most, participant observer. Previously, in theatre spaces, I had only worked as a director, performer, and a designer, and my professional experience excluded theatres in Spain. While I Spain during the last stint (2014-2018), people learned that I had both artistic and academic interest in Broadway musicals, and thus, I had on many occasions been called “Mr. Broadway” or “El Broadway” instead of just David. In this new role as ethnographer and in this new theatre context, I was fearful of being perceived as a Broadway expert. After all, I was just here to watch, listen, and learn about their own Spanish perspective on the idea of Broadway musicals like Rent. These artists were not the cliché image of a guitar-playing, flamenco-dancing Spanish artists envisioned by its tourists. I was diving into the depths of where “dedicated and non-commercial” artists worked and developed their craft – in an environment where theatre is created for passion but not profit. Little did I know they 218 would be introducing me to a whole new production – and experience – of Broadway- inspired musical theatre production and of Rent. Going Off Book: Translating Rent, a Rock Opera I had thirty-five minutes to get to the scheduled rehearsal, which had suddenly moved from a rehearsal space in the Facultad de Ciencias de Educación (College of Education Science) on the University of Sevilla’s campus to Manu’s house due to studio unavailability at the Centro Cívico. I headed up to the sixth floor of a nondescript apartment building in the bustling neighborhood of Nervion, adjacent to the tourist-infested Santa Cruz barrio. Coming off the elevator with a few minutes to spare, the faint riffs of a man’s voice wafted through the hall. Before I could make out the tune, a walking smile ornately decorated with facial hair and thick, trendy hipster glasses threw one of the sets of doors wide open. “David!” Manu sang in an accent that easily distinguished his excellent English from the many permutations of it I had grown accustomed to hearing in this part of the country. He was so thrilled, I barely had time to get a word out before I found myself sitting inside a typical shared student apartment. Two actresses and one actor were standing around an iPad singing “El Chachachá Maurí” (“The Tango Maureen”). Through Manu’s whispers I was introduced to the day’s cast of characters, who resembled the often-cast look of their Original Broadway cast characters: Dani, the lanky and studious sort of guy was Mark; the more serious Carmen sang for Joanne; and the dark, curly-haired Belén unsurprisingly played Mimi. Under apparent instruction to save their formalities, the actors promptly jumped back in to their singing session after a few brief Spanish kisses on the cheeks. I sat on the couch and watched them rehearse. 219 From the couch I observed as Manu and Dani ran through their rendition of “The Tango Maureen” (perdón, “El chachachá Maurí”) a cappella – no music, no piano, no music stands. Using only an iPad, Manu meticulously guided Dani through vocal techniques and correct singing habits via the earbuds connected to it. Unsure if the vocal lesson was for show only or part of the usual process, I was nonetheless fascinated by their unconventional ability to rehearse musical numbers and vocal techniques without a piano. In fact, at one point the men split the earbuds so they could each hear the iPad at the same time, creating their own sort of impromptu “studio booth” with conductor gestures included. I observed that the actors were not referencing musical scores. Instead, they occasionally glanced at a translated (adapted) libretto with which they could memorize the lyrics. Learning music, however, is generally by rote – you hear it and mimic it. How were they getting their musical cues? In what seemed like a logistical nightmare, Manu had sung through every male part in the production and recorded the specific vocal track for each man in the cast. Under his direction, Belén did the same for every single female part in the show. Each company member then received an individualized CD (with their own assigned solo and harmony lines) from which to copy melodies, harmonies, inflections, tones, and pitches while referencing the lyrics from their printed librettos. It was fascinating and so complicatedly different from my process in the United States. I was used to rehearsing with a pianist at every rehearsal, including community theatre. Dani must have read my mind, as he casually said to me, “No es tan difícil – porque quién no se sabe Rent?” (It’s really not that difficult, because who doesn’t know Rent?). I, for one, was completely unfamiliar with this version of it. 220 I thought I knew Rent, but I certainly did not know the new Spanish Bohème. The sound of a musical I have listened to for years sounded foreign to me in Spanish, despite my bilingual abilities. It was jarring to hear different lyrics to what have almost become cliché songs in musical theatre repertoires; uniquely Spanish words such as Don Quijote, Sancho Panza, and Madrid inserted into the number “La Vie Bohème” undoubtedly caught my attention. Translations are complicated by social and linguistic challenges, which makes it impossible for there to be any literal translations of a play, especially a musical. Word syllables must exactly match the musical notations, making it extremely difficult to fully retain intent of the original text and often forcing reinterpretations of lyrics for purely practical and musical reasons. Language differences, even within the same country, further add to the complexities of achieving the purest possible translation. Plus, foreign concepts cannot always be introduced into another culture without having a full comprehension of the nuances and history. I focus on character choices, edits, replacements, and omissions to gain insight into the ways this group interprets some of its cultural context and meaning from 1990s United States and New York to present day Spain and Sevilla. “We come to translate the foreign and we find the foreign in ourselves” (Weaver 2015, 64). More importantly, those edits reveal the ways which meaning can be altered just enough to affect meaning. In the article “Translation as Cultural Negotiation,” Sareen and Gupta warn that “the cultural embeddedness of a given literary text has to be negotiated in a manner that does not do violence or injustice to the local habitation and name, nor to the ethos and ambience which gives the source text its strength and vigor and meaning” (Sareen and Gupta 2000, 15). By unpacking these translation imbalances in 221 ATMS’s translation of Rent to Bohème, cultural differences are uncovered that reveal a redefining of the Broadway musical itself. I was initially struck by the musical’s newly “christened” name, Bohème: El Musical. Stemming from Rent’s opera-inspired source, I partly understood this as a way to capitalize on the themes and content of the musical without having to relinquish too much authorship credit to audiences who had most likely not heard of Rent. When asked why the change in title, one of the actors at the October 4th rehearsal said: En realidad, si no eres un freaki del teatro musical – lo más seguro es que no sepas nada de Rent. La gente reconoce La Bohème y además, eso da un toque un poco mas asequible. In reality, if you’re not a musical theatre freak then you probably know nothing about Rent. People recognize La Bohème and it gives it an accessible edge. Bohème: El Musical allows for the identification of the production as a musical piece, rather than risk prospective audiences thinking it is a play if simply advertised as Bohème. La Bohème is a direct correlation to the opera, as in it being “the” (La) opera. Bohème on its own also encapsulates a genre, mood, or more abstract concept – as opposed to the associations to a specific person, place, or thing that accompanies the use of the article “La” (the). In the U.S.-based version of the script, the characters are artists refusing to pay the rent in protest of the establishment, greed, and corporatization of their Lower East Side Village. Bodies are “rented” vehicles as we pass through this life, forcing the characters to make decisions to live as if there were “no day but today.” Relationships are much like rent contracts which our sets of lovers in the musical are forced to break, renew, or altogether abide by. It also illustrative of two couples’ 222 physical and emotional struggle with AIDS as they “lease” their love in unconditional ways. At the core, the four-letter word is a symbol for a generation’s anger to establishment and a passionate plea for change. Even though Bohème gives it a familiarity that perhaps makes it accessible to some audiences via associations to the opera, I questioned how the new title resonated with people in Spain. I gathered opinions about Bohème: El Musical with Spaniards outside of the ATMS circle. The responses were enlightening. Of the approximately 30 people I informally polled, around 60% of them asked if it was a version of the opera – all of them artists who were familiar with the opera and the musical Rent. Almost half of them wondered if this was a rip-off of Rent; these were unsurprisingly all musical theatre fans in and outside of the ATMS group. The non-theatrical people I informally talked to about my research wondered if I was going to see an old show or a show about artists and hippies. They were neither familiar with Rent nor the original opera that was its source. The single-word title Rent forcefully conveys the musical’s theme of protest and change. Changing Rent to Bohème not only erases the recognizable brand of the musical itself; it also has an adverse effect on the protest(ful) impact of its title. By transposing the more aggressive and confrontational title to one that inspires images of a peaceful creativity grounded in a historically-familiar concept, the translation is softening the walls of accessibility – allowing its audience to feel confident and unchallenged by the material. The very purpose of communicating protest is subdued in favor of ensuring a wider acceptance with audiences. The translation is softened to make the audience more comfortable through a familiarization of its themes and recognition of original source material. 223 In her article “Relevance and Complexities of Translating Titles of Literary and Filmic Works,” María Bobadilla-Pérez (2007) unpacks the dense complexities of translating a single title of a musical like Rent. The title of a fictional work is an integral part of the rhetoric of the whole text, and, since the whole title is unmediated by a narrative voice, it may be, in fact, as close as we come within that text to an authorial voice. The primary function of a title is to lure unsuspecting readers, or viewers, into the story presented by the author. Therefore, titles are the most imprecise, capricious and subjective component of the whole narrative. (ibid, 117) Bobadilla-Pérez explains how titles have varying functions, including the ability to clue in audience to a particular style or genre, identify characters or themes, or highlight symbolic meaning. The difficulty lies in bringing the abstract meaning of the original source into the target language through a single word (ibid, 118). The Spanish word for “rent” in Sevilla, “alquiler,” does not have the same negative connotation it does in New York City. New York City Rents are exorbitant and the cultural associations with artists’ inability to pay that rent paints a darker picture than in Spain. It is not uncommon for a Broadway actor to be paying $1500 a month for a shared apartment with two to three other actors. Sevilla’s rent is far less in comparison, even after taking into consideration the economic differences. You can easily find a shared apartment in the city for around $300. Musical theatre artists in Spanish cities (including Madrid) are more anxious about the availability of artistic opportunities than they are about the ability to find an affordable rent. The author also cites Cristiane Nord’s (1995) approach for translating titles by considering source culture and target language factors. According to Nord, three of the six steps listed are essential in title translations. The first is that the translated title must have a distinctive function that clearly differentiates it from its original source. 224 Bohème is a direct reference of the opera, drawing confusion as to the source material. Is it the opera or is it the Broadway musical? However, using Rent in a Spanish production may imply that it is not sung in Spanish; more importantly, it does not fulfill the second point. The title must be phatic, culturally-specific enough to attract its target (Spanish audience) and ensure its relevance and longevity in the culture through emotional appeal. Is Bohème accomplishing this goal if it brings up ideas of “old shows, operas, and hippies”? The third is that is has to be metatextual, somehow reflecting the conventions of the musical genre which it names. In most many cases, the phrase El Musical is added as an extension to the title to fully make it as marketable as possible. Broadway musicals with recognizable brands like Grease, Chicago, Cabaret, Mamma Mia! are not usually translated even in Spanish-sung versions of them. Perhaps Rent is not as globally recognized, so it does not have the same advantage. Other musical titles are translated to the point where its meaning is completely different from the original, like The Sound of Music to Sonrisas y Lágrimas (Smiles and Tears). I dug through a PDF of the Bohème script to dig past the title, further surprised at the amount of substantial changes made in translation (Bohème: El Musical. n.d. La Asociación de Teatro Musical de Sevilla: Sevilla, 2011). Some of the changes were expected, as the musical constraints of fitting words into notes required a little juggling of meaning. In many cases though, they retained some of the initial intent. It often involves a slight shift in meaning, but the message is the same. Take for example, the following phrase from the song “La Vie Bohème” (ibid, 20): Emotion, devotion, to causing a commotion, Creation, Vacation 225 While not a literal translation of the source text, lyrics have been modified slightly to fit the musical phrasing – while generating the same end result: Querernos, gozarnos, por escandalizarnos (love one another, enjoy each other, cause a scandal) Crearnos, pasearnos (creating one another, taking a stroll) Countless examples of near-similar translations are found throughout the script. One significant modification was adding 1,440 minutes to the year’s 525,600 in order to match the musical notations of the infamous “Seasons of Love” song. In the U.S.- based version, there are 525,600 minutes in a year, which fits perfectly into the musical notations of the score. In Spanish, the exact number would require more syllables – and therefore more musical notes. Thus, in Bohème, the number was translated to fit the musical phrasing, although not accurate in its counts of minutes in a year. Ultimately, the message is about the importance of loving every minute of your life each year – birthdays, celebrations, sorrows, etc. Accuracy was exchanged for intent and audiences are not likely to gauge calculation correctness during performance. But as a metaphor for the themes of this chapter, haphazardly adding over a thousand minutes to a year in our own personal lives would certainly be fraught with significant changes. This also brings up the relationship between culture and the practice of translation itself, not just of the text. The physical translation as an experience itself is a form of social protest; a protest that defies the legal responsibilities that come with the translation of musicals and copyright laws. Amateur theatre companies across Spain, like ATMS, adhere little – or not at all – to United States copyright or licensing laws. La Sociedad General de Autores y Escritores (The General Society of Authors and Writers, 226 hereafter SGAE) is the national office that requires the request of license permissions, even from amateur groups. Although not key to understanding the specifics of this chapter, a general overview of SGAE may be of interest to scholars wanting to know more about the organizational aspects of musical theatre licensing in Spain. Key points were selected from their website and included in APPENDIX B (La Sociedad General de Autores y Escritores, accessed May 10, 2018, http://www.sgae.es/en- EN/SitePages/index.aspx). Copyright regulations for these groups, especially in the more rural areas of Spain, are much harder to manage and enforce especially if you consider the requirements outlined by the agency: The author must first authorize the intended translation, always prior to the first performance. If the adapter requests a percentage of the copyright fees accruing from an adaptation, then agreement must be reached about the percentage and this must be documented on the corresponding record of the rights holders for the work by our helpdesk services. The authorization of the translation and the percentage requested by the adapter is done through our contracting and licensing services. (ibid) This, combined with the fact that the licensing houses for these self-produced Broadway-style shows are internationally located, makes a majority of these groups ignore licensing regulations when staging their own translations of musicals. Only when musicals step into a national spotlight do theatres fear repercussion from SGAE. Groups like ATMS are classified as amateur because it is understood that they do not make a profit, although recuperating expenses such as transportation, wardrobe, room and board, costumes, etc. Additionally, the performers are not able to be officially employed by the theatre company; they are allowed to perform without collecting any box office receipts. In the United States, musical theatre companies – professional and community – go through licensing houses like Music Theatre International or Rodgers and Hammerstein, Inc, paying royalties depending on type 227 of theatre (professional or community), number of seats, and dates of performances. Rent is licensed by Music Theatre International, managing royalties for the Jonathan Larson Estate (composer of Rent) and liaising any requests for changes in the script. In the United States, it is rare that the composers (via licensing houses) allow changes to scripts or scores, especially at the community level. In fact, there was a production of Rent at Towson University, in which the director changed the ending to let main character Mimi die. Word got back to them through online audience reactions and the production received an immediate “cease and desist” if they did not change it back to the original text. The University reverted back to the original and finished the rest of the run. The likelihood of Musical Theatre International making their way to local community theatre groups throughout Spain is unlikely, so adapting the script to specific needs is the norm. More importantly, translations of text into a different language afford a bit more leniency. I discovered this firsthand when requesting permission from a United States licensing house during a Spanish translation I was working on for Brooklyn: The Musical in Spain. I outlined the items in the show that needed to change in order to create a cultural equivalence for audiences in Spain: text changes, new locations, and rewrites of historical events that were relevant to my audience. I received permission from the licensing house for Brooklyn, as long the “intent” and “message” of the composer was not lost. I never finished the translation, so still do not yet know how they would gauge that I had satisfied their conditions. While not conscious about it, this sort of freedom from the author’s words felt somewhat transgressive; and in many ways, AMTS’s translation of Rent followed a similar path. It is was gave them the “freedom” to cut down the original musicals approximate two-and-a-half-hour running time to around one-and-a-half hours. They 228 accomplished this by not only cutting some of the songs, but also turning some of the usually-sung scenes into shortened-spoken dialogue. Making these conversions allowed them to work within the translation, without constraints of the musical notations. It also gave ATMS the freedom and flexibility to translate the musical in ways that either reinforced or hid Rent’s rebellious tone in their own Spanish communities. Translation theory and text are much more extensive than covered in this chapter, but some of the literal and technical complexities of the musical’s translation provided me insight into the relationship between text and culture during the ATMS creative process. They highlighted a complex and multifaced layer to translations – both literally and culturally. I should have known from one of my initial messenger conversations with Manu prior to making it to Sevilla. Me: LOL, jejejejejejeje. I am so not used to laughing in Spanish [via text]. I keep mixing jejejejejeje and LOL. Manu: Don’t worry, you’ll learn to live in between both worlds. You’ll have a momentary crisis of identity, but there’s nothing to worry about. I can relate to that. Me: Yeah? Manu: I was in an a cappella group, all Americans. Imagine the daily switching I had to do. Me: Well, I am from Cádiz, so when you see me, be warned that my accent is very andalú pisha!87 Manu: jejejejejejejeje LOL. I am sure you must be a very curious mix. 87. Andalú, the southern pronounciation of andalúz, means from the region of Andalucía, which means I have a Southern, noticeably thick accent. For Americans, it would be the equivalent of someone from Mississippi. Pisha, the southern pronounciation of picha, is the informal word for the male genitalia, or “dick.” However, in Cádiz it is used quite frequently as a term of endearment amongst men. Hola, Pisha! Hey man! 229 Understanding the textual implications of the translation of a Broadway musical also sheds light onto the portrayal of relationships on the stage, as reflections of how they relate to the social norms of the culture of its new audience. (Re)Casting Roles on the Stage The translation of a full-length Broadway musical like Rent by ATMS provides more than just a chronological analysis of musical theatre history. It creates a new cultural score for the artistic implications of translation during the creative process of these musicals. Through this translation of Rent, ATMS incorporated a series of cultural modifications in the text to attempt to recreate the general vibe, spirit, and mood of the original Broadway production while giving it a Spanish flavor. There is a cultural hybridization that inherently occurs in the linguistic translation, shaped by local and national influences like religion, politics, culture, and even family life. More specifically, “current geopolitical inequalities are directly mirrored in translation, and a more attentive look at global linguistic flows reveals the basic asymmetries and inequalities that are an important feature of globalization” (Bielsa 2014, 393). In the U.S.-based version of the musical Rent, the song “The Tango Maureen” is sung by the pseudo-narrator Mark and his ex-girlfriend’s new lesbian lover. It is a song about the tensions and hilarity that come from having a lover in common, while also contrasting the heterosexual and homosexual versions of the relationships shared by the one common lover (Maureen). In the ATMS version, the character was named Maurí and was played by Manu. From the couch I observed as Manu and Dani ran through their rendition of “The Tango Maureen” (perdón, “El chachachá Maurí”). 230 Two men rehearsing a song meant to be played between a lesbian woman and a heterosexual male triggered a series of unexpected questions: did they change this to conform to the prevalent Spanish traditions? What other liberties did they take in their translation of relationships on the stage? Would these new translations articulate the way the group constructs their identity, particularly from a gender perspective? Throughout the four weeks of my observations period with ATMS, I learned that it was less about what the translation was saying than it was about what it wasn’t saying. “Translation should be a critical act…creating doubt, posing questions to the reader, recontextualizing the ideology of the original text (Levine 1991, 3). The strategies of groups producing art under similar circumstances may prove to be just as insightful for identifying trends in the construction of identity. In Feminizing the Enemy: Imperial Spain, Transvestite Drama, and The Crisis of Masculinity, Sidney Donnell (2003) focuses on the denaturalization of gender, class, and ethnicity in early 16th century comedias of Spain. By exploring how gender-role reversals on the stage comment on sexuality, patriarchy, and homosocial relationships off of the stage, Donnell traces theatrical constructions of gender as they relate to their cultural moment. As long as we take into account that patriarchies themselves change across time in direct relation to the contingency of gender identity, we can examine the ways in which [performance] contests specific aspects of patriarchal negotiations and renegotiations in [different] eras. (ibid, 274) Jonathan Larson’s intent was to give a voice to his underrepresented characters and often looked-down-upon communities. It is the same very same protest ATMS aimed to materialize in through their production of Bohème. 231 Reconceptualizations of traditional gender roles occur in the subtle rewrites to several of the characters. Roger (now called Rober), instead of a rock rebel expressing his anger and frustration through music, is now a painter. Changing his profession, according to the actor playing him, made him “más delicado y más emotive; menos rábia. . . y así no parece que está intentando picar a todos los que vienen” (Way more gentle and emotional; less angry. . . it doesn’t seem like he is trying to pick a fight with everyone who is coming [to see the show] (Juan Pablo Romero VI, informal conversation with author, October 10, 2014). The actor was confident that, as a leading man in a musical, he should not come across as aggressive. He added, Es una historia de amor y su habilidad de hacer que Mimi se de cuenta de la importancia de su relación. Encima, es más fácil tragarte que se enamore de un pintor antes que con un músico rebelde que es idéntico a él. It’s about the love story and his ability to make Mimi see the importance of their relationship. Plus, it’s more believable for her to fall for a painter than rebel musician who is just like her. Meanwhile, the actress playing Mimi silently nodded along in agreement as he spoke. Roger’s character in Rent is a rebellious rocker, “going against the grain” and falling in love with someone that is equally outside of the mainstream conventional norms of 1990s New York City. Rather than reinforce the transgressive and rebellious rock character, Bohème’s newly written Rober reinforces traditional patriarchal norms of the Spanish male. His painter profession is more in line with some of Spain’s most iconic and romantic leading male stereotypes: the graceful, yet brave bullfighter; the womanizing, but creatively frustrated painter; and even the passionate, yet almost feminine flamenco dancer. It does not stray far from stereotypical representations of the Spanish male in literature and culture. 232 Mimi, on the other hand, is still a rocker, which only serves to highlight the need for Rober (the patriarchy) to save Mimi from herself. At the same time, Rober has also usurped the sensitive, caring role of the relationship – allowing masculinity to be bounce back and forth while adhering to traditional Spanish constructs. Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1999) reinforces this adherence to traditional patriarchal norms through her discussion of the active/passive heterosexual division labor. The male is not the subject of sexual objectification, which has been accomplished by rewriting Roger’s rock-associated sex appeal to the subtler and “intellectually-attractive” painter. As a painter, Rober’s is also the creator of the image and story – along with Mark – painting and filming pictures that the audience takes in as the most important narrative in the story. Rober in ATMS’s Bohème is there to save Mimi from drugs, insecurity, and herself. As per Mulvey, “the active male figure demands a three-dimensional space corresponding to that of the mirror- recognition in which the alienated subject internalized in his own representation of this imaginary existence. . . The male protagonist is free to command the stage, a stage of spatial illusion in which he articulates the look and creates the action” (ibid, 838-839). The most significant rewrites occurred with the homosexual relationships: Angel and Collins; and Joanne and Maureen. The first relationship includes a fun- loving and always positive drag queen, Angel, who embodies the goodness that appeals to the hearts of the musical’s audiences. This love is coupled with Collin’s generous and equally likeable character. The gay couple forms a dynamic duo that is a textbook outline of a strong relationship: they love each other, they make each other laugh, they are madly in love, and they bring joy to others around them; even if they 233 are both HIV-positive. “What accounts for Rent’s success has to do in large part with its contemporary story, its sense of social inclusion, its optimism in ‘celebrating life in the face of death and AIDS,’ and its ingratiating soft-rock score” (Stempel 2011, 675). However, in Bohème, Toni and Angel’s illness was removed from the script all together. In the first scene where they meet, Angel tells Toni that he should join him tonight at a Life Support Meeting. Angel: Tengo un poco de prisa, voy a una reunión de Apoyo Vital. . . pero vamos antes a que te curen eso, que no tiene buena pinta. . . Toni: ¿Apoyo Vital? Angel: Sí, para gente con SIDA. . . eeeeeeh, les echo una mano. Toni: Ya, ya. . . te entiendo. . . Angel: I am in a bit of a hurry, as I am going to a Life Support meeting. . . but let’s first go get you [wound] healed, it doesn’t look too good. . . Toni: Life Support? Angel: Heeeeey, I lend them a hand. Toni: Yeah, yeah, I understand. (Bohème: El Musical. n.d. La Asociación de Teatro Musical de Sevilla: Sevilla, 2011, 11) This was Angel’s way of clarifying that he was not the one with AIDS. He is making it clear he only goes to lend a hand. “Without You,” a song which normally shows the quick progression of Angel’s disease, is absent. “Contact,” which is Angel’s anguished cry of death embedded in a song about the dangers of casual, unprotected sex is also gone. More shockingly, his death from AIDS is replaced by a death from a gunshot, as he jumps in front of the bullet meant for Mimi. Manu tells me about this: 234 It’s more believable for people here [to have him die of a gunshot]. Plus, AIDS is not something that had as much an impact here as it did in New York, so we wanted to be sure it was something people thought was really possible. Plus, we’re giving them enough with their relationship and don’t want to distract from the main message. They were avoiding the association of any negative ideas with the homosexual nature of the relationship; omitting AIDS would avoid reinforcing stereotypes Spanish audiences may have about homosexuality. “We also don’t want to reinforce the ideas they may already have of gays – and make it a negative focus,” explained Manu. The cheerful and seemingly more authentic relationship, however, can only be accepted through the death of one of its characters – and in a way that is acceptable to the dominant discourse of the audience. In this version, Angel must die in sacrifice for Mimi and Rober’s relationship, whose extremely conflicted and HIV-positive relationship ultimately survives in the end. And what of Manu and Dani’s earlier rehearsal of “El chachachá Maurí”? In Rent, the song is emblematic of Joanne’s complex relationship with her girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend Mark. Rent includes the perspective of a lesbian couple and how they co-exist with other heteronormative and homosexual relationships in their circle. While Joanne’s character was not originally translated to be played by a male actor in Bohème, actor availability forced a major rewrite that included changing lesbian Joanne into the heterosexual male Joán prior to production. Once again, homosexuality is replaced with heterosexuality in a clear erasure of lesbian and feminist themes. There were other females available in the ensemble of the cast, but it was deemed necessary and appropriate for the continued survival of the production. It was justification enough for Nono, Bohème’s director, who asserted that “Manu puede hacerlo mejor que qualquiera de las chicas en el elenco, así que es mejor para 235 la interpretación,” (Manu can do it better than any of the girls in the ensemble, so it’s best for the part). This is another way they were usurping the female perspective in favor of the male embodying the role. They did, however, intentionally make it a bit more “foreign” to audiences by changing the name to Joán. Explained Director Nono, “Elegimos ese nombre porque es de Barcelona, entonces es un poco extranjero y fuera de lugar,” (We chose the name because it’s from Barcelona, so it’s foreign and a bit out of place). The insinuation here is that Joanne’s lesbian character is a bit of a “foreign” concept, so this was a way to equate it to their audiences in a similar way. “The lesbian subject cannot escape the anxiety of any subject or its potential to shift and change” (Fåhraeus, 2008, 83). Giving the character a foreign name would, in their eyes, bring the anxieties back into the character that they felt were now lost due to eliminating the lesbian character. When asked if the gender roles could be switched to make Marco a woman, the director’s answer was a bit less negotiable. He explained, “Bueno, eso no se puede hacer. Eso desbordaría toda la trama y no tendría ningún sentido,” (Well, you can’t do that. It would just throw off the whole plot and wouldn’t make sense). Mark’s character was probably the simplest to rewrite, since in the original musical, he is unattached and his career as filmmaker is easily identifiable with both men and women. This actually would have been a better chance for ATMS to challenge heteronormative barriers. Rent’s main characters Mark and Roger are both white and male – two traits that have long been the antithesis of diversity. In the musical, Mark sings: “The filmmaker cannot see, and the songwriter cannot hear.” How is the world of an ethnically and racially diverse group of Bohemians supposed to be framed from the viewpoint of these two white characters? 236 While Larson’s goal was to “exalt[s] ‘Otherness’, glorifying artists and counterculture as necessary to a healthy civilization,” the framing of the narrative within Mark and Roger’s characters automatically enhance the ‘Otherness’ of its remaining characters, further wedging a gap within the very same community Rent claims to strengthen (Stempel 2010, 673). “It is through the simulation of a narrow, conventional field of perspective in which the premises and the consequences of an act or of an event can be calculated, that a political credibility can be maintained” (Baudrillard 1994, 16). It was ATMS’s chance to reinforce the idea of a diverse, all-inclusive community through intentional translation strategies. ATMS had hopes of using Bohème to convey relationships on the stage that convey inclusion in community, by reflecting nontraditional couples and relationships which challenge established norms. Rent itself, however, has already been critiqued for doing just the opposite. One professor’s perspective included the relativity of homosexuality and inclusion in community: . . . a fake public homosexuality has been constructed to facilitate a double marketing strategy: selling products to gay consumers that address their emotional need to be accepted while selling a palatable image of homosexuality to heterosexual consumers that meets their need to have their dominance obscured . . . While fake stories about AIDS that make straight people feel good are the most public narrative, reaping huge financial rewards, Oscars, Pulitzers and whatnot, real gay people and real people with real AIDS are on an entirely different consumer pipeline, invisible to straight people . . . (Schulman 1998, 146) The relationships examined in the translation of Bohème showed some of the ways which affect the construction of identity and (re)negotiation of traditional roles in communities. From a mere title change to character shifts and situational alterations, Bohème set out to challenge the community, but instead largely found 237 itself scripting out dominant heteronormative narratives. The very same roles which were meant to be given a voice in Rent were hidden in ATMS’s protest-ful Bohème. In the midst of theatre analysis, my ethnographic research approach also revealed other interesting processes that accompanied the act of art-making. I began to ask: how was this rehearsal process organized and who were its leaders? What did the organizational structure reveal about local social constructs (who made the rules)? And how did the artists’ relationships off the stage reflect the cultural norms of its community – both locally and nationally? I believed that these two questions were also important to understand how musical theatre was developing in Spain as a workplace. Civic Musical Embodiment Several of the rehearsals were at El Centro Cívico en Sevilla. On those Saturdays, rehearsals went from nine in the morning to early evening – almuerzo (lunch) and siesta included. To go to my first full company rehearsal with them, I jumped into a taxi. It was at yet another place outside of my usual spots, just far enough from the glow of The Giralda to where tourists never set foot, but close enough where its residents can still claim to live in its center. Manu reassured me that, “Esta en el centro todavía,” affirmed Manu. “Cerca de donde te mueves. No te preocupes,” (It’s in the center still. Close to where you frequent. Don’t worry). Residential avenues dominate that part of the map as do the coffee shops that overflow each morning with the working class of the city. If the cab had not dropped me off at the front door, I may still be looking for it. The tan, brick, and uniform buildings give the immediate impression that you are at some sort of institutional complex. The series of state-sponsored storage facilities with tiny slits for windows to 238 circulate air somehow give it away. If it weren’t for the multiple sport courts, track fields, and bleachers in the vicinity, one would never guess that this is (one of) the city’s civic cultural centers. The rehearsal was in the Center’s Sala de Actos (Hall of Acts). The dirty exterior and somewhat abandoned streets of the warehouse area gave way to a surprisingly clean and functional two-story marble interior that was eerily still and vacant. I could not find an information desk or reception area, so it took some guesswork to find out which of the green double doors led to the rehearsal. I made my way upstairs to the sudden sounds of musical scales and pushed the doors open to reveal 140 green-padded chairs facing a 20-feet wide by 10-feet deep proscenium stage. Framed by lighting rigs holding just a few theatre lamps, it was obviously a temporary stage that had over time become a more permanent fixture of the room. It reminded me of those Italian state halls I lectured about in my Theatre History courses. I felt somewhat gratified about this publicly-funded space, amazed that the scarcity of government funds still gave way to accessible centers for artists at no cost. Or perhaps I was simply intrigued by the fragility of the theatre business: a theatre should be flexible enough to be dismounted and become something else for the good of the people. Unlike Broadway or U.S. community theatres, ATMS’s status as an association does subtly ground them to the political philosophies of Sevilla. As an association, the troupe has access to rehearse in the centro cívico (civic center) at no cost to the group. Funds for staffing, building maintenance, and operations are allocated from the city’s budget. Even community theatres in the United States are 239 faced with pressures of securing rehearsal and performance spaces88. “This space is not bad, and best of all it’s free,” explains Manu. “Besides, with the types of shows we do – like Bohème – we wouldn’t want to be in a big fancy theatre or concert hall.” I understand his statement, as civic centers are a symbol of the culture of the working class and its state. In Sound, Space, and the City, Marina Peterson (2010) frames the civic space as downtown performances of the city. The term “civic subject” marks a critical terrain of subject formation related to citizenship that is also fundamentally of the city. With citizen understood as the relationship of subjects to the state, “civic” situates this membership in the city. The city has taken on a privileged role as a site for the production and negotiation of the terms of national citizenship. (ibid, 8) Zarzuelas, opera houses, and the larger, ornate theatres have long been associated with the higher classes or aristocracy. I immediately sensed the idea of community the minute I walked through the doors of the center and their rehearsal of Bohème in this public space further embodied the idea of a musical for and by the community. The socialized disposition of resources is fraught with its fair share of disadvantages. As civic centers are a community space, availability is never guaranteed and is dependent on any number of factors. Other associations may request the hall for an event, conflicting with an important technical rehearsal. The local government may cancel a rehearsal or performance at the last minute, unable to allocate the specific resources required to open the facility. One Saturday, a Bohème rehearsal was canceled and ATMS turned to a local theatre group’s private space for 88. Community theatres associated with universities, colleges, or churches are somewhat different. As resident companies in those institutions or organizations, they are not directly burdened with the pressures of securing rehearsal and performance spaces. They may, however, have parts of their budget allocated to the space and their board/management members are usually part of the larger institution as well. 240 the evening. They were lucky they were even notified in advance. In an interview for El ABC de Sevilla, Nono Gándara explains: Es complicado, encontrar los medios técnicos suficientes o un espacio escénico, pero poco a poco vamos intentado hacer acopio del material necesario para un musical. Es un género que tiende más al espectáculo, a la mezcla de esas tres disciplinas, con lo cual, en ese sentido, tiene un plus de atractivo sobre un espectáculo convencional. It’s complicated though, finding sufficient technical means or space - but little by little we gather the things we need to mount a musical. It’s a genre that depends on spectacle, and the mixing of all three disciplines, which in that aspect makes it more attractive than just a conventional spectacle.89 The answer I got from many of ATMS’s members and from artists throughout Spain about theatre and government: “Too many politics.” In the original English version of Rent, Maureen protests “losing her performance space” by having a public performance protest through which she directly confronts authority and corporate establishment. Unlike the artists in Rent, ATMS artists conformed to the financial and political restrictions of their performance and rehearsal. In Rent, the artists are also protesting the commercial aspects of art and hierarchical powers that inhibit their freedom to create. Putting on a Broadway-based musical like Bohème however, requires the collaboration of producers, directors, designers, actors, choreographers, and administrators. The true meaning of ‘American musical theatre’ in its recent origins and early development until today is synonymous with New York Broadway theatre, and like any large-scale commercial enterprise, Broadway show biz requires strong management. (Rosenberg and Harburg 1993, 6) The musical creative process relies on a structural organization which clearly define roles and responsibilities within the artistic scope of the project. On 89. Nono Gándara in an interview with Ana Díaz, “Teatro al ritmo de la música,” ABC de Sevilla Online, February 13, 2013. 241 Broadway, power shifted from single director or producer to “corporate troikas” (ibid, 7). However, despite ATMS’s somewhat decentralized artistic process there is still an inherent top-down hierarchal structure that dominates the musical theatre process of the group in Sevilla. ATMS are also less restrained professional companies by the financial tensions of producing, which gives them more freedom to encourage audience purpose and be a “space of consent, a space safe for difference and a space where difference is made safe. Personal identifications with particular kinds of musical forms creates commonalities under a sign of universal “music” (Peterson 2010, 106). Creating their own structural organizations and hierarchies allows ATMS them to set up their own controls and norms without actually disrupting the order outside of the organization. However, to think in unison also means to make boundaries which delineates who is in and who is out – often through ATMS’s type of formalized membership. This freedom to create a space for difference is now lost through the formalization of their membership structure. In these extracurricular memberships, “freedom of choice, while being greater than in the past, is not complete. . . The power of those setting up the norms of inclusion and exclusion determines access, and in so doing, impacts upon life-chances and aims” (Guibernau 2013, 32). Those in power create the rules – and punishments – which opens the door to the question of power and its relationship to the construction of membership. Exclusion through both financial obligations and assessment of artistic skills (Workshop versus Laboratory) is the very antithesis of the spirit of Rent’s revolution against corporations and exclusion in community. 242 Belonging to the ATMS community did create a sense of familiarity, as if it were a second home. Many ATMS members said they spent more time with their colleagues than they did in their families, so it only seemed natural for them to make creative decisions as a collectively. In one of the large staging rehearsals, director Nono questioned a few of the actors’ entrances. “Os parecéis a un montón de bailarinas entrando en escena. ¿Dónde están los vecinos?” (You look like a bunch of dancers coming into the scene. Where are the neighbors?). For the next fifteen minutes there were discussions, comments, and suggestions for new staging options. Having been a director, I was impressed Nono was so inclusive in his process. This could get way out of control if an entire musical had to be “directed by committee”, I thought to myself. Perhaps this democratization of the creative process was a reflection of the socialized ideology of its community. It was certainly a reflection of the collaborative spirit and message of the original Rent. “You do this as a group for all rehearsals?” I asked the actor playing Collins. He quickly snarked back, “No vamos a ser como el PP, no?” (We are not going to be like the PP, are we?). It was a less-than-subtle dig at the conservative political party. However, decentralized the process though, decisions were nonetheless ultimately approved and finalized by the board/senior members. “The ability to fashion a hierarchy (cultural or otherwise) and police its boundaries is far more important than the specific content” (Knapp, Morris, and Wolf 2011, 241). Once again, the chance to set up a truly collective creative process that embodied the spirit of Rent was usurped by a team of creative decision makers at the top of a power structure. Additionally, one cannot overlook the significance of ATMS as an association occupying a civic space. Through their very constitution as an 243 organization and their mission, they have promised to be a producer and keeper of cultural patrimony. Patrimony is a system in which power and resources are distributed and organized around a single head of household or government, in this case Sevilla and Spain. Historically in Spain, this power distribution has been exclusively at the privilege of masculine authority or power. As Nira Yudal-Davis notes in The Politics of Belonging (2011), Every political project of belonging generates its own intersected constructions… the mere heteronormative constructions of ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’ as complementary opposites have detrimental effects on women’s powers and autonomy, let alone completely excluding the experiences and values of sexual minorities. (ibid, 192) No sociological journal exists in Spain and any woman studying gender in the country is viewed as a feminist, in a negative context (Valiente 2002). In fact, most studying gender in Spain are women and they are mostly viewed as being feminists – and being feminist in Spain is “being a feminist is regarded negatively by society and by the academic world" (ibid, 3). In order to understand how these dynamics play out in the ATMS space, I had to determine the ways this Spanish translation of a Broadway musical was brought from the script and into the creative process. During their creative process for Bohème, I observed how ATMS scripted their version of Broadway into the bodies of actors through the rehearsal process. I discovered that the creative process was controlled by the relationship social order, gender roles, and the existing heteronormative power structures inherent in the idea of Broadway. Broadway, after all, was built on the seeds of the American Dream and founded on the principals of capitalism – partly at the expense of the objectification of the feminine. 244 A small article in El Diaro de Sevilla newspaper highlighted the caution necessary in culturally transferring an art form that comes loaded with a history of these imbalanced power structures. In an article titled, “Un pequeño Broadway en Sevilla,” the company was lauded for breaking ground by telling a musical history (but not Spanish, or of their own) through the perspective of a woman: Un aplauso para la joven Asociación de Teatro Musical de Sevilla y sus miembros, que llevan más de cuatro años impulsando un pequeño Broadway en la ciudad. Porque esta modesta compañía ha estrenado ya su cuarto proyecto, con un título que es una declaración de intenciones: MUSICAL...es. ¿Qué es el musical? Es la pregunta cuya respuesta se busca en esta obra a través de un viaje por la historia del siglo XX, contada a través del musical, por supuesto, y desde el punto de vista de una mujer. Nono Gándara es el director escénico de esta obra. . . Applause for the young Association of Musical Theatre of Sevilla and its members, who have spent over four years propelling a little Broadway in the city. It’s because this modest company has already launched their fourth project, with a title that reveals its intentions: Musical…es. What is a musical? Is it the question that they hope to answer in this production through a musical journey of the 20th century, told from the perspective of a woman. Nono Gándara is the director of this piece. . .90 In an attempt to break through Spanish conventions on feminism with their performance of Musicales, a dominant social-cultural hierarchy still inadvertently prevailed. Framing the musical through the perspective of a woman showed awareness of the cultural intersections at stake; yet keeping a male director at the helm somewhat subverts the intent of telling the story through the eyes of a woman. The cultural norms of the community directly influence the creative process and result. I set out to observe the scripting of Broadway bodies during the ATMS rehearsal process, seeking the ways the Spanish group used Bohème to challenge or further reinforce the firm ground upon which Broadway’s very own history stands. 90. “Un pequeño Broadway en Sevilla,” n.d. 2011, El Diaro de Sevilla Online, June 16, 2011, accessed April 23, 2018, https://www.diariodesevilla.es/vivirensevilla/pequeno-Broadway- Sevilla_0_488051263.html. 245 Scripting Spanish Broadway Bodies ATMS rehearsals were living dioramas representing the different social roles men and women occupied at rehearsals – or within the organization. Several of those people already populated the theatre – four sitting house left, two sitting house right, and one sitting on the stage. Manu and Dani were also there plunking out notes at the piano. This time at a real piano. I felt out of place, mostly because I was not participating in pre-rehearsal rituals I recognized from my days as a performer: the chatter while stretching, the milling about sorting through snacks, the individual warm-ups, and the killing of time while waiting for someone to initiate the day’s activities. There was an excited energy in the room, as if it were opening night. They only meet once a week, so I know all too well the amount of pent up energy ready for release at the one rehearsal. For those who worked other jobs, the intensity simply accumulated until that exhilarating weekend rehearsal. I suspected they also slightly turned up the “professionalism” and pre-rehearsal rituals in anticipation of my arrival, ready to proudly display their abilities artists putting on a Broadway musical show. Women stretched in dance tights and tank tops with their hair pulled back. Men practiced dance moves in cut off t-shirts and rolled up sweat pants, a few sporting the obligatory rehearsal hoodie. Was I at a rehearsal of Chorus Line? Most clothing sported the ATMS logo, but a few were adorned with Broadway musical brands like a Wicked hat and a Chicago T-shirt. At a large table in the corner, a woman collected money from one of the actors in exchange for a written receipt (for what I later learned were membership fees). The room was its own sort of Broadway ecosystem, its inhabitants each playing their role in this organized world of musical creation. 246 Organizationally, the actors’ “playing space” at ATMS was established on a foundation that parallels Broadway’s male-dominated landscape. At its core, ATMS was founded in 2005 by two men with an artistic vision that included Chicago in its programming. While most likely due to its success and their association of it to Broadway, the sexual appeal of it was not lost on any of its members years later. “It was one of the sexiest shows Sevilla has probably seen. I mean, look at our talent in this group.” The actor from the group was of course commenting on the physical aspects of the actors around us, about which half happen to be female. Sociologist R.W. Connell, best known for her studies in masculinity, posits that there is no such thing as a single concept of masculinity. Instead, masculinities exist in different variations – according to positions of power. According to Connell, most men (and women) engage in a reinforcement and protection of the image of hegemonic masculinity and its associated gender hierarchies (Connell 2005). Most of the artistic leadership team were positions held by men during the production of Bohème. In fact, at the time, the only female on the primary production team was relegated to costume designer. Costume design is a role often associated with women in the theatre industry. It is interesting to note that although their current board members are mostly made up of women, most of those board members are not involved in the artistic team of their most current stage production. It is almost as they have been confined to the administrative function for the theatre; an aspect which seems almost non-existent for an organization that mainly only works and meets during artistic events. At one of the rehearsals, a woman gathered membership fees from the actors, and they made sure I was aware that she was ATMS’s secretary. One actor whispered to me, “Es como una madre. Nos cuida,” (She’s like a mom. She 247 takes care of us). The membership fee gatherer smiled as she handed some actors a few snacks. Classic social role theorist Irving Goffman posits that roles are the foundation of socialization. He acknowledges the many forms of “self” – the school self, the home self, the work self, and the church self. They are separate but interrelated by the roles, allowing for individual players to participate or distance themselves based on how they play out those roles. The self is a ceremonial thing through which contradicting role-sets play out (Goffman, Lemert, and Branaman 1997, 30). Furthermore, Goffman notes that “sex is at the base of a fundamental code in accordance with which social interactions and social structures are built up, a code which also establishes the conceptions individuals have concerning their fundamental human nature” (ibid, 199). But these gender displays can also, like many rituals, “iconically reflect fundamental features of social structure…counterbalance substantive arrangements and compensate for them” (ibid, 224). A playing space has been created which influences the perspectives and behaviors of those within it. Broadway musicals are then “scripted” into the bodies of actors through the scores, text script, the choreography, and rehearsal interactions. The rehearsal process gave me a glimpse as to ways ATMS scripted their own creative process with the actors, revealing the similarities and differences from the creative processes of rehearsing Broadway musicals in the United States. Broadway musicals are bound to the preciseness and accuracy of a composer’s musical notations and a librettist’s or playwrights text portions of the musical. In scores translated into Spanish, performers are equally bound to the musical notations dictated by the Broadway version of the musicals. It was difficult to find a professional musical score, since scores sent out to Spanish theatre groups by 248 the United States-based licensing houses are not translated. They appear in original English and the Spanish translators generally white out the English text below the musical notations and write in the translated Spanish text. Figure 16 shows a page from the professional score used for the production of Cabaret in Madrid (which I received as part of a callback for this production). Notice the original English words are whited-out and the new Spanish words are written in directly underneath it. The choice of translated Spanish lyrics are limited by the musical notations of the score. 249 Figure 16. Musical selection from an audition side for SOM Produce’s Cabaret, showing practice of writing in the lyrics directly into the English- published score. Kander, John and Fred Ebb. 1966. “I Don’t Care Much.” Short musical selection from Cabaret. New York: Alley Music Corporation and Trio Music Company. 250 The ATMS scripts used in Bohème were different than I was accustomed to during my creative experiences in the United States. In the United States, a musical score with the accompanying libretto and dialogue of the show are provided in one published rehearsal book. These rehearsal books are rented out to the theatres by the licensing houses for the duration of rehearsals. Each actor receives their own book and they are returned at the end of the rehearsal, or a fine is incurred with its loss. As mentioned earlier in the chapter, Bohème had no musical score of its own and instead relied on actors learning the music through the CDs created by Manu. Hearing the sung vocal lines on the recordings allowed the actors to memorize and mimic the sounds given to them by the musical director. An accompanying script with the Spanish lyrics and text portions of Bohème served as a physical memorization tool for the actors. See Figure 17 for a page from the Bohème script, showing the ending of the song “¿Cómo Pagaremos?” (the Spanish translated version of the song known as “Rent” in the original English-based production). 251 Figure 17. Libretto and dialogue page from the ATMS script for Bohème. Bohème: El Musical. n.d. La Asociación de Teatro Musical de Sevilla: Sevilla, 2011. The most significant and notable differences in the scripting of the Broadway musical for the actors was in the musical notation itself. In Spain, they use a Latin- 252 based musical notation as opposed to Broadway’s (and the United States) Anglo- Saxon format. The Anglo-Saxon scale uses letters for notes while the Latin-based musical notation uses different phrasing (ironically made popular in the United States through the musical The Sound of Music). The following shows the musical note equivalents between the two countries: In the United States. . . In Spain. . . C Do D Re E Mi F Fa G Sol A La B Si C Do For the musicians and musical director of Bohème, the musical notations were written in the Latin-based form and not on a musical scale. Figure 18 shows the Spanish musical notation process for Bohème, as well as a zoomed-in detailed look at the last verse of “¿Cómo Pagaremos?” 253 Figure 18. Photo from the musical director’s annotations for Bohème. AMTS, 2014, Sevilla. Photo by author. 254 The photo above shows the last verse of the song in the script, which coincides with the following text: ¡No pasarán – es nuestro plan! Nunca pagaremos. . . Nunca pagaremos. . . Nunca pagaremos. . . . . .alquiler. . . . . .alquiler. . . . . .alquiler. . . Nunca pagaré el alquiler, No pienso pagar alquiler, Hoy todo es de alquiler. Instead of writing the notes on a scale, AMTS wrote out the Latin-based notes for each of the characters: Marco: Do4, Si3, La Rober: Mi4, Re4, Re4 Chicos 1: Re4, Mi4, Re4 Chicos 2: Re4, Mi4, Re4 Chicas 1: La, Si, La Chicas 2: F#, So, Fa# Without visualizing this on the scale, it means that the actors or readers must understand their musical pitches a bit more inherently than one might when seeing where notes fall on a scale in reference to other notes on that same scale. The Spanish musical notation above also includes notes like Do4. The number identifies the octave where it sits on the piano. For example, a Do4 is a middle C in the United States. Figure 19 shows where Latin-based notations fall on the musical scale, as well as the octave location on the piano. 255 Figure 19. Above, Latin-based musical notations on the piano and scale. Below, are octave locations on the piano (in Anglo-Saxon notation). Images from Shutterstock. While this dissertation is not focused on musical theory, seeing the difference in the “musical language” used by ATMS to annotate their music shows a deviation from what is normally used on Broadway. A difference in “musical language” scripted this translated Broadway score into a language used by the artists of ATMS. Based on my experience and despite having performed in this musical in the United States, their script was suddenly foreign to me. The musical notations alone made it a uniquely Spanish version of a Broadway script. It was not lost on me that the male vocal parts are written in after the leads but before the female vocal parts on the ATMS score. In the United States and in most choral arrangements, the music is 256 arranged (and often taught) from the higher (and usually melody-carrying voices) first to the lower voices last. This dynamic has been switched at the Bohème rehearsal process, and in fact, many of the vocal lines have been swapped between the genders – so that the melodies usually carried by women are now sung by the men. Music has been discussed as “a dynamic mode of gender” (Taylor 2012). In Reflections on Meaning and Its Representations, L. Treitler (2011) discusses music as “a marker of sexual identity” through which musical signs are gendered as a result of codes embedded in musical gestures that condition their message. Vocal pitch and style can therefore take on masculine or feminine traits, as well as indicate sexual orientation. Actor languages for rehearsals were not only limited to music. The choreography, created specifically by an ATMS choreographer for this Spanish production, was also transcribed into a unique script with its own customized language. See Figure 20. It gave ATMS a unique sense of ownership over the moments of its actors, and they were also movements that differed from the original Broadway production. The choreographer explained to me that it helped everyone stay within his vision for the show, in case he was not around during rehearsals. I was present for a subsequent rehearsal where another female cast member was responsible for reviewing the scripted dances and movements the choreographer had designed for the cast. Much like the music, there was little room for variation and the artistic content of each was dictated by the creative leaders of ATMS. Manu remarked to me one day at rehearsal that this type of dedication to notation was exactly what made them “stand out from other companies and be more like Broadway shows.” 257 Figure 20. The choreographer’s “script” for movement he created for La Bohème AMTS 2014, Sevilla. Photo by author. 258 The transformation of ATMS actors into their versions of Broadway bodies was also significantly revealed during their physical interactions with each other, sometimes conflicting with the themes ATMS aimed to spread with their production of Bohème. Theatre performers are often less physically inhibited with each other than in other work spaces. Physical contact is regularly heightened between the actors who work closely together in rehearsal spaces – mostly during extended breaks. A particular familiarity is developed in the required physicality of theatre, especially through the musical and physical interactions of regular rehearsal activities such as theatre warm ups, theatre games, and exercises. At one of the rehearsals for Bohème, several men sat on a chair or platform, while their female peers rested her head on his lap. Other women would massage the men while they rested. The men catered less to the women, except for the occasional braiding of a woman’s hair by a man. In her article “The Body and Reproduction of Femininity,” Susan Bordo says that “Through the organization of time, space, and movements of our daily lives, our bodies are trained, shaped, and impressed with the stamp of prevailing historical forms of selfhood, desire, masculinity, femininity” (1997, 19). Women should be flexible dancers and most modeled their behaviors after this idea. For the men, while many were to also be good dancers, it was more important for them to assist using strength and a commanding presence. The interesting thing is that despite the fact that a few of the men were homosexual in the group, all of them assumed their respective socially constructed roles. In fact, I initially thought many were dating. One gay man at the rehearsal casually admitted, “Me gusta tocarle las tetas, y ya,” (I just like to touch her tits is all). 259 During rehearsals, it was common for the homosexual men to engage in close physical contact with the heterosexual women. I once sat next to one of these “couples” during a break. While sprawled on the floor, the two started to caress each other intimately. The two other actors sitting next to me chimed in. “Harder, faster!” one laughed in English (referencing the group-sex song “Contact” from Rent although it was no longer in the script. The other sarcastically responded, “A que sí?! Como ahora hace el papel de hetero. . . míralo,” (Right?! Now that he’s playing the role of a hetero…look at him!). Not missing a beat, the first actor quipped, “Pero es más marica que yo. Ay cómo nos gusta el teatro,” (But he is more gay91 than me. Oh how we love the theatre). Spanish society is generally culturally accepting of homosexuality. Madrid has one of the largest gay communities in Europe, with over 500,000 LGBT+ people. Sevilla has a large community of its own and is host to numerous Pride Events throughout the year. In fact, one article cited a University of California study claiming that Sevilla is the “most gay city in the world”, with about 17% of its population being homosexual.92 However, the embedded traditions of the region and its history means that politics is often at the center of this cultural debate. In 2016, a controversy surfaced in Sevilla over a Gay Pride photo exhibition. See Figure 21. 91. A slang word for gay, which is short for maricon. The word can have both negative connotation and a more endearing tone between those that know each other well. 92. “Sevilla, la ciudad con más gay del mundo,” n.d, Togayther Online, accessed October 15, 2018, https://www.togayther.es/noticias/sevilla/sevilla-la-ciudad-con-mas-gay-del-mundo/. 260 Figure 21: Controversial posters during a Gay Pride Photo Exhibit on the streets of Sevilla. Photo by Manuel Olmedo and El País Online (Antonio Jesús Mora Caballero, “Controversy Erupts in Seville over Gay Pride Photo Exhibition,” El País Online, June 29, 2016, https://elpais.com/elpais/2016 /06/29/album/1467206927_962497.html#foto_gal_2). A collection of artistic photography depicting different types of homosexual men was prominently displayed in the streets of its historic center. One displayed two 261 sailors kissing. A second one showed a man with rainbow-dyed hair holding a Spanish fan. Another also revealed two men in scantily-clad warrior gear. The conservative Popular Party (PP) denounced it, decrying it as “obscene and tasteless” and asking for its removal by city council. Appearing in an English-translated article in El País Online, Popular Party (PP) councilor Gregorio Serrano said: The exhibit involves an absolute lack of respect for its own community,” “It is one thing to defend the rights of homosexuals, but it is another to show such poor taste. The first to be offended are the many gays who are reaching out to us. . . We do not only respect, but also defend and support gender diversity and the rights of these people, but we believe that exhibitions like this one do them a disservice.93 To this assertion, the ruling Socialist Party’s Mayor responded, Those who are scandalized are the ones out of line,” because the rest of Seville “is an inclusive society that respects sexual diversity and has already adopted respect for one another and our differences. […] Those who are scandalized should think about whether they are a part of the 21st century and the Seville that we want. (ibid) ATMS provides a safe space for homosexual men, which is not unlike theatre communities worldwide. Homosexual men make up a significant part of the theatre community. Broadway has also allowed that space for gay men. In Place for Us, D.A. Miller writes that musicals have subtexts that validate gay audiences despite heteronormative ideals reflected on the stage (Miller 1998). Mass culture, when it could no longer help sensing that the Broadway musical was a ‘gay thing,’ reconsigned its long-standing investment in the form to musical spectacles that were better at preserving the collective innocence – or just more efficient at enforcing the collective ignorance – of the nature of the job they had taken over. (ibid, 136) 93. Antonio Jesús Mora Caballero, “Controversy Erupts in Seville over Gay Pride Photo Exhibition,” El País Online, June 29, 2016, https://elpais.com/elpais/2016/06/29/ album/1467206927_962497.html#foto_gal_2. 262 Musicals were crafted with heterosexual relationships and norms that helped to diffuse the idea of Broadway musicals as a “gay genre.” In very much the same way, these ATMS interactions were playing out. Rehearsals provided them with a space to act out their heterosexual fantasies, since they could not fulfill those roles in their community. It was a safe space to do so without authenticity being questioned. This cultural differentiation was highlighted at one particular rehearsal. During a staging rehearsal for the song “Life Support,” which takes place at an AIDS support group meeting, one of the actors quipped, “Uy, uy, uy. ¿Te imaginas los del PP con este circulito de putas y maricones?” (Can you imagine [the reaction of] the Popular Party in this circle of whores and fags?). The narrative the actors create about themselves provide a sense of personal order and some temporal continuity, as posited by a recent psychology study (McAdams 2013). It gives meaning and order within the rehearsal that may not exist outside. It also inadvertently creates a stronger delineation between “us” and “them”, creating boundaries that only reinforce hegemonic norms. “Politics involves the exercise of power and different hegemonic projects of belonging represent different symbolic power orders” (Yuval-Davis 2011, 19). 263 Figure 22: A few rehearsal photos provide insight into the gendered dynamics of membership. Photos of Bohème rehearsal by author. 264 It is through these norms – shaped by the dominant cultural narratives of the space created by ATMS – that the body rituals are created. It may involve “a distinct code of practice, certain traditions and adopting some visible traits in the individual’s appearance such as a particular hair style (Buddhist monks), wearing a uniform (army members, police officers, nuns), and displaying some symbol (the Salvation Army badge)” (Guibernau 2013, 36). Like Susan Bordo’s discussion of the effects of film and television, I also think Broadway itself has come to standardize some of these visual notions of gender in musical theatre. Through the pursuit of an ever-changing, homogenizing, elusive ideal of femininity – a pursuit without a terminus, requiring that women constantly attend to minute and often whimsical changes in fashion – female bodies become docile bodies – bodies whose forces and energies are habituated to external regulation, subjection, transformation, and improvement. (ibid) Whether at ATMS, at an audition of El Rey León in Madrid, or at the regional festival in Extremadura to be discussed in Chapter Five, there were similar ideas of how a Broadway body should behave. In The Oxford Handbook of the American Musical, Tamsen Wolff notes, “The relationships among song, dance, and book – the ways in which the elements collide and coexist in performance – mirror musical theatre’s common narrative focus on how characters come together to form a community and what kinds of communities they form” (Knapp, Morris, and Wolf 2011, 129). For the musicals of the mid-twentieth century in America, forming community within their stories were efforts to integrate song, words, and dance. Communities’ stories came out in their narratives: the Cowboy and frontierland explorer of Oklahoma!; the Latino community of New York City’s West Side Story; or a city of stranger in Stephen Sondheim’s Company. 265 “Cellophane, Mister Cellophane, should have been my name…you could walk right by me, see right through me, and never know my name,” sung one ATMS actress during a break. Like these very lyrics sung by Amos Hart in Chicago, complex translations during creative processes often go unnoticed despite the necessity to consider the cultural and social implications involved. Being aware of these complexities allows groups to maximize the impact of their work, message, and intent on their communities. Otherwise, their audiences may walk right by them, see right through them, and never really know their objective. Chapter Summaries In this chapter, I focused specifically on the translation of Rent into the Spanish Bohème in order to gain insight as to how the relationships between the text, the newly translated Spanish characters within the musical, and the interactions of participants during the creative process provided “metaphors for social distance and relatedness” (Goffman, Lemert, and Branaman 1997, 207). The translations during the creative process revealed unique cultural differences on and off of the stage. As per theatre translation scholar Sirkku Aaltonen (2000), Theatre texts, perhaps more than any other genre, are adjusted to their reception, and the adjustment is always socially and culturally conditioned. Theatre as an art form is social and based on communal experience; it addresses a group of people in a particular place at a particular time. (ibid, 53) My aim was to investigate how translation practices in the creative process could highlight linguistic and cultural differences, uncovering the ways ATMS engaged with Rent as a tool for aesthetic innovation and political resistance in Sevilla. Through an exploration of translation dramaturgy, staging of roles, and physical rehearsal interactions, this chapter demonstrates that even though groups like ATMS 266 intend to celebrate their unique identity by challenging local narratives with shows like Bohème, their performances of identity are instead playing upon hegemonic narratives while subverting the very same voices the group aims to bring to the forefront. Rather than fully challenge their audiences with the potential of the Broadway musical, ATMS further reinforced the dominant hegemonic narratives of its community. The world is a stage, but what must be performed is already prescribed. The practices and objects are found cataloged in a fixed repertory. To be cultured implies knowing that repertory of symbolic goods and intervening correctly in the rituals that reproduce it. For that reason, the notions of collection and ritual are key to deconstructing the links between culture and power. (Canclini 1995, 110) As a Broadway musical like Rent departs New York City and is transposed into a city like Sevilla, Spain, new vocabulary, contexts, and relationships are created in response to newly embedded cultural, political, and social influences. To be a voice of change in a culture that is dominated by long-standing masculine narratives requires self-awareness and acknowledgement of these power structures. The cultural system that forces the interdependence of authorities and artists often hobbles both, that cultural activity has no organic function in our society so that organizations funding the arts do so from self-interest, that the support from above shifts the artist’s focus from community to money, that funding inequalities seriously divide artists among themselves, and that our artists are sometimes forced to strike some devilish bargains with those with power to make the leap from surviving to thriving. (Margolis and Renaud 2010, 5) Individual bodies can acknowledge these power structures, through text, body, and organization of participants. Furthermore, we can think of gender as being performative in order to determine how these masculine narratives are ritualized and assimilated into practices off of the stage – and enabled by gendered bodies in a specific culture. “The concept of a community of practice can be useful in teasing out 267 what it means to perform a particular masculinity or femininity at a particular time and place, and the role of both the symbolic and the actual body in this performance” (Paechter 2003, 77). One of the first days of rehearsal, I vividly remember three women enthusiastically gathered around a phone on the table. They were giggling, tossing their hair back, and completely enthralled in the voice coming from the other line. “It’s Nono [the director],” Manu points out. Perhaps they were excited about seeing him later that day at rehearsal. I could of course only think of one thing as they signed off in unison with a scream “Adios Nono!”: Charlie’s Angels. After my last day of rehearsal in Sevilla, I joined another theatre friend for a local performance of Los miserables (Les Misérables). The production was produced by Tomateatro, a community theatre that is sponsored and housed in one of Sevilla’s private Catholic schools. The inside of this religious school was a very traditional Spanish patio, with a figure of one of Western society’s most prominent patriarchs mounted to one of its walls. Thoughts of the old autos sacramentales and the newer Broadway musicals collided, as I observed the long lines winding around and out the ornate front door. A photocall94 attracted throngs of audience members onto its red carpet, many taking turns capturing their memorable night at this event. Tomateatro’s logo would certainly make it back into each of their homes through those photos. I wondered about the ketchup-splatter logo until I figured out the double play on words: "Toma" means “take this…” so that the full phrase translates to: How’s this for theatre!? Although at first glance you see the word “tomate”, so it makes sense they have a splatter of ketchup in their logo. 94. A backdrop with the show’s logo, company logo, and any production sponsors; used on red carpets as a background for taking photographs. 268 All ages were in the audience that evening, which is a bit surprising for Les Miserables. The older Spanish women, gathered at one side of the patio, flapped their abanicos (hand fans) at intermission to stay cool while discussing highlights of the show’s first act. In the other corner, the men and small boys huddled in an intense debate about fútbol (soccer). Women worked the makeshift bar serving drinks and filetes (little pork sandwiches), while the ones in front of the bar tended to children’s hunger. It was a very fitting performance of the traditional roles that envelop this culture – and the themes of this chapter. “How did you like it?” my friend asked. Having honestly been a bit impressed at the local talent, I politely found a way to reply without taking any obvious stance. “How about you?” I threw back at him. The next fifteen minutes were a play-by-play critique of the performances and quality of the production. What were his standards and how were they being gauged? Was this just the competitive nature of amateur theatre companies in the same city, despite the difference in structure and artistic offering? I saw Tomateatro in the following month’s amateur musical theatre festival and many of my questions were answered. Chapter Five takes me from Sevilla to Zafra for a four-week long festival competition ¿Y Quién Necesita Broadway? (Who Needs Broadway?) in Spain’s province of Extremadura. Full of performances from four different companies, representation from different regions of Spain, weekly activities, professionally-led lectures, and a Grand Gala Awards Ceremony, the festival is a prime site for exploring the intersection of Broadway in Spain and the audiences. Festivals create an environment which allows participants to visualize themselves as part of the Broadway experience. “Who needs Broadway?” when you’ve got a festival of your own. 269 Vamp D Seré una diva con un cuerpo de I will be a diva with a scandalous body escandalo (with silicone in your breasts) (con silicona en las tetas) and my flame will never go out. y mi llama nunca se apagará. (As soon as you die they’ll forget you) (en cuanto mueras te olivdarán) Seré (no serás) I will be (you won’t be) lo mejor (lo peor) the best (the worst) que ha pisado lo escenarios. that has stepped onto the stages. Serás You will be mi bufón, my clown, sólo la mitad only half de la mitad que he desechado of the half of what I’ve accomplished. yo. Seré I will be estrella de la televisión, star of the television, un juguete roto que aprendió a a broken toy that learned to cry llorar thinking of you in fiction tv series. pensando en tí en teleseries de ficción. Superhéroes by Miguel Angel Maroto Negrete (2014) Translated by author 270 Chapter 5: Who Needs Broadway? The Politics of Musical Theatre Festivals The bells from the tower overlooking the arch of La Puerta de Jerez chime as I make my way to the theatre hosting the festival. It was 7:55 p.m. on October 14, 2014, one hour and five minutes before the start of the kick off performance of the 5 weekend-long event, “¿Y Quién Necesita Broadway? III Certamen Nacional de Teatro Musical Amateur de España” (Who Needs Broadway? III National Competition of Amateur Musical Theatre in Spain). While certainly descriptive, it was a long title for a musical theatre festival and competition. The participating artists and Spanish audiences referred to it as “el festival” o “el Broadway.” In this chapter, I use “Festival” or “YQNB” interchangeably. YQNB was held in a small village in the desolate region of Extremadura, in a small town called Zafra. A few days in Zafra had given me a head start in familiarizing myself with the windy white washed route from my hotel to the Teatro de Zafra Complejo Cultural (Theatre of Zafra Cultural Complex). The sign at the gated entrance to the theatre read: “Entradas agotadas para la función de hoy. Muchas gracias y perdonen las molestias” (Tickets sold out for today’s performance. Thank you and excuse the inconvenience). The night’s performance of Los miserables by the Sevilla-based Tomateatro was sold out, but since I was one of the event’s judges – and lecturers – I had a ticket waiting for me inside. As I walked past the line, I recognized the familiar faces of children, teenagers, little old ladies, and distinguished couples I saw when catching this same musical a few weeks back in Sevilla. I slinked through the stage door entrance, picturesquely tucked in between the modern façade of the angular, concrete building and the green, rolling hillsides of the 271 Badajozian province. In contrast to the calm beauty of the countryside, the backstage action in the theatre was a very different scene, transformed into a frantic madness of French peasants, excited prisoners, and maids carrying oranges enthusiastically engaged in very recognizable pre-show rituals. Staff members clad in black hovered around the YQNB light structure illuminating the lobby, their red badges prominently displayed around their necks. Event founder María José (nicknamed M. J. by myself, in person and hereafter in this dissertation) was slightly more anxious than when we first met, quickly greeting me and walking me to one of the five seats labeled reservado. “Ooo, me han dicho que aquí es donde se sienta la Alcadelsa! Eres tú el de Broadway?” (Oooh, I was told this is where the Mayor [a woman] was sitting! Are you the one from Broadway?), quipped one of two men sitting down the row as they made their way past me. Before I had time to clarify my credentials, the lights dimmed as M. J. made her way through one of the panels of the oddly-designed stage curtain. “Bienvendios a otro año!” (Welcome to another year!), she welcomed. The excitement in the air was spectacular. The audience was part family members of today’s performance, part locals, part musical theatre enthusiasts from afar, and part theatre professionals. Her brief welcome drew cheers and chatter, especially the reminder of the event’s four-week offerings: performances of popular musicals, expert workshops led by expert performers, professional chat sessions, and most importantly, the audiences’ responsibility to vote for their favorite musical. Kick-off had begun. Bum, bum . . . bap ba baapppppp, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, buuuuuummmmm. The recognizable opening chords of Los Miserables echoed through the theatre, as the remaining judges – and the Mayor – quickly darted into the remaining reservado seats. 272 This chapter takes us away from the business of Madrid and the bodies of Sevilla to an amateur musical theatre competition in Zafra, a small village in Spain’s autonomous region of Extremadura. The “¿Y Quién Necesita Broadway?” competitive festival is an annual event that employed a broad range of public spectacles including showcase expert lectures, workshop sessions, and an awards gala to legitimize their performance of Broadway to participating artists and the broader community. In this chapter, I explore the performativity and cultural meaning of the event through the eyes of its participants and audiences. I look into the ways the spectacle of the Broadway musical is deployed to articulate social and power relations. I begin with an inside look at the structure of the event, its participants, and the represented Broadway musicals in order to provide the groundwork for exploring how competitive festivals create a space for the regionalization of the spectacle. I then analyze how “expert” lecture sessions offered throughout the weeks of the event illuminate performances of professionalism and authority, building up legitimacy by latching onto the idea of a transposed Broadway. I close with a grand finale look at the nail-biting Awards Gala in order to show how the politics of competition unfolds at the event. Through these public spectacles, I offer a glimpse into how the competitive festival was created and the theatrical ways authority is performed through participants’ involvement with the transposed Broadway musicals. Spanish audiences and the participants played a pivotal role in the way the event reconceptualized ideas of nation, region, individual belonging, and their own cultural authority at the dawn of a period that sees Spain challenged by growing regional sentimentalism. As much as these interpretations of Broadway helped shape the 273 event, it also revealed the way Spaniards define their own culture, politics, and communities through a spectacle like the musical. Music and Theatre Festivals in Spain Festivals, as posited by Prentice and Andersen (2003), are actions in creating identity and economic generation for a region. They are also seen as intersections between communities in a way that ties them to place. Festivals are joyful communal gatherings that form vital creative hubs, expressing the energy of a nation. They celebrate the vibrancy, diversity, traditions and innovations of society. By handing the mantle of expression to artists (of all disciplines), communities engage in meaningful and memorable experiences that strengthen the ties that bind: our identity, our sense of self, and our connection to the place in which we prosper.95 Framing YQNB as a spectacle of showman ship, professionalism, and competition allows me to position the event as multiple performances shaped by the cultural underpinnings of its participants and the region. Milton Singer (1959) first described festivals as “cultural performances,” which stimulate theories that festivals like YQNB are connected to their specific culture and place – helping them bind participants to their communities (both at YQNB and also their respective homes). Festivals are connected to cultures and to places, giving each identity and helping bind people to their communities (Chau, 2008). In “Anthropology, Festival, and Spectacle,” anthropologist Ping-Ann Addo (2009) demonstrates how spectacle has been ritualized into festive practices of modernity and identity in various cultural contexts. 95. Hoda Al Khamis-Kanoo, “Successful Festivals Connect with the People They Serve,” The National UAE, accessed December 24, 2018, https://www.thenational.ae. 274 15. ARTES ESCÉNICAS Y MUSICALES W15e. 15u. nCednetrorss dtae nendse ñfaenszat,i dvei itniveesst igbaecisónt yb dyoc urmeecnotagciónni dzeidnicgad otsh ae lma da anzsa rituals while consuming them as spectacles. . . spectacle must continue to be ex20a13mi2n01e4d a20s15 a u20s16efu2l01 7tool foCrE NtThRiOnS kDEi nENgS EaÑAbNoZAut the historical and cross-cultural efficacy of ritual in human expPeúbrliiceosnces of, and with, power. (ibid, 231- 232) 188 189 192 219 222Privados 527 530 535 550 559 CENTROS DE INVESTIGACIÓN Y DOCUMENTACIÓN 38 41 68 68 70 Fuente: MCUD. INAEM. Centro de Documentación de Música y Danza. Explotación Estadística de las Bases de Datos de Recursos Musicales y de la Danza Sp15a.1i6n. P hroafessi oana lleos ndeg la h miússticoa ryy la odafn zfae psotr itivpoa (1l)s, although modern-day musical and theatre 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 festivals did not surface on the Iberian Peninsula until well into the 20th century. Compositores 1.641 1.685 1.724 1.809 1.893 Bailarines 2.270 1.982 2.251 2.268 1.877 Bailarines coreógrafos 1.000 1.043 964 927 1.078 Today thosBeail afrieness tdiovceantless number in the hundreds. See Figure 23 f4o81r br5e30akd62o9wn6 5o2 f th68e2 Bailarines docentes coreógrafos 250 270 321 348 364 Coreógrafos 76 101 122 95 106 arts, musicD,o dceantensce, an 731 760 813 755 768Docentes coreógrafods theatre festivals in Spain from 2013 – 21205 171.3 8 161 141 165 Fuente: MCUD. INAEM. Centro de Documentación de Música y Danza. Explotación Estadística de las Bases de Datos de Recursos Musicales y de la Danza 15.17. Festivales teatrales por comunidad autónoma (1) VALORES ABSOLUTOS DISTRIBUCIÓN PORCENTUAL 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 TOTAL 656 654 787 764 803 100 100 100 100 100 Andalucía 101 99 111 105 113 15,4 15,1 14,1 13,7 14,1 Aragón 13 12 23 23 25 2,0 1,8 2,9 3,0 3,1 Asturias (Principado de) 16 17 18 17 18 2,4 2,6 2,3 2,2 2,2 Balears (Illes) 8 8 10 11 14 1,2 1,2 1,3 1,4 1,7 Canarias 19 18 27 24 26 2,9 2,8 3,4 3,1 3,2 Cantabria 15 17 23 23 24 2,3 2,6 2,9 3,0 3,0 Castilla y León 57 56 65 66 68 8,7 8,6 8,3 8,6 8,5 Castilla-La Mancha 43 44 48 48 49 6,6 6,7 6,1 6,3 6,1 Cataluña 77 82 103 107 113 11,7 12,5 13,1 14,0 14,1 Comunitat Valenciana 72 71 73 69 69 11,0 10,9 9,3 9,0 8,6 Extremadura 22 22 27 29 29 3,4 3,4 3,4 3,8 3,6 Galicia 46 52 60 53 56 7,0 8,0 7,6 6,9 7,0 Madrid (Comunidad de) 98 90 104 93 98 14,9 13,8 13,2 12,2 12,2 Murcia (Región de) 16 13 21 24 25 2,4 2,0 2,7 3,1 3,1 Navarra (Comunidad Foral de) 14 14 19 14 14 2,1 2,1 2,4 1,8 1,7 País Vasco 30 30 38 38 41 4,6 4,6 4,8 5,0 5,1 Rioja (La) 9 9 17 20 21 1,4 1,4 2,2 2,6 2,6 Ceuta y Melilla 0 0 0 0 0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 Fuente: MCUD. INAEM. Centro de Documentación Teatral. Explotación Estadística de las Bases de Datos de Recursos de las Artes Escénicas (1) Véase notas a los cuadros en el apartado Notas metodológicas Figure 23. Chart from the “Anuario de estadísticas culturales 2018” (2018 Annual Report of Cultural Statistics) released by the Spanish Ministry of Culture. This is a breakdown by autonomous region of Spain. “Valores absolutos” are the number of festivals and the “Distribución Porcentual” is the percentage of Spain’s total festivals held in each region. División de Estadística y Estudios, Secretaría General Técnica, Ministerio de Cultura y Deporte. “Anuario de estadísticas culturales 2018” (Annual Report of Cultural Statistics, November 2018, accessed February 09, 2019, DOI: 10.4438/030- 15-291-3) Although its first official edition was not celebrated until 1952, El Festival Internacional de Música y Danza de Granada (The International Festival of Music and Dance of Granada) has its roots in orchestral concerts commemorating the religious 275 Corpus Christi celebrations since as far back as 1883. Still celebrated in the Alhambra Palace in Granada, a musical festival of this caliber gave the city of Granada its first opportunity to experience a European repertoire of musical orchestras – and not just its own Spanish traditions. Most non-religious events celebrating music and theatre in Spain were not popularized until around the 1950s. Coinciding with the opening of the tourist boom during Franco’s reign, the first modern large public events came onto the scene under the concept of festival de la canción (festival of song). These festivals fell in line with the government’s cultural policy of promoting a national idea of Spain, through the shared performances of distinctly Spanish musical traditions on the public stages of these increasingly popular events. In 1959 the Festival Internacional de la Canción de Benidorm (The International Festival of Song of Benidorm) brought the best of Spanish song artists to the event, followed by El Festival de la Canción Mediterránea in Barcelona just a few months later. Both used singing competitions as ways of promoting Spanish singers. After the dictatorship and into Spain’s new democratic transition, festival stages started to open up to other world music – some as performed by Spanish artists that had taken on these new sounds and others by foreign artists themselves. The Sónar Festival in Barcelona (1994) and The International Festival of Benicàssim (1995) introduced the concept of “beach festival,” taking advantage of the countless miles of Spanish coastline and booming resort tourism. From there, countless musical festivals popped up around Spain including the over 20-year-old Festival de Arte Nativo Viña Rock and 17-year-old Primavera Sound Festival – bringing the new rock, pop, and hip hop sounds to the Spanish musical festival stage. Each year, Spain also participates in the Eurovision pop contest music festival in an effort to not only 276 help promote a shared image of a collective European culture, but also to prove itself as a winning producer of music and culture. As a result of Spain’s deep-rooted traditions from the Spanish Golden Age, most theatre festivals of the 20th century are focused on the classical theatre of las nuevas comedias or the restaging of ancient Greek and Roman dramas. First celebrated in 1933, El Festival Internacional de Teatro Clásico de Mérida (The International Festival of Classical Theatre of Mérida) attracts over 100,000 audience members over two months every summer for its Greek and Roman theatrical performances. Now in its 64th year (includes interruptions in the seasons since 1933), the festival is performed on the oldest Roman Theatre in the world that is still in use. Other theatre festivals have gained both national and international notoriety, including the Festival de Teatro Clásico de Olmedo, Festival de Teatro Clásico de Olite, and the Festival Internacional de Teatro Clásico de Almagro. Almagro, first celebrated in 1978, draws approximately 60,000 audience members per year and is staged in one of the original corrales used to perform the nuevas comedias. Due to the only recent popularization of the genre, musical theatre festivals have little history and are few and far between – especially on a national and professional stage. In 2003, the Festival de Teatro Musical de la Costa del Sol brought the genre onto the Spanish festival arena. Through performances and competition, they brought now-familiar Broadway titles to their event including Peter Pan, Jekyll & Hyde, Annie, and a Spanish-produced musical called The Magic of Broadway. Also called El Teatro Musical “Luis Ramirez” de Fuengirola, it celebrated the Spanish musical theatre producer’s (Ramirez) affinity for the genre and extensive work at bringing musical theatre to the Spanish stage in Madrid. After Ramirez death 277 in 2005, the festival disappeared but the musical genre was incorporated into broad theatre festivals (mostly plays) like El Festival del Teatro de Málaga. Capitalizing on the income-generating potential and popularity of musicals, theatre festivals in Spain have started to include Broadway musicals into their programming. Most theatre festivals that focus on Broadway musicals are found on the amateur circuits. Like the larger professionally-focused theatre festivals in Spain, the theatre festivals I researched were almost all a mix of plays as well as musicals. Small towns in provinces will create their own festival competitions, hoping to place their locales on a national map. From the United States, I searched for well over a year for a festival that focused only on musical theatre. The XXII Certamen Nacional de Teatro Aficionado “Villa de Mora” Toledo (The XXII National Competition for Theatre Aficionado of “Villa de Mora” Toledo looked promising, with its production of (DES)montando musicales capítulo 1: Stephen Sondheim (Deconstructing Musicals Chapter 1: Stephen Sondheim). Its programming was not exclusively focused on musical theatre and did not provide a narrow enough focus for my dissertation. The YQNB was the only theatre festival in Spain which focused on musical theatre at the national level. Its focus on amateur groups also allowed me to focus on research the motivations and inspirations at a local artist level that was far removed from the big lights of Madrid. By bringing people together to spectate and participate, festivals provide a platform for collaboration and a chance for citizens, residents and visitors alike to interact, explore points of view, share opinions and see the world around them in new and interesting ways. In doing so, festivals offer society a breathing space; an opportunity to reflect and imagine alternative future scenarios.96 96. Hoda Al Khamis-Kanoo, “Successful Festivals Connect with the People They Serve,” The National UAE. 278 YQNB offers a prime arena through which to explore the chapter’s performances of Broadway as spectacles of identity, power, and cultural politics. A Musical Theatre Festival in Zafra Zafra was an odd place for a Broadway musical theatre festival. I thought about this as I drove up from my hometown in Cádiz, past Sevilla, and up through what is known as La Ruta de la Plata (The Silver Route). Once a trading route set up by the Romans in the years before B. C. became A. C., today’s highway still serves to connect the southern and northern regions of western Spain – offering tourists a wonderful time-travel history through cities like Mérida, Cáceres, and Salamanca on the way to the northern-most provinces of the country. Traces of Roman life and culture dot the route, most notably through archeological feats that often sit nestled right in the middle of urban Spanish cities and towns. I thought of myself as one of those artists of the eras past, driving up La Ruta de la Plata, to meet the other artists at the festival. Mérida is, after all, site of The Merida International Classical Theatre Festival every summer. Its fully functional Roman theatre is the oldest theatre in the world to perform classic Greco-Roman plays. Thirty minutes before getting to Mérida, however, I pulled off the Silver Route into the small village of Zafra. A new annual theatre festival for today’s audiences had surfaced in 2012 in the small village of approximately 17,000 people – one dedicated exclusively to the Broadway musical. YQNB began in 2012 and my first visit was in 2014. It was officially labeled a certamen, which is Spanish for “contest.” However, in many discussions with M. J. prior to my arrival and in conversations throughout the event with its participants, I also heard it referred to as el festival (the festival) and even el Broadway. Although 279 ultimately a competition of musical theatre productions, the event itself also encompassed workshops, lectures, social networking, and exhibits. For consistency, as well as this chapter’s exploration of elements outside of the competition itself, I am using the term “festival” throughout. While the competitive aspects of YQNB serve as important markers of national and regional differences through which to explore social power, this festival also encompasses workshops, lectures, and other artist relationships that also contribute to the larger discussion of identity and cultural transpositions. A festival allows for discourse on both competition and the collaborative relationships that result from them. Almost a four-hour drive from Madrid, YQNB brought some national attention to Zafra, at least to musical theatre enthusiasts and amateur theatre circles. I had never heard of this festival or of this little village in the somewhat desolate province of Extremadura. Known for its extreme weather temperatures on either end, the region is mostly recognized for its livestock and excellent cheeses. With a small castle of its own and some historic squares to enjoy, Zafra’s most prominent event is The Zafra International Cattle Fair, one of the most important livestock fairs in Europe. A Broadway musical theatre festival seemed completely out of place. I wondered about M. J.’s motivation for hosting this festival in Zafra, so I asked her during one of our chats. She said: Quiero introducirles a más cosas al pueblo. Que sepan que hay más por el mundo de lo que ya están acostumbrados. Los de Madrid lo tienen, pero aquí es diferente. Creo que mi motivación es abrirle los ojos un poco a los del pueblo. I want to introduce more things to the town. Let them know there is more out there in the world than the stuff they are used to. People in Madrid have it there but here it’s different. I think my motivation is open the eyes of the countryfolk a bit. 280 Celebrated and promoted as “el único certamen de teatro musical que se celebra en España” (the only musical theatre competition celebrated in Spain), it was M. J.’s principal objective in creating the festival.97 She explained to me, “Hay tantos festivales de teatro musical en otras partes, y aquí [en España] no teníamos nada nuestro. Era hora de que tuviéramos algo para nosotros” (There are so many musical theatre festivals everywhere else [in the world] and here in Spain we don’t have our own. It’s time we had something for us). She was bringing musical theatre to her town, and with it she explained, a cultural form of entertainment that exposed her local community to new ideas, ways of expression, and cultural concepts. M. J. was tired of her cultural exposure being limited to cheese, livestock, and spring fairs – and hoped to expose others around her to other stories, other music, and other cultures. The first year of the festival in 2012, M. J. was awarded a EUR 5,000 grant (approximately $5,800) toward its funding by the province of Extremadura. Having secured funding in the first year from the regional province of Extremadura, there was little financial support or involvement from the local government. She created Cerezo 17, a non-profit association through which she could apply for government subsidies for YQNB. The festival on its own, as an event, was not eligible for government funding. It was necessary to form a non-profit association through which M. J. attached a social objective that used the arts as tool for cultural enrichment. It was not until after the success of the first year that the local government decided to fund the event. The regional politics of the festival were one of M. J.’s most blaring gripes. She expressed her frustration over the politics of the festival’s funding and noted, “Claro, ya cuando vieron lo que se movía por aquí, y encima todavía liados con la 97. (“III Certamen Nacional de Teatro Musical Amateur ‘Y Quién Necesita Broadway’ en Zafra.” La Grada Website, October 15, 2014, accessed November 12, 2018, https://www.grada.es. 281 política del teatro” (Of course, when they saw the movement around here, and of course, still tied up in all the politics of the theatre). The local government of Zafra jumped on board in 2013 and awarded her EUR 3,000 ($3,500) for each of the subsequent years to keep the festival going, despite intense budget cuts across the arts on the national, regional, and local levels. The regional government of Extremadura, however, did not fund subsequent years, so the following festivals in 2013 and 2014 relied on local government support only. The cut budgets in the regional province also affected the theatre complex building itself. By the second festival, lack of funding affected the completion of structural projects within the theatre – and explained some of the unfinished rehearsal rooms or lack of sound proofing in some of the areas. While the theatre bookings were run by Zafra, fixes and expenditures (including technical staffing), came from the province above. M. J. added, “Cada vez que hay un problema político, lo pagamos nosotros” (Any time there is a political problem, we pay for it). In her book Recasting Transnationalism through Performance: Theatre Festivals in Cape Verde, Mozambique, and Brazil, Christina McMahon (2014) highlights the idea that these political and power imbalances must be taken into account: “Given the hierarchical nature of festivals, any focus on their community-building potential must also take into account power imbalances” (7). Regional and local funds were not sufficient to cover the festival’s expenses, the awards, and the additional EUR 800 ($920) assistance fee given to each of the four participating groups to help cover some of their costs. As a result, many of the added services and products were donated to the festival by M. J.’s very own network of family and friends. Her father built the trophies, her aunt provided flowers for the event, and her theatre troupe performed at the Final Gala for free. By the third year of 282 the festival in 2014, other private sponsors had also contributed for their share of local and regional publicity. Combined with ticket sales, the festival was able to make ends meet each of the years. M. J. admitted, “Estaba nerviosísima el primer año, pero mira . . . entradas agotadas el primer día de ventas” (I was definitely nervous the first year, but look. . . sold out our first day of ticket sales). I arrived the night before the official kick off, which gave me time to get my bearings around town, find the theatre, and meet M. J. for the first time. I was not all together prepared for the initial impact of stepping foot into El Teatro de Zafra Complejo Cultural (The Zafra Theatre Cultural Complex). Jutting out from the rolling hills, farm country, and white-washed alleys of the village loomed this impressive modern and geometric edifice. No matter where I stood on its cobblestone driveway leading up to the stage loading dock, I could always see the sheep and cows eating grass in the distance. It was a constant reminder of the juxtaposition of old world and new world, of tradition and modernity, and of Spanish and something “other.” Its white façade blended with the steel tin roofing, yet still created a fascinating dichotomy of rustic nature and slick urbanity. If it were not for the noises coming from the lobby doors, I may have stood there for hours (see Figure 24). 283 284 285 Figure 24: Photos from the Teatro de Zafra Complejo Cultural, showing the juxtaposition of the contemporary design nestled in a traditional rural village. In order from top to bottom: old town Zafra, plaza in the center of town, building wall signage, exterior main theatre building and adjoining cultural buildings, stage loading dock, theatre seating, rehearsal room, and staff overlooking the rehearsal room into the countryside. Photos by author, 2014. Built in 2009 at the price of approximately EUROS 4,265,000 ($4,835,000), the Teatro de Zafra Complejo Cultural was part of an initiative by the Consejería de Cultura y Turismo of Extremadura (Council of Culture and Tourism of Extremadura) to rebuild and refurbish the 45 theatrical spaces within the region’s theatre network. 286 Leonor Flores, Councilwoman of Culture and Tourism at the time, was determined to bring something new to Zafra – in the same way M. J. wanted to bring musical theatre to Zafra. In a press release announcing the inauguration of the theatre complex, Flores saw the theatre complex as a way of broadening the region’s perspectives through performance. “Zafra podrá incentivar el interés de sus ciudadanos por el espectáculo, el teatro y el séptimo arte” (Zafra can incentivize its citizens’ interests in shows, theatre, and the 7th art [cinema]) she said.98 Flores also defended the Council’s investment to “ampliar horizontes, oficial conocimientos, o abrir espacios de tolerancia para otras ideologías, entre otros” (expand horizons, obtain knowledge, and open new spaces of tolerance, among others) (ibid). The impressive design of the theatre complex was also inspired by a motivation of integrating the audience physically into the local landscape – almost magically tying those who enter firmly into Zafra. It connects the festival to a space that is closely tied to its people and surrounding environment. Its architect, Enrique Krahe, imagined it as more than just a building to admire for its design: Beyond a mere contemplative affection, the building challenges the traditional role of spectators as passive ingredients, inviting them to achieve certain complicity with both visitors and passers-by, so they can get involved not only when a representation is taking place. (Enrique Krahe: Architecture Species Website, n.d., accessed February 10, 2019, http://www.enriquekrahe.com/.) Krahe employed what he called “architectonic devices” to help bridge that gap between the spectactors, the performers, and the surrounding environment. In his website, he describes how he sets up a space that serves as a catalyst for the inspiration of creative endeavors like YQNB. 98. Carlos Arroyo Heguedas, “Inaugurado el nuevo Teatro Municipal de Zafra,” Extremaduramente: Noticas en 360, November 24, 2009, accessed February 10, 2019, http://www.extremaduramente.com/2009/11/inaugurado-el-nuevo-teatro-municipal-de-zafra/. 287 Several “architectonic devices” assist on this task. For instance, the stage can literally open to the city and its citizens, while the seats of the orchestra are colored pixels that, viewed from the stage when empty, compose the anamorphosis of an always-looking eye (which in the absence of spectators, during rehearsals or assemblies undertakes the task of ‘scrutinizing’), surrounded by the natural felt finished walls of the main space. Recycled satellite dishes developed into lamps, peepholes or mirrors with masks help creating a playful yet intriguing atmosphere. (ibid) Meeting M. J. was equally as impressive as first seeing the theatre, and her enthusiasm beamed through her thick-rimmed hipster glasses. I remember how she greeted me from across the driveway: “Eh por fín, el americano de Broadway!” (At last, the American from Broadway!). I was embarrassed to once again be hearing this moniker, as I was merely studying Broadway and not necessarily a byproduct. Before I could politely find a way to correct her, M. J. jumped around the lobby as she excitedly introduced me to the “crew” that was assembling some rather spectacular decorations. Her brother was building the photo call wall, the background at a red carpet where sponsors’ logos were displayed and where audience members took their pictures. Her sister-in-law was draping curtains on one of the upper levels, while her father fidgeted with the large shelf holding large trophies shaped like the letter “Z.” Like most things in Spain, this appeared to be a family affair. It was clear that M. J.’s family shared in her passions, as she said to me: Cómo no me pagan y solo tengo lo justo para los técnicos, tengo mi propio equipo para echarme una manita. A mi padre le encantan los trofeos. Mi hermano carga con todo y mi madre se asegura de que todos comemos. No puedo hacerlo sin ellos. Since they don’t pay me and I have just enough for the technicians, I have my own special crew to lend me a helping hand. Dad loves the trophies. My brother lifts everything and my mom makes certain that everyone eats. I can’t do this without them. 288 In the multitasking way that I now understand to be synonymous with M. J., she set about to show off the incredible theatre while sprinkling the tour with relevant details of the festival’s history. I heard her say as she led me up the stairs, “Cómo a tí, estoy obsesionada con Broadway y los musicales” (Like you, I am obsessed with Broadway and musicals. “Sé que hay muchos cómo nosotros por ahí – y pensé ¿Por qué no montar un festival? Ay mira, esto son los camerinos. ¿A qué son como los de Broadway?” (I know there are plenty of us out there – so I thought, why not have a festival! Oh, these are our dressing rooms. Aren’t they like the ones Broadway!?). I told her they actually were much nicer than most of the dressing rooms I have seen on Broadway. The rehearsal room and the view were both spectacular, with fifty-foot wide windows leading out to a balcony that overlooked the fields speckled with grazing cows and Ibérico pigs. The sun was slowly setting, so it cast a glow over us as we continued our discussion on the balcony. As we looked over the balcony, M. J. spoke about the visiting theatre groups’ excitement about performing in the space: “Parte de la experiencia es parecer que estás en Broadway, no?” (Part of the experience is getting to feel like you are on Broadway, right?). The first of four groups arrived in the next few hours to start their show set up. Each Saturday was reserved for a new group from a different region and the fifth Saturday was reserved for the final Gran Gala, or “Grand Gala,” the awards ceremony all groups were required to attend as part of their participation agreement. Though official counts were not recorded by the festival, I estimated that 60 people traveled with the participating productions. Some were the performers, others were crew members, and many were family and friends. Often, friends and family were the crew 289 members. The 240 participants plus 360 seats available at each of the four performances and gala adds up to over 2,000 participants at the festival. This was not inclusive of another 50 or so participating locally in lectures, workshops, and the awards gala. In March every year, festival dates are set with Zafra’s city hall and the cultural office. Interested groups are provided with a list of selection criteria and an application, where specific rules, award categories, and timeframes are spelled out for participants (see Appendix C). It is a quick turnaround, and by May, applications start to roll in – numbering around 15 – 20 applications on average per year. By the end of September, only four participants are selected along with two runner ups (in case of unexpected withdrawals from the event). Along with a complete recording of their live performance, theatre groups are required to submit: • A completed application from • History and background of the group • Libretto and book of the production • Technical and artistic specifications • Production photos and press reviews • And a copy of their official tax document stating non-profit status In addition to the requirement that the theatre must be a non-professional company, the musicals’ “voices must sing live.” After consulting with M. J. and other actors and directors, I learned that is was not uncommon for amateur theatre companies throughout Spain to lip-sync entire musicals – sometimes even in English. M. J. exclaimed: Ay Diós, te sorprendería la cantidad que recibimos que ni siquiera se pueden considerar musicales. Se trata de calidad y, como es todo amateur, el nivel no es siempre el mejor. Tratamos de asegurarnos de que traigamos a los que parezcan más profesionales. Es lo que se espera de un festival de musicales de Broadway. Recibimos muchos musicales raros, y algunas veces obras de teatro sin música, pero no podemos incluir un musical que fue escrito por un 290 niño, en un pueblo pequeño, sobre problemas familiares y los campos de un pueblo pequeño. La gente espera Broadway y queremos darles toda la experiencia. Oh God, you’d be shocked at how many [submissions] we get that can’t even be considered musicals. It’s about the quality and since it’s all amateur, the level is not always the best. We try to make sure that we bring the most seemingly professional ones. People expect it from a Broadway musicals festival. We get a lot of strange musicals – and sometimes plays with no music – but we can’t bring in a musical that was written by a kid, in a small town, about their family problems and the farms of a small town. People expect Broadway and we want to give them the whole experience. (M. J. Pámpano, personal communication, March 15, 2018) This led me to ask about M. J.’s selection criteria and formalized guidelines for choosing the theatre groups that attended each year. She admitted that it was not necessary: “Sabemos en los primeros diéz minutos de ver sus videos a quién vamos a invitar” (We know in the first ten minutes of watching their [submission] video who we are going to invite). According to her, the low number of submissions each year meant that it was a quick and obvious selection process. Most were eliminated for not being musicals. Many of the remaining options were not unknown titles, which M. J. usually steered away from including in the festival. The musicals that were ultimately considered for the festival were then evaluated through the taped performances submitted by the applicants. M. J. was responsible for the entire selection process, although occasionally ran options past her husband (a composer). After my tour of the complex, I stood in the driveway with M. J. and the festival’s Technical Director Nicco waiting for the production staff from the theatre group Tomateatro to arrive. I had recently seen Tomateatro’s performance of Los Miserables in their hometown of Sevilla. They had been given permission to come up the evening before to sort some technical details in anticipation of the immense cast and crew’s arrival the following morning. M. J. stood next to me and whispered, 291 “Este sí que es bueno, quería asegurarme de que inaugurarán el Broadway” (This is a good one, so I wanted to make sure they kicked off El Broadway). Having seen their demo tape, she was excited to see them perform live at the festival. I agreed with her and said: “Para mí fue una combinación muy interesante. Un Los Miserables francés por un grupo muy sevillano” (I definitely thought it a fascinating combination. A French Les Misérables performed by a very sevillano group). Exhaling his cigarette and without missing a beat, Nicco smiled as he chuckled a comeback. “Me lo imagino. Pero me parece más raro oírte hablar en inglés con un acento tan americano y con otro acento tan gaditano en español. El Broadway Gáditano!” (I can only imagine. Although I think it’s stranger to hear you speak with such an American accent when you speak English and with such a [Cádiz] accent when speaking Spanish. The Broadway from Cádiz!), he puffed through his cigarette. This was a foreshadowing of a regional cultural identity that was on proud display and made conscious throughout the festivities. Zafra, the host town, was set on using the festival as a unique differentiating event. “Sí, somos un pueblo, pero también una pequeña ciudad. Zafra tiene mucha vida” (Yes, we are a town, but we are also a small city. Zafra has a lot of life), proudly exclaimed Manuela Llera, the Culture and Tourism Councilperson during an interview with Ignacio Martinez en El Periódico Extremadura Online on October 23, 2014 (“El museo de Santa Clara es un buque insignia con obras de un valor incalculable,” accessed December 10, 2018, https://www.elperiodicoextremadura.com/). María José Pámpano, su creadora, me abordó un día cuando yo era novata en la concejalía. Ella había pedido una beca al Gobierno de Extremadura para el proyecto. Nosotros no teníamos dinero, pero quedé encantada con su idea y le dije que íbamos a aportar todo lo que nos fuera posible. Cuando le 292 concedieron la beca vino a verme, y enseguida nos pusimos a trabajar hasta que sacamos el primer Broadway. María José Pámpano, [YQNB] creator, approached me one day when I was a rookie in the council. She had requested a grant from the Government of Extremadura for the project. We did not have money, but I was delighted with her idea and told her that we were going to contribute as much as possible. When she was awarded the scholarship, she came to see me and we immediately went to work until launched the first Broadway. (ibid) While the town used the festival as a cultural draw for tourism, participating artists and competing theatre groups sought to find a way to legitimize their own Broadway interpretations on a public sphere outside of their own regions. Seeking affirmation from peers doing the same work and professionals that understand the discipline of musical theatre gives competing (and winning) groups the validity they need to feel a part of a larger global Broadway community. At the same time, festival participants and organizers aimed to be the “pilgrims” or leaders at the forefront of a new genre that breaks with the conventional forms of cultural entertainment in Spain. The festival is not exclusively about the productions and competing performances, but rather about the performances taking place on the stage, off the stage, in the lectures, in the workshops, and in the audiences. In her introduction to Showing Off, Showing Up: Studies of Hype, Heightened Performance, and Cultural Power (2017) performance studies professor and anthropologist Laurie Frederik explains the idea of showing as a heightened form of performance that transcends what takes place on the stage. YQNB – through its performances, lectures, workshops, and awards – is showing off its musical theatre power and knowledge through “over-the-top, heightened performances” of Broadway. Frederik notes that, “Showing attempts to delineate or challenge a definition of authenticity. It suggests an act of pleading for approval or cause, a provocation or revealing” (ibid, 2). 293 The Cast of Festival Participants After their quick check-in with M. J., a few of Tomateatro’s production staff invited me to join them for dinner. They remembered me from my visit in Sevilla the previous week, so it was a great opportunity to get some insights before they were bogged down the following day with a cast and crew of over 50, rehearsals, and performance in the same twelve-hour period. It was an idyllic setting to be talking about Broadway musicals – as if on a tropical set, beautiful, yet perhaps not really real – palm trees towering over the archways of one of Zafra’s more intimate plazas. “No es como Sevilla, pero tiene su encanto” (It’s not like Sevilla, but it has its charms), I heard someone at the table say while I wrote in my notebook. Sevillanos are infamous for being proud of their city and it certainly showed when they were in other locations. I was more impressed by their individual backgrounds and their dedication to Tomateatro, despite it being an amateur theatre company that resides in a Catholica private school. The director had a day job and the assistant director was jumping back into theatre after a fifteen-year hiatus. When I asked him, “Why Broadway?”, he said: “¡Estoy hasta aquí con el flamenco!” (I am up to here with flamenco!), as he reached across to a play of manchego cheese. Por Diós, tenemos más que el flamenco aquí y todo el mundo se creo que de eso va Sevilla. Pero aquí estamos con Los Miserables. ¡Menos flamenco no se puede ser. . . bueno alguna que otra vez verás un meneo o saldrá algún acento, pero así somos! Christ, we do have more than just flamenco here – and people think that’s all Sevilla is about. Look at us, we’re doing Les Misérables. You can’t get less flamenco than that…well, occasionally you might catch a movement or hear an accent, but it’s who we are. (G. Garcia, personal communication, October 17, 2014) 294 It was the first, but certainly not the last, articulation of local traditions (or challenge of adhering to them) I encountered at the festival. Festivals, after all, let us into the artists’ traditional and cultural lives. In her article "Tourists as Pilgrims: Commercial Fashioning of Transatlantic Politics," Paula Ebron notes that “culture can be produced as a commodified object and, in the process, made available for identity formation” (1999, 910). Theatre festivals have been used as core sites for highlighting identity formation in communities (Addo 2009; Harvie 2005; Hauptfleisch and International Federation for Theatre Research 2007; McMahon 2014) and in cultural representations (Stocking 1985, 102). Los miserables was an interesting choice for the group from Sevilla, which I casually mentioned to its lighting designer during our dinner. His response: “Qué representa Broadway más que Los miserables?” (What is more representative of Broadway than Les Misérables?), replied the Lighting Designer (A. Villar, personal communication, October 17, 2014). Having been influenced by the film’s release in 2012, most at the table also acknowledged that it was a staple soundtrack for anyone into musicals. For the theatre group, Los miserables was everything a Broadway show needed to be: a large production with an enormous cast, grand sweeping orchestral music, large sets that showed off technical capabilities, and a universal story that tugs at audience’s emotions. Like most amateur theatre companies limited by financial budgets, once they produce a musical like Los miserables, they maximize it with multiple performances in their home towns and by participating in festivals throughout. Tomateatro ran Los miserables for well over a year and would have for longer, if it were not for their need to rotate programming to target all tastes in their community. During the holidays, the group had to keep going back to performing 295 Don Juan Tenorio – a 19th century Spanish play that is a favorite for many from Sevilla. According to him, there was no way that, as performers from Sevilla, they could ever stop doing that production on a yearly basis (G. Garcia, personal communication, October 17, 2014). In 2014, at the time of my research, this local community and musical theatre enthusiasts gathered from four different regions of Spain to share their love of Broadway musicals through a spectacular event its organizers, local press, participants, and audiences now call el Broadway. For six weeks, from October 18 through November 22, these groups came together to show off their own versions of Broadway musicals and to participate in the lectures, workshops, and exhibits the festival had to offer. In addition to Los miserables, three other amateur groups from different regions of Spain showcased their performances on consecutive Saturday nights for the third year of the festival in 2014. In order of appearance, as listed and translated (by author) from the event brochure shown in Appendix D: Superhéroes, “Superheroes” (October 25). The Cultural Association Believe, Ciudad Real, will present this totally original musical that tells the story of Pablo, a young man who, after an accident, is in a coma that keeps him suspended between real life and a circus dream world. Recommended for over 12 years. Notre-Dame de Paris, “Notre Dame of Paris” (November 8). Once again, a work by Victor Hugo will be on stage at Zafra, this time with the company Esfiga from Córdoba. This version of the classic and tragic story of the hunchback Quasimodo and the gypsy Esmeralda is recommended for over 12 years. La brújula mágica, “The Magic Compass” (November 15). Children's show created by the cultural association of Madrid Musicales 3C, which tells the story of a young pirate captain in search of the magical compass that gives title to the work, and a restless princess who manages to soften your heart. 296 Notre-Dame de Paris, like Los miserables, was a Spanish translated production of an existing musical performed by a group from the city of Córdoba (in the southern region of Andalucía). Superhéroes was an original musical with Spanish- composed music and lyrics by a group from Ciudad Real, in the central province of Castilla-La Mancha. La brújula mágica was an original pirate story scripted around a collection of popular Disney film songs from a theatre troupe in the province of Madrid. Although the musicals themselves were not reflections of regional identities, the performances off of the stage – social interactions, production choices, and the dynamics of working with other groups – were ideal sites for examining how each them express regional identities from three different parts of Spain. This was a chance 28/12/2018 Spain YQNB Festival to share their work and regional influences with both the festivals audiences and with Spain YQNB Festival each other (see Figure 25). 2014 YQNB Festival Participants TOMATEATRO AC de TEATRO BELIEVE ESFIGA TEATRO MUSICALES 3C 28/12/2018 Spain YQNB Festival Spain YQNB Festival 2014 YQNB Festival Participants TOMATEATRO AC de TEATRO BELIEVE ESFIGA TEATRO MUSICALES 3C Figure 25: Map of Spain showing the dispersed locations – from four different provinces – of the participating theatres for the III YQNB Festival. (Google https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/print?hl=en&mid=1MwyEaqpZpZsO1 Nbpvy40h haATukutwhLdoi9mrU,S bDeGCe&cpageewm=79b2&eparge h2=6182&,l ls2w=0361.928297)9 %2C-11.546011&llne=42.698063%2C3.219614&cid=mp&cv=Ymg3de1Z… 1/1 297 https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/print?hl=en&mid=1wyEqpZZO1Npv40hhATkuwLdi9mUSbeGC&pagew=792&pageh=612&llsw=36.922979%2C-11.546011&llne=42.698063%2C3.219614&cid=mp&cv=Ymg3de1Z… 1/1 I still remember attending the first performance in Zafra, as the kick off generated an air of excitement that has stuck with me years later. After spending some time at the hotel for a siesta (nap), I made my way back to the theatre that evening of October 18 for the performance of Los miserables. Although they were sold out for all four shows of the festival, M. J. confessed she was worried about attendance that evening. There was an important soccer game on, and everyone throughout the day pretty much agreed that “el fútbol lo mueve todo” (soccer makes the word go around). The crowds at that evening’s performance told a different story in Zafra. Throngs of audience members lined up, almost all of them dressed up as expected for this village’s red-carpet event. Even on recent trips to Broadway and London’s West End had I ever seen audiences so spectacularly attired. The lobby’s lights glistened and chest-high “YQNB” letters lit up the literal red carpet that led into the theatre. Making my way past the photo call wall with M. J., a group of anxious girls giddily snapped several of their best celebrity-impersonation photos in front of it. For a moment, I forgot I was in Extremadura. Spanish Regional Broadways on Display It was the morning the of the arrival of the cast, crew, and family of Los miserables from Sevilla. As I finished breakfast in the ornately lavish patio of my hotel, bossa nova covers of pop hits echoed through the pillars. Madonna’s pop song “Like A Virgin” was a bit jarring; familiar yet foreign, American yet European, classic yet pop. The clash of cultures was further exacerbated by the countless black and white photos of bullfighters, Spanish churches, and ladies wearing black veils with rosaries. I thought about this juxtaposition of new sounds and different regional cultures melting together in a small town like Zafra as I hurried through my breakfast 298 to get to the theatre for some of the load in. Broadway did, after all, rise out of similar cultural mixes: stories of immigrants from different lands, a mixing of musical forms, and choreography from a wide range of cultural perspectives. By the time I arrived at the theatre, many of the cast were deep into some group warm-ups and exercises on the enclosed driveway. Technical staff were inside working on lighting and set build to prep for the actors’ rehearsal (see Figure 26). Figure 26: Tomateatro getting ready for their production of Los miserables early in the day. Photo by author, 2014. 299 A few of the older actors sat on the grassy lawn with the younger ones, snacking on something out of little containers. I could hear the technical crew through the metal doors as they solved lighting issues in the theatre. Various parents of the performers in the group brushed past me with racks of costumes and boxes of props. It was a sort of disorganized chaos, yet everyone was relatively calm and immersed in the experience. Through the lobby windows, I spotted M. J. talking to a much older gentleman as the festival crew worked to ready the theatre for the night’s premiere. Her serious face said it all, and I stood far enough away where I did not interrupt the apparently heated discussion. They were discussing the half-constructed exhibit next to them. The man said to M. J., “Mira, es la publicidad que le prometimos a nuestro colegio. Son nuestros patrocinadores y nos dijistéis que nos trajéramos algo que nos exhibiera a nosotros” (Look, it’s the publicity we promised our school. They’re our sponsors and you told us to bring things that showed us off). With a simple head shake, and before he could finish, M. J. left him. As we walked past the exhibit, M. J. explained that every group had this little area in the lobby to display items from their company. While intended to be used for press and promotional items related to the groups’ performances, sponsors of Tomateatro’s school of Santa Ana had used the opportunity to promote their school and their city. She explained: Tienen la bandera de Tenorio, una bandera católica del colegio, y un montón de fotos de santos y curas. Ya se lo he dicho. De todas maneras, no podemos asociarnos con algo religioso y también le quitan la atención a los patrocinadores del foto call. They have a Tenorio (Don Juan Tenorio) flag, their Catholic school flag, and tons of pictures of saints and priests. I already told him. Besides, we really can’t be religiously associated with anything and it also takes attention away from the festival sponsors’ logos on the photo call board. 300 The battle eventually subsided in a truce which allowed for a few symbolic items to remain in the exhibit. As this example notes, the festival provides a fertile ground for the interaction between the local community, different regions, and the state by allowing for these types of local cultural articulations of tradition within a national context that envelops the event. Festivals have become “battlefields of contention” (Gotham 2005), as groups and interests attempt to produce them for their own ends. The battlefields of contention sparked “regional battles” between the groups, especially given the competitive nature of the festival itself. Festival audiences, which include local spectators from the host city, nationals from all over the country who may be merely watching or actively participating in the festival, and international visitors with varying degrees of involvement and investment in the festival, can weave complex cultural dialogues into the fabric of a festival. (McMahon 2014, 24) Through the contested festival space, the theatre companies perform conflicting notions of Broadway, at the same time revealing insights into the dynamics of diverse national and regional identities. The role of YQNB in challenging perception of local identities in Zafra is part of the spectacle as well. The festivals created their own version of Broadway for Zafra and its community (see figure 27). 301 302 303 Figure 27: Photos from the III YQNB Festival in 2014. In order from top to bottom: entrance signs and unlit marquee, a line outside of one of the performances, costume exhibit, Superhéroes cast photo after the show, standing ovation for Los miserables, and red carpet moments after the show in the lobby, and author and MJ at the festival. Photos by author, 2014. Of all the productions I saw at the festival, Superhéroes (October 25, 2014) was the one with the most identifiable Spanish themes, situations, and humor. Many of the scenes reminded me of Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar’s zany plots and eccentric characters. A grumpy teenager sending her mother a flamenco-girl emoji had the audience in tears of laughter. There were dinner scenes identifying specifically Spanish foods and arguments between parents, children, and grandparents that reminded me of my relationship growing up with my Spanish grandmother. In another scene, Spanish teenagers were in a club and dancing to reggaetón (a fusion of Latin American, Caribbean, and hip-hop music popular for dancing and frequently played in Spain). In an online interview for El Crisol, director and creator Maroto explained that these were a new offering in musical theatre: “Son temas muy 304 pegadizos, no es de esos musicales en el que te aburres cuando se ponen a cantar” (They are catchy tunes, not like those musicals that you get bored at once they start singing).99 Two of the judges, María and Álvaro, sat next to me laughing throughout. “Esto es super español!” (This is super Spanish), proclaimed Álvaro during intermission. After the showing of Superhéroes, I had the chance to sit with its director Miguel Ángel Maroto to chat over the now obligatory Spanish beers. Also its composer, playwright, choreographer, and producer, Maroto shared his excitement over bringing an original musical to Spain: “Es que este país necesita más musicales originales, necesitamos historias que sean nuestras” (This country needs more original musicales, we need stories of our own), (M. A. Maroto, personal communication, October 25, 2014). This was in line with the project’s crowdfunding site the troupe from Ciudad Real had set up to raise funds: Este proyecto consiste en la realización de un teatro musical, que recibe el nombre de Superhéroes, una obra teatral totalmente original, tanto el texto literario como la banda sonora que la compone. Este es el aspecto principal de este proyecto, ya que la gran mayoría de los musicales que se realizan en nuestro país, están basados en historias ya realizadas – como La Bella y La Bestia o El Fantasma de la Ópera – o en historias basadas en grupos musicales con amplia trayectoria musical, como Mamma Mía! y Hoy No Me Puedo Levantar . . . Con este proyecto pretendemos crear una obra que se aproxime lo máximo posible a lo profesional, que pueda ser ejecutada en los principales teatros nacionales con las mismas garantías que cualquier otra obra musical vista en el panorama nacional. This project consists of the production of a musical, named Superhéroes, a totally original theatrical work, both the literary text as well as the soundtrack that accompanies it. This is the main objective of this project, since the vast majority of musicals performed in our country are based on already told stories – such as Beauty and the Beast or The Phantom of the Opera – or stories based on musical groups with broad musical repertoires, such as Mamma Mia! and Hoy no me puedo levantar (“Today I Can’ Get Up,” a musical based on the songs of Spanish pop group Mecano) . . . With this 99. Ramón Ruiz Ruiz, “‘Superhéroes’, un musical nacido de la pasión por la música y el teatro,” El Crisol, February 19, 2014, accessed February 10, 2019, https://elcrisoldeciudadreal.es/. 305 project we intend to create a work that is as close as possible to professional, that can be performed in the main national theaters with the same guarantees as any other musical work seen on the national scene. (Lanzanos Website, accessed December 20, 2018, https://www.lanzanos.com/proyectos/superheroes-el-musical/) Maroto and his company wanted to prove just how serious they were about their work, and they did so in part through their merchandise table the night of the performance. The Superhéroes merchandise table reminded me of the Broadway experience of taking a little bit of the show back home with you – in the form of t- shirts, postcards, and even original cast albums. I overheard many in the audience comparing the table to the merchandise stands they saw in the professional theatres of Madrid and New York. Professionally printed posters of Superhéroes were on sale, along with a professionally printed and produced CD of the musical. The lines of people waiting to get merchandise after the performance that evening also reminded me of similar stands on Broadway. The staff members even commented the merchandise gave the group a more professional level of credibility over the other theatre groups (see Figure 28). 306 Figure 28: A merchandise table on Broadway or Zafra? A merchandise table from the Superhéroes musical. Photo by author, 2014. The musicals presented at the musical brought out some of the regional conflicts of the festival. After his show on October 25, the Superhéroes director confided: Estoy harto de Los miserables, El Rey León, El fantasma de la ópera, Mamma Mia! . . . parece que se turnan. No me gusta mucho lo de fuera, y siempre se ve la gente haciendo lo mismo. I am sick of Les Misérables, The Lion King, Phantom of the Opera, Mamma Mia!. . . it’s like they take turns. I don’t like [the shows] from outside [the country] and you always see people doing the same ones. Maroto was indirectly referring to some of the past (and possibly) present productions he encountered at festivals in both Zafra and around Spain. He had particularly strong opinions on the fact that no one presented original musicals – and felt like most prize winners at festivals are the Broadway musicals he mentioned that are restaged over and over in theatres across Spain. The other “original” musical at the festival was 3C Theatre Company’s production of La brújula mágica (November 15, 2014). Unlike Superhéroes, 307 however, an original story about a pirate love story was accompanied by a soundtrack of Disney songs. With three Greek-chorus-like mermaids narrating the story throughout (like in Disney’s Hercules), the musical was used as a vehicle to perform many of Disney’s classic musical hits. They sang and danced to songs from The Little Mermaid, Hercules, Pocahontas, Aladdin, Mulan, The Hunchback of Notre Dame – sometimes several from each. For audiences in Zafra, the recognizable hits, combined with the intricate choreography on a rather elaborately designed ship on the stage, provided a magical night of entertainment. For the judges, as well as other theatre professionals I spoke to in the audiences, the Disney jukebox musical did not represent the Broadway they imagined. Ironically, some of the most successful musicals on Broadway have been jukebox musicals and the current Disney “take- over” in musical theatre. Regional differences also manifest themselves during the performances. Most of the conversation between the judges after (and inappropriately during) the November 08, 2014 performance of Notre-Dame de Paris centered around the distinctly Cordobés (from the province of Córdoba in southern Spain) flavor of the production. Main character Quasimodo’s extreme Southern twang had several audience members laughing aloud at time, including the judges. Someone sitting next to me mimicked the accent out loud: “Ole y ole y ole . . . toma ya Quasimodo!” (Ole and Ole and Ole . . . there you go Quasimodo!). Another person chimed in: “Esmeralda chiquilla, te viene paca?” (Esmeralda girl, are you coming over here?). These dialects and phrases are very typical of Andalucía, and words like chiquilla (“girl”) and paca (“over here”) are uniquely from the southern dialect. 308 Regional tensions also came in the form of competitiveness and critiques between the groups. “Claro vienen los de Sevilla con Los miserables y ya se creen que se van a llevar todos los premios” (Of course here they come from Sevilla with Les Misérables and they already think they are going to win all the prizes), one member of a competing group complained a few weeks prior. “De donde venimos nosotros, por lo menos cantamos todo sin playback” (At least, where we come from, we sing without pre-recorded vocals), another group’s actor commented on one’s group unconfirmed use of vocal tracks for the large choral numbers. The many musical performances were beginning to highlight the noticeable regional differences between the groups – and their ideas about each other. Each was presenting – or interpreting – Broadway in their own way (see Figure 29). 309 310 Figure 29: The four 2014 performances included (from top to bottom) Los miserables (October 18), Superhéroes (October 25), Notre-Dame de París (November 10), and La brújula mágica (November 18). Photo from YQNB (YQNB Facebook Page, 2014, accessed February 01, 2019, https://www.facebook.com/yquiennecesitabroadwayzafra/.) During the performance of Los miserables in Zafra, the musical conductor made me think about the many ways Broadway is presented – or performed – at the festival. Dressed in a suit and bowtie, he stood on a raised platform in the far-left aisle of the theatre. Bathed in a bright white spotlight, he waved his baton in the air; a choreography that accompanied every beat and note of the musical. I was intrigued at his passionate performance and dedication. The show used pre-recorded musical accompaniment instead of an orchestra, although the vocalists sang live. The conductor’s far-left position made it impossible for the cast to glance over at him. What was the purpose of having him there, if there was no orchestra to sync with the singers on the stage? I asked one of my fellow judges about this curiosity after the show. 311 Con un musical como Los miserables, creo que es necesario tener uno. Te imaginas un espectáculo como Los miserables sin director [de orquesta]? With a musical like Les Miserables, it’s necessary to have one. Can you imagine a big Broadway show like Les Miserables without one? M. J.’s nearby sister-in-law chimed in: No se nada de Broadway, pero si esto es Broadway, me encanta. Y si hay alguna razón para que me encante, es que trae algo nuevo al pueblo. Necesitamos más cultura. I know nothing of Broadway, but if this is Broadway, then I like it. Any reason to like it, it’s because it brings something new to the town. We need a bit more culture. The musical conductor was surely playing the part of the professional well. But just who were the professionals bringing this Broadway culture to Zafra? Colloquial Chats con Cafe For a Saturday morning, M. J.’s excitement was either abnormally intense or my senses were on high alert. This was part of our conversation that morning on October 25: M. J.: Todos estámos muy ilusionados por tú charla esta tarde. No podemos esperar para que nos cuentes todo sobre Broadway. Me: Se algunas cosillas, pero no soy ningún experto. Especialmente porque nunca he trabajado en Broadway. M. J.: ¿Y qué más da? Por su puesto eres más experto que los demás en Zafra – y seguramente España. M. J.: Everyone is so excited to go to your chat tonight. We can’t wait to hear all about Broadway from you. Me: I know a few things, but I am definitely not an expert. Especially since I have not worked on Broadway. 312 M. J.: What difference does it make? You’re certainly more of an expert than the rest of us in Zafra – and probably Spain. In addition to the Saturday performances, festival attendants and the community were offered a Lecture Series throughout several of the Fridays and Saturdays of the festival. As advertised in their brochure (see Appendix D), it was a way “to get closer to musical theatre and not just as audience members sitting in seats. [They’ve] prepared these chats with coffee and chocolate so that you can ask questions, tell your stories, and clear up any doubts directly with professionals and the stars of the genre” (Pámpano, III Certamen Nacional de ¿Y Quién Necesita Broadway? Festival Brochure, 2014). Billed as “the actor and musical theatre professor in the United States,” I was the first of several in a series of “Charlas coloquio con café” (Colloquial Chats with Coffee) scheduled throughout the weeks of the festival. Leading a session titled “¿Cómo es el verdadero Broadway?” (What’s the Real Broadway Like?) implied a certain level of professionalization that in my mind was reserved for those that had actually worked on the “real Broadway.” Who were the remaining lecturers, and did we somehow collectively embody the participants’ interpretation of the Broadway community? Regardless of the lecturers’ experiences and backgrounds, these Broadway seminars provided insight into how concepts of authenticity are constructed and staged by key participants of the festival. Through these expert storytellers, authenticity manifests as performances of professionalism that helped shaped the legitimacy of Broadway at the festival. For weeks before the festival, I thought about my lecture and the pressure of living up to – or possibly shattering – collectively imagined ideas of Broadway. 313 Chatting with Spanish musical theatre enthusiasts about the “real Broadway” was daunting enough without also having to worry about the other professional artists attending. As the labeled expert on Broadway at the festival, the weight of the participants’ expectations began to crush any confidence I had in my own area of scholarly and professional specialization. No matter how many times I tried to shake the “Broadway” label from my name, there was an automatic association for having worked on musicals in the United States. It was right there on the brochure and M. J.’s additional promotional efforts further cemented my role at the festival: to be the professional with firsthand knowledge about Broadway. How was the festival defining “professional” in the world of Broadway musicals? In the most literal sense of the term “professional,” each of the lecturers and workshop instructors have been paid for their craft or have specialized in an area of theatre research. Fernando Ramos Mena, a professional actor with years of stage credits around Spain and a Producer through his own company Verbo Producciones. Lecture: Cosas a tener en cuenta a la hora de producir mi propio montaje (Things to Keep in Mind When Staging My Own Production.) María Soriano, a comparative literature PhD student whose research focuses on opera, textual theatre, and myth on the stage. Lecture: El vestuario y su relevancia en el montaje. Evolución a través de la historia (Costumes and Their Relevance in Productions. Evolution Through History). Jóse Luis Sixto, Director of the musical Excítame (Thrill Me) at Madrid’s Teatro Fernán Gómez and Juanjo Gonzalez, Director of Broadwayworld.com Spain, an online review site. Lecture: Flops y otras curiosidades. Musicales que fracasaron en España (Flops and Other Curiosities. Musicals That Failed in Spain). Silvia Montesinos (Director), Susana Ruiz (Choreographer), and José Ángel Silvia (Musical Director) from the Faculty of the Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático (ESAD) de Murcia (University of Dramatic Arts in Murcia, Spain). They led a participative studio workshop called La escena coral en el teatro musical (Choral Staging in Musical Theatre). 314 David Gregory, PhD student whose research focuses on musical theatre, with professional acting and directing credits in the United States. Lecture: ¿Cómo es el verdadero Broadway? (What’s the Real Broadway Like?) My performance and directing credits included substantial paid work in the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore metropolitan area, despite being far removed from the bright lights of Broadway and New York City. Yet many of the Broadway musicals staged outside of New York City in regional theatres and national tours are oft-equated to the same professional level. In Spain, I came to learn that Broadway also meant musical theatre in a broad sense – and not just musicals originating in New York City. Thinking through the different spaces Broadway musicals are staged, I shaped the lecture around a discussion of professional versus non-professional musical theatre in the United States. After a brief introduction of my experience, no doubt to validate my credentials, I then offered a brief overview of musical theatre history. This history, however, was framed from my American perspective and scope of knowledge. I scratched the surface of Broadway musical theatre history, realizing this was a history to which a Spanish audience had little connection or familiarity. Concepts like “minstrel shows” and “vaudeville” were difficult to explain in a short amount of time, especially without any previous exposure to those cultural references. Instead, I spent most of the lecture sharing different categories of musical theatre: Broadway and New York City; regional theatres and tours; dinner theatres and smaller non-profits; universities; children’s and youth theatres; and community theatres. It was a way to expose Spanish musical theatre enthusiasts to the different strata of musical theatre productions, without falsely selling myself as a Broadway insider. It was also a selfishly motivated way to instigate a group discussion to reveal 315 details about the Spanish professional system for the purposes of my research. I asked them what makes for a professional musical theatre artist in Spain. Having exposed them to Actors’ Equity Association (AEA) as the union of professional actors in the United States, the thirty-minute lecture instigated an almost hour-long discussion on the idea of professionalization of musical theatre and the differences found in the Spanish system. In the United States, being Equity carries with it a level of certified professionalism. In her article “Star Quality and Job Security: The Role of the Performers' Unions in Controlling Access to the Actin Profession,” Emily Chi discusses public perceptions of entertainers in the union and how that impacts definitions and legal issues surrounding the profession itself. “To many actors, both union members and nonmembers, and to many employers and consumers in the entertainment industry, a union card is a mark of an actor's professionalism and carries with it a certain degree of prestige” (Chi 2001, 2 – 3). In Spain, there is less of an appreciation for the actors’ profession and a level of prestige associated with musical theatre is rare. “Más quisieramos tener el mismo respeto por el teatro por aquí” (We can only wish of having the same respect for theatre around here), commented one of the lecture attendees out loud. Part of a local theatre company in Zafra, the amateur actress stated her frustration with the acting profession in Spain, while admiring the resources, funds, and prolificity of musical theatre in the United States. A 2016 article in El País Online titled “La mitad de los actores con empleo cobra menos de 3.000 euros al año” (Half of all employed actors earn less 316 than EUR 3,000 a year) highlighted the dire employment figures for actors in Spain. In the span of the year covered in the study,100 • 32% of working actors earn less than 600 euros per month (or $685), poverty level in Spain is defined as 655 euros per month • Only around 8% make more than 12,000 euros ($13,700) per year • Only 2% make more than 30,000 euros ($14,900) • 48% do not find work in their industry • Only 8% make a living off the profession There are 1.8 actors for every 10,000 inhabitants in Spain (ibid), as opposed to the 1.3 for the same ratio in the United States. American actors in the industry average around $68,000 per year (ibid). As per Equity contract requirement, professional actors in 2018 union productions earn a minimum of $2,034 per week (“Occupational Employment and Wages.” Bureau of Labor and Statistics, May 2017, last modified March 30, 2018, https://www.bls.gov/oes/2017/may/oes272011.htm#ind). As I learned in Fernando Ramos Mena’s October 26, 2014 lecture, “Cosas a tener en cuenta a la hora de producir mi propio montaje” (Things to Keep in Mind When Staging My Own Production), the professional acting system in Spain is a much more complex and multilayered system. “Tu tienes a Equity y aquí nostros metidos con los toreros” (You [as in Americans] have Equity and here were stuck in with the bullfighters), Fernando complained. He was referencing the Spanish general collective for actors that I discussed in Chapter 3, El Régimen General: Colectivo de Artistas y Profesionales Taurinos (General Regime: Collective for Artists and Bullfighters). 100. Gregorio Belinchón, “La mitad de los actores con empleo cobra menos de 3.000 euros al año,” El País Online, September 29, 2016, accessed December 15, 2018, https://elpais.com/cultura/2016/09/29/actualidad/1475143289_089823.html. 317 The audience at the lecture was less worried about the points of Spanish actors’ collectives, and more infuriated over the fact that actors were lumped together with circus performers, flamenco dancers, and bullfighters. Fernando Ramos Mena spoke of his disapproval during his lecture: “No tenemos nada que ver con los toreros. Pero normal, es que en España nos siguen pidiendo las comedias – más español no se puede ser” (We have nothing to do with bullfighters. It’s not surprising though, because in Spain they keep demanding comedias – we can’t be any more Spanish). Attendees at my lecture were also intrigued by the seemingly professional quality of non-Equity shows. As part of my lecture, I took them through my creative journey for Ragtime, the musical I directed at the university-affiliated Arts Collective based in Howard Community College (Maryland). Through photos, sketches, and video clips of performances, they were convinced that it was not an amateur company. In their eyes, Ragtime was a professional musical. The cast of thirty, full orchestra of twelve, complex projections, technical set, and admitted budget of over $60,000 convinced them that this was more serious than a community production. In their minds, the amount of money spent, creative effort, and collective participation did not make sense for a production that only ran for two weekends. María Soriana (one of the judges) attributed this unlimited access to resources (from their Spanish perspective) to earlier exposure of theatre training in the United States. She commented, “Claro, es que los americanos estudiáis el teatro musical desde muy pequeño. Yo me he enterado que con los 5 años ya están con el claqué. Es que naceís profesionales” (Of course, it’s because you Americans study musical theatre since very young. I heard that at five years old, you’re all already taking tap classes. You’re 318 practically born a professional). By the end of these lectures and discussions, I was not quite sure how to define professional anymore. Is it defined by quality? Is it defined by union status? At the festival, we were defining professionalism through the way we told our stories and established our credibility as musical theatre practitioners and scholars. The Expert “Americano de Broadway” Set in small corner building with the theatre complex, the sparse and partially stone room looked more like an official conference hall for official acts than a creative space. A projector screen nestled behind a large desk and a podium inscribed with the Ayuntamiento de Zafra (City Hall of Zafra) logo all but designated this a place of business. Nicco, the technical director of the festival, brought me a stool to make the chat a bit “less formal.” After all, they were serving chocolate con galletas (hot cocoa with cookies) to encourage interactive discussion between the lecturers and the participants. For one of the first times in my life, I was extremely nervous at giving a lecture on musical theatre. I had several musical theatre history courses under my belt and was also going to be discussing elements of a process I helped create. Still, the stomach flutters were unnerving. M. J. reassured me, “Anda ya, si eres un profesor de teatro musical de los Estados Unidos. ¿Quién mejor para contarnos sobre el Broadway?” (Nonsense, you’re a musical theatre professor from the United States. Who better to tell us about Broadway?). I was beginning to think she was onto my repeated searches for affirmation. Like all the other lecturers, I was there to tell my story and through my performance as an expert professional I had to reinforce the authenticity of the festival and its connection to Broadway. 319 In Storytelling and Theatre: Contemporary Storytellers and Their Art, Michael Wilson (2006) talks about performance and storytelling within the context of professionalism. Under his definition, the other lecturers and I are considered “hobby storytellers.” We are not hired specifically to narrate or tell stories; instead our storytelling occurs in the service of a wider, more important role. In my case, it is as an instructor or a director with professional experiences and information to share. Conversely, Wilson also refers to a category of storytellers whose purpose it is to carry on a tradition. “This may include telling of stories from within the community to which that tradition belongs but may also encompass the telling of stories outside that community to promote awareness of that culture to the wider community” (ibid, 20). In some ways, I was sharing the Broadway tradition while imparting awareness of the American culture. In her book Trumpets in the Mountains, Laurie Frederik (2012) also explores storytelling but from the important perspective of performance and narratives on nationhood. Through her observations on performances of the campesinos (from the “country”), Frederik draws parallels between the narrative of the performers and ideas of nation (cubanía in her case). The interconnection of professional and campesino storytellers help emphasize the relationship between the country, the professional, and the state. In much the same way, I am interested in how the lecturers at the festival in Zafra construct their own narratives against a backdrop of politics. In many ways, I felt like the local participants were not as keen on voicing too many differing opinions during the talk backs. 320 Those remaining silent also did so, perhaps, from habit, allowing the leaders and what they perceived as the “educated” (or perhaps just the more powerful) to voice opinions first, fearful that their own critical opinions would not be well received or would be judged inappropriately. Thus, cultural authority was established within the local community along a predetermined set of standards. (ibid, 241) Fellow festival lecturer María Soriano – and fellow festival judge – acknowledged that awareness over a few beers right after my lecture. She admitted, “Yo flipo con los estudios que tenéis allí” (I flip out over the training you Americans have over in the United States). While she recognizes the values of specialty universities in Spain like the Real Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático de Madrid (Royal Superior University of Dramatic Arts), for her the idea of becoming a professional in the arts is not engrained from an early age in Spain. She added, “Aquí si que se sueña con ser profesional de fútbol desde peque y encima tiene todo el apoyo de la sociedad española. Pero las artes escénicas, ni que lo pienses” (Here you dream of becoming a soccer player when you’re little and on top of that, you have all the support of Spanish society. But theatre arts, don’t even think about it). Professional theatre training centers for all levels is much less prevalent in Spain than in the United States. At the University level for example, there are public professional training schools and private schools. Through the website of La Asociación Española de Centros Superiores de Enseñanzas Artísticas (The Spanish Association of Higher Education in the Arts), I counted 14 public dramatic arts universities in the country – which includes the Real Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático de Madrid (founded in 1831) (Accessed December 26, 2018, https://www.acesea.es/centros/). Private universities include institutions like Institute of the Arts in Barcelona or Berklee School of Music (music only), which grant degrees through their own universities 321 outside of Spain. Privatized vocational training schools and studios like Cristina Rota Escuela de Interpretación are more popular in the cities and often draw the most students, for its connections to industry professionals and immediate work. What is the difference between the public and the private? According to one of RESAD Madrid’s directors and current professors in an interview with radio personality David Redondo on June 05, 2014:101 La formación es muy completa. Hay unas escuelas oficiales [como la RESAD] que existen en todos los países y son escuelas que tienen un número de profesores cualificados muy importantes y unos recursos económicos para poder hacer frente de estas enseñanzas que son muy caras: se necesitan instalaciones, vestuarios, aulas. . . Todo esto no será en esas academias ni tampoco un periodo de formación largo . . . [La gente] no entiende por qué un actor debe tener un título y, sin embargo, entiende que un cirujano deba de tenerlo. La profesión del actor necesita una formación y una técnica como otros oficios. The training is very complete. There are some official schools [like the RESAD] that exist in all countries and are schools that have a number of very important qualified teachers and financial resources to be able to face training that is very expensive: facilities, changing rooms, classrooms are needed . . . All this will not exist in those academies nor long periods of training) . . . [People] don’t understand why an actor needs a degree, and yet somehow understands why a surgeon needs one. The acting profession necessitates proper training and technique like other vocations. “Y creo que tú y yo somos de los pocos que estámos lo bastante preparados para enseñarlo bien” (I think you and I are some of the few that are prepared enough to teach it), Maria Soriano casually mumbles while working on the next beer. In an interview for the cultural section of an online business media site, ex-Director Joaquín Amores of the Superior School (ESAD) in the Spanish city of Gijón corroborates that assertation. “Ahora nos están pidiendo para los bachilleratos 101. David Redondo, “Rafael Ruiz: ‘La profesión del actor necesita una formación y una técnica’,” Cadena Ser Online, June 05, 2014, https://cadenaser.com/ser/2014/06/02/ television/1401676527_850215.html. 322 artísticos gente que haya acabado la carrera para dar clases. Pero esa también es otra batalla. No vale que pongan a cualquier a dar clases de artes escénicas, sino que deben ser titulados en Arte Dramático” (Now they are asking for artistic university degrees for people to teach. But that’s another battle. You can’t just put anyone up there to teach dramatic arts; they now must hold a university degree in Dramatic Arts), he notes.102 For lecturers of the festival, a university degree or paid stage credits were only a part of the equation. Our professional status was further embellished through the marketing efforts of the festival and its organizers. “To place a particular tradition, story, or storyteller upon a pedestal as an exemplar is to grant it an official status. . . [and the storytellers see their stories] as ways of challenging official culture and its associated power structures” (Wilson 2006, 20). In the week before my lecture, I was asked to appear on-air for a radio interview at the local radio station. Not only did it aid in bringing back some of the confidence I felt dwindling away in this unknown world, it also gave me an unchecked platform through which to convey the story I wanted to tell. The approximately fifteen-minute interview not only used to tout the festival’s performances, but also to hype the appearance of professional actors from Madrid, scholars from all corners of the country, and even actors like me from “el Broadway verdadero” (the real Broadway). The radio host was thoroughly focused on getting my impressions about small-town Zafra hosting a festival of big Broadway musicals, acknowledging the importance of the festival in its draw of “professionals” like me. From their point of view, I had come from the United States specifically for 102. M.Gijón Antuña, M. F., “No solo se estudia arte dramático para ser actor, hay más salidas,” El Comercio Online, October 20, 2014, https://www.elcomercio.es/culturas/201410/20/solo- estudia-arte-dramatico-20141020005409-v.html. 323 this festival, so it must be important. In the words of Walter Benjamin, “The intelligence that came from afar – whether the spatial kind from foreign countries or the temporal kind of tradition –possessed an authority which gave it validity, even when it was not subject to verification” (Benjamin 1989, 325). I was thankful to not have to prove my knowledge or risk any of my credibility. Instead, I was simply asked to sing a little bit from the musical Grease on air. In the festival classrooms, the lecturers also performed their professionalism in ways which gave credibility to their expertise. Professionalism involves not only expertise but also the performance of professionalism, where “to be accepted one must have learned to play the part” (Becker 1970, 4). I specifically chose a business- casual look, with accompanying reading glasses to accentuate my scholarliness. More than just a concern over physical appearance, I was also overcompensating for fear of my actual performance as an academic (see Figure 30). Figure 30: Author playing the professional during his lecture October 25, 2014. Photo by M. J. Pámpano. 324 All of my teaching experience – especially at the university level – has been in the United States. In fact, my entire college education and work experience happened after I left Spain. The audiences were different in Zafra, but I was more so. My Spanish vocabulary did not go further than that of a high school graduate. My entire glossary of theatre terms and Broadway history knowledge had only been spoken in English. I could not even tell you the most basic theatre terms in Spanish. I did not know how to say “centerstage” or “minstrel shows.” I did not know if a theatrical concept like Equity even existed at all in Spain. “Dinner theatre” was a new concept to them, and a simple translation to teatro de comida does not amount to anything. I essentially felt the pressure of putting on a professional performance in Spanish, without having the proper experience in academia abroad. Instead, I simply embraced my position as the sole Broadway historian at the festival to share my personal experiences with musical theatre in the United States, while completely acknowledging – sometimes poking fun at – my lack of Spanish theatre lingo. I had created a montage of video clips of several Broadway friends sending their greetings to Zafra and the musical theatre festival. A personalized message from the Tony- Award winning cast of Beautiful: The Musical, a backstage tour with one of the actors from Kinky Boots, and several other well-wishes from tours and regional productions helped further cement my connection to Broadway itself. More importantly, it also further amplified the importance the festival organizers placed on their efforts while validating it for their audiences. For many, especially M. J., it was a tear-inducing moment that made them feel like their efforts were worth it. Through this lecture I was both the historian and the storyteller of Broadway at the festival, and it made me think of a passage by Walter Benjamin: 325 [As a historian, I am] bound to explain in one way or another the happenings with which [I deal]… [I] have from the very start lifted the burden of demonstrable explanation from their own shoulders. (1989, 7-8) [As a storyteller, I] take what [I tell] from experience— [my] own or that reported by others. And [I] in turn makes it the experience of those who are listening to [my] tale. (1989, 3) Workshopping Broadway The performance of professionalism was not just limited to the instructors and lecturers of the festival. Through the musical theatre workshop, festival participants attempted to take on some of those professional characteristics themselves. As advertised on the festival brochure, “La escena coral en el teatro musical” (Choral/Ensemble Work in Musical Theatre) promised: A través del montaje de una escena coral de un musical americano, se trabajarán la interpretación, el canto y la coreografía de cada uno de los personajes, para después unificarlo todo en una puesta en escena final. Through a rehearsal of an American musical theatre scene, we will work with acting, singing, and dance for each of the characters, to later unify them into one final scene. (Pámpano, III Certamen Nacional de ¿Y Quién Necesita Broadway? Festival Brochure, 2014) The November 15th and 16th workshop was designed for actors, singers, dancers, and general audiences interested in musical theatre people interested in the world of musical theatre. The workshop was led by Silvia Montesinos (Director), Susana Ruiz (Choreographer), and José Ángel Silvia (Musical Director) from the Faculty of the Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático (ESAD) de Murcia (University of Dramatic Arts in Murcia, Spain). Lasting over eleven hours over a Saturday and Sunday, the instructors led fourteen students (including M. J., the festival organizer) through a section of “Magic To Do,” the opening number from the musical Pippin. Montesinos had studied for two years at the American Musical Academy of Dramatic 326 Arts, a credit she was sure to highlight during the workshop on several occasions. Her background is peppered with teaching credits around Spain, England, and even the Czech Republic. In addition, she most recently served as the Spanish Lyricist and Adapter for The Addams Family Musical in Madrid. With already impressive credits, the teaching staff of the workshop set the stage for its participants. It was to be a “professional” session and despite the varied levels of experience in the workshop, they warned that they expect the same level of professionalism from everyone – beginning with the attire. After the first break – and most definitely by the second day – the workshop attendees had changed into the black rehearsal uniforms their instructors were sporting. M. J. was thrilled to be a part of this workshop: “Me siento como una profesional y esto me encanta!” (I feel like a professional and I love that!). Workshops in past years also banked on the Broadway professional appeal and included sessions such as “Quiero ser actor de Broadway” (I Want to Be a Broadway Actor) and “Quiero cantar como Liza Minelli” (I Want to Sing Like Liza Minelli). In “Putting on a Professional Performance: Performativity, Subversion and Project Management,” organizational studies professor Damian Hodgson notes that: Professionalism is reinforced and gains legitimacy in the eyes of those external to it (e.g. non-professionals, clients, the state) not only through claims to competence but also in constituting the conduct expected of a professional, from the white coat and bedside manner of the medical profession to the sober suit and sober demeanor of the accountant. (Hodgson 2005, 52) Pippin was one of the festival’s musicals in previous years, performed by the school of the workshop leaders (ESAD Murcia). The workshop was split between musical rehearsals and choreography. I was not present for the musical portion of the workshop but was able to join them for the dance segments. Much of the choreography for this workshop was admittedly from their production, but even it had 327 influences from Broadway’s original Pippin and famed choreographer Bob Fosse. There were turned-in feet and single bent knees, with a body lean forward. There were mime-like hand articulations, palms extended and fingers spread out, peppering the number. Even the black leotards of the participants were reminiscent of Bob Fosse. Physically demanding even for the most highly trained dancers, Fosse’s actual choreography is not be suitable for a workshop made of up actors with different levels of experience – most of them beginners. Even so, many of Fosse’s characteristic moves were touted by the instructors themselves. “Esto es muy Fosse” (This is very Fosse), the choreographer explained with her two palms facing outward and fingers spread apart (see Figure 31). 328 Figure 31: Photos from the musical theatre workshop November 15 – 16, 2014. In order from top to bottom: Director Silvia Montesinos leading some Fosse movements, students rehearsing, Music Director José Ángel Silvia teaching the opening song. Photos by author, 2014. 329 For participants like M. J., it was like having a taste of Broadway herself. M. J. was thrilled to offer festival participants a way to see how a musical scene was rehearsed through a recreated professional process, especially given the time constraints of the workshop. The participants agreed, as overheard packing up after the first day’s workshop session: “Tantas horas y son muchas cosas” (So many hours and a lot of things [to learn]). “Esto cansa un montón, pero nadie dice que Broadway es fácil” (This is really tiring, but no one said Broadway was easy). “Te imaginas un musical entero. Todos los días, dándole tantas horas de seguidas. Esto si que es ser artista” (Can you imagine a whole musical? Every day, so many hours in a row. This is what it’s like to be an artist). Through the workshop, the instructors were giving the participants a taste of what it was like to intensely rehearse a musical number in a short period of time. As amateur theater group participants, most had full-time jobs or other obligations (much like with community theatre in the United States). For the participants of the festival, being able to do this “all day long” meant that you were doing it professionally – regardless on the amount of pay. On several occasions, M. J. expressed her desire to be just like Broadway professionals who rehearse and perform all day and night. Using interjections like “Cuando yo estaba en Nueva York” (When I was in New York City) and “En Madrid” (In Madrid), they were also grounding their instructions with an air of legitimacy. Sociologist Marcel Fournier notes (1999) that norms not only establish and maintain the legitimacy of the professions, but they also act as a form of discipline. Whenever the group talked too much or lost focus during rehearsals, the instructors were quick to remind them that they were here to be serious about the work, “como profesionales” (like professionals). It also gave them a sense 330 of what it was like to work together toward the one goal of bringing a little bit of Broadway to Zafra. Scholars have explored pedagogy in musical theatre, specifically with regards to ensemble work and collaborative team participation (Rouse and Rouse 2004; Britton 2013; Moore and Bergman 2016; Evans 2015; Ogden, DeLuca, and Searle 2010; Heathcote 1980; Bolton 1999; and Ashwell and Gouge 2003). Studying teamwork through ensemble work are important activities because they are “associated with people working together to create a shared product, beyond everyone doing their own task-related work. Performing arts work best when a collaborative product is created rather than just a sum of solos” (Rouse and Rouse 2004, 609). Through the musical theatre workshop, participants were able to directly contribute to creating a sense of professionalism and strengthen the legitimacy of “Broadway” at the festival. However, their most important night awaited them all. The Art of Competition The Gran Gala was abuzz with excitement and glamor. The red carpet, almost invisible from the throngs of elegantly dressed men and women which covered it, radiated a sparkling level of officiality and prestige. People mumbled about the celebrities that were presenting awards for the evening while capturing selfies and immediately posting to their social media pages. Nominated performers and creatives huddled in packs, encouraging one another of their certain wins. All but one of the twelve “Z-shaped” Zeta (Spanish for the letter “z,” as in Zafra) trophies which sat for four weeks in a display in the lobby were left to award for the evening. El Premio al Mejor Espectáculo (Prize for Best Show), the most anticipated prize for the evening, came with a hefty EUR 1,000 (approximately $1,450) check. More than the cash prize, this was the one trophy all competing groups wanted to take back home. It not 331 only certified their place as the best show of the festival, but also put their towns and provinces on a national map – even if it was an amateur musical theatre competition. By analyzing the awards component of the festival, I show how the Broadway musical festival brings a cultural legitimization to musical theatre. As noted earlier in the chapter, research related specifically to amateur competitive theatre festivals in Spain are scarce. There is more extensive research on general competition in music festivals (Aitken 1931; Bowen and Daniels 2005) and film festivals (De Valck and Soeteman 2010; Hohnberg 2007), but very little which exclusively focuses on awards and competitions outside of Broadway. In many cases, theatre-related research focuses on the festival itself while purposely excluding the competitive aspects of the event (Delahunty 2017). In his book, Life The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality (1998), Niel Gabler talks about life being like a movie, where we are “at once performance artists in and audiences for a grand, ongoing show” (ibid, 4). Although following in the format of film, he sees us as stars in our own “lifies,” where we follow scripts created by media in order to act out our performances in front of our peers. Although Hollywood has led the race in creating a world of glamor, fashion, and celebrity through spectacle, theatre has also taken on some of those characteristics. In festival spaces like Zafra, participants (and visitors) are transported to extraordinary experiences away from their normal public roles (Morgan 2007) and role-playing is a way of creating memorable experiences (Jackson 2006). Even in Zafra, the Awards Gala as a red-carpet event further legitimized the festival’s perceived connection to a Broadway experience. “Son Como los Tonys” (They are like the Tonys), said an actress with excitement as she made her way down 332 the carpet in a long dress and accompanying elbow-length gloves. Drawing reference to the Tony Awards, the actress was one of dozens overheard making the same comparisons. Her friend replied, “Sí, mañana mismo ya nos estás viendo por YouTube y por Facebook” (Yes, tomorrow you’ll see us all over YouTube and Facebook). The red carpet, the event’s photo call backdrop, the required formal attire, the “celebrity” presenters, and the scheduled post-party celebrations were entirely modeled after the Tony Awards on Broadway. A “who’s who” of people from Zafra attended and I was even asked to take a picture with the Mayor and the Councilwoman of Tourism and Culture of Zafra (see Figure 32). 333 Figure 32: Zafra’s own version of the Tony Awards comes to life at the Grand Gala on November 22, 2014. Author also takes a red-carpet moment with Zafra’s Mayoress and Tourism/Culture Councilwoman. Photo from author. As per the festival’s brochure announcing the event: ¿Y qué sería de un certamen de premios? En serio no has visto nunca la Gala del ¿Y Quién Necesita Broadway? Hasta doce premios Z de Teatro Musical tenemos preparados para las compañías, incluido el jugoso Premio Oris Cultura y Sonrisa al Mejor Espectáculo dotado con mil euros, ¡casi nada! ¡Menuda responsabilidad tiene nuestro jurado! Bueno, y nuestro público, porque ya sabes que el Premio Especial del Público lo valoran los espectadores gracias a las votaciones cada semana al terminar la función. Sin duda un espectáculo único (y esto no es una exageración, es que se escribe y se representa sólo en esta ocasión) que de nuevo estará conducido por Plétora Teatro y con números espectaculares siempre con los musicales como pretexto para la diversión. Los espectadores podrán contagiarse, un año más, de la emoción de los nominados y del glamour de nuestros invitados especiales que estarán encantados de entregar los premios a los ganadores. Eso sí, ya sabes las normas: imprescindible pisar la alfombra roja vestidos de etiqueta. ¡Broadway te espera! 334 And what is about an awards contest? Seriously you have never seen the Gala of Who Needs Broadway? We’ve prepared up to twelve musical theater “Z awards” for companies, including the juicy “Oris Culture and Smile Award for the Best Musical” endowed with EUR 1,000, almost nothing! What a responsibility our jury has! Well, and our audience, because you already know that the “Special Audience Award” is awarded by the audience thanks to the votes each week at the end of the performance. Undoubtedly a unique show (and this is not an exaggeration, since it’s written and performed only on this occasion) that will again be helmed by Plétora Theatre with spectacular numbers as a pretext for fun. For another year, spectators will feel the emotions of the nominees and the glamor of our special guests – who will happily award the prizes to the winners. Of course, you know the rules: formal attire is required to step foot on the red carpet. Broadway is waiting for you! (Pámpano, 2014, III Certamen Nacional de ¿Y Quién Necesita Broadway? Festival Brochure) M. J. was “obsessed” with the Tony Awards and, like most musical theatre fans around the world, looks forward to the day in June to catch the clips of the awards, the performances, and perhaps some of the stars on the carpet. M. J. unsurprisingly revealed to me in a conversation we had in my house long after the festival’s end: “Aunque lo tenga que ver por clips de YouTube, me encantan los Tonys – especialmente los números musicales, son mis favoritos y quiería incorporar algo de lo mismo aquí en nuestro Broadway” (Even though I have to watch it mostly through YouTube clips, I love the Tonys – especially the musical numbers, they’re my favorite and I wanted to incorporate a bit of the same at our Broadway). The musical numbers and performances were part of the spectacle and performance that gave her festival more legitimacy in the eyes of its participants, especially those familiar with the Tony Awards. In “Rewarding Work, Representing Work: The Serious Side of Entertainment in Globalized Awards Shows,” Lukasz Swiatek posits entertainment as the primary feature of awards ceremonies, even before the actual prizes themselves. 335 Award shows are spectacular forms of entertainment, popular with both audiences and television network producers. In fulfilling audience members’ emotional desires, particularly by providing them with amusement and excitement, they draw attention to, and promote, work, especially professional work. (Swiatek 2014, 217 – 218) Plétora Teatro was another amateur group that M. J. had worked with throughout the year outside of the festival and it was responsible for creating, producing, and performing the show’s entertainment on the stage that evening. Like the Tony Awards, the evening’s Gala included a grand opening and musical scenes sprinkled between the awards being presented. The group’s performance paid homage to various theatrical conventions and styles, and scenes included a comedic monologue from Shakespeare that incorporated themes and concepts from Zafra and the festival. Another musical number consisted in three different Marilyn Monroe look-alikes singing to the song “Let Me Be Your Star,” from the television series Smash.103 In writing the “script” for the entertainment at Zafra’s Gala, M. J. wanted to bring all the “best of Broadway” into the evening’s entertainment. The performances are also ways that musicals generated feelings of closeness to performers, through performances where the audience felt the efforts put out by the performers themselves (Sedgman 2016). Plétora Teatro performs one of the numbers in Figure 33. 103. Smash, a series set around the creation of a new musical on Broadway, was a hit amongst musical theatre lovers – both in the United States and in Spain, from my observations. 336 Figure 33: Plétora Teatro performs a number in between awards at the ceremony. In this number, competing Disney characters vie for attention during the song. Photo by author, 2014. The evenings presenters added to the Broadway-esque evening of the Gala, in what Lukasz Swiatek (2014) referenced as “spectacle of celebrity” (Corless & Darke 2007, 68) and the “fashion spectacle” (Cosgrave 2007, 53). Television series costume designer Pepe Reyes generated excitement from the audience. Attendees were seen gathering around TV personality Lola Trigoso, who was also responsible for a few of the award presentations. Professional actors and presenters Fernando Ramos, José Vicente Moirón, and Selu Nieto were instantly recognizable by most at the festival. As locals from Extremadura, they had accepted invitations to come back and contribute to the festival – even if just as presenters. Some presented individually and others in pairs, elegantly taking to the stage from the wings in their most festive attire. As a direct “representative of Broadway” and a judge, I too was tasked with 337 presenting an award that evening. Preceded by elaborately composed videos announcing each of the award categories, we took turns introducing the nominations with a small, personal speech of our own. In keeping with my American-Spanish theme, I started my speech in English as a gimmick. Pretending to suddenly notice their confused looks (which they were), I suddenly switched back to the heaviest, intentional Cádiz accent I could muster. For an added punchline, I made a joke about our audience needing to work a bit more at getting their B1 (a Cambridge English- proficiency level known in Spain). My intention was to draw a closer connection to the audience by “Spaniardizing” myself to them – but also to “Americanize” myself with the English in order to validate my connection back to Broadway. In introducing the award, I then threw back nod back to Broadway. “On Broadway, costumes are…”. Winning with a Capital “Z” For many in the audience, the most important announcements were the names that were pulled out of the envelopes held by the presenters. A Zeta trophy awaited each of the lucky winners. Almost a foot tall, the trophies were personally crafted from wood by M. J.’s father and lacquered with gold spray-paint to give it the necessary shimmer and grandeur. The glass display case was one of the first things to go up in the lobby in the days before the festival began. M. J. bragged, “Mi padre ha estado liado meses con esto. Es mejor que comprarlas, además vienen del corazón” (My father has been working on this for months now. It’s better than buying them, plus they come from the heart). The huge trophies were placed right next to the doors leading to the seating area, a bold reminder to audiences and participants of what was 338 at stake during the festival. Some were overheard commenting on the number of awards that were up for the competition. Others gawked at the size of them, while many others took their pictures in front of the display case. It was an imposing reminder for the participants and the thrill of winning one of these trophies – and accompanying recognition and validation – was well within reach (figure 34). There was an extreme level of importance placed on these mostly cashless trophies. Figure 34: Twelve trophies to award, including “Best Musical” (on the right). Photos by author, 2014. There was an extreme level of importance placed on these mostly cashless trophies. One of the musical’s directors was very direct in his desire to accumulate wins during an informal gathering: Lo más normal es que querramos llevarnos los más trofeos posibles, no? Mientras nos llevemos el de Mejor del Festival y el del Público, nos vamos conformes. Bueno, si no ganamos los otros, no tendría sentido si ganamos el Mejor Musical, verdad. 339 The most normal thing is that we would want to win the most trophies, right? As long as we win “Best Musical” and “Audience Favorite,” we’ll be pleased. Well, if we don’t win the others, it wouldn’t make sense if we did win “Best Musical”. The following categories and prizes were announced and listed on the festival’s guidelines (Pámpano, 2014, III Certamen Nacional de ¿Y Quién Necesita Broadway? Festival Guidelines and Application Rules): • Premio al Mejor Espectáculo: EUR 1,000 + trofeo • Premio a la Mejor Actriz: Trofeo • Premio al Mejor Actor: Trofeo • Premio a la Mejor Voz Femenina: Trofeo • Premio a la Mejor Voz Masculina: Trofeo • Premio a la Mejor Dirección: Trofeo • Premio a la Mejor Dirección Musical: Trofeo • Premio a la Mejor Coreografía: Trofeo • Premio al Mejor Vestuario: Trofeo • Premio al Mejor Decorado: Trofeo • Premio a la Mejor iluminación y Sonido: Trofeo • Premio Especial del Público: Trofeo • Award for Best Production (Musical): EUR 1,000 + trophy • Award for Best Actress: Trophy • Award for Best Actor: Trophy • Award for Best Feminine Voice: Trophy • Award for Best Masculine Voice: Trophy • Award for Best Direction: Trophy • Award for Best Musical Direction: Trophy • Award for Best Choreography: Trophy • Award for Best Costume: Trophy • Award for Best Set: Trophy • Award for Best Lighting and Sound: Trophy • Special Audience Award: Trophy For the festival and its participants, these were the Tony Awards for Zafra and having a statuette to take back to their respective provinces allowed them to strengthen the importance of their work. As the only musical theatre festival of its kind (for amateur theatre companies), it was a way to receive validation for your passion – not just from a theatre festival, but a community of like-minded musical 340 theatre enthusiasts and professionals. The award recognized and reinforced their bond within the musical community theatre of Spain and also demonstrates the importance of musical theatre through the recognition it receives outside of their own communities. A mother from the Superhéroes group confessed: Significa mucho para nosotros que le traigamos orgullo a nuestra Ciudad Real. Nosotros reconocemos el valor de los musicales, pero siempre se les puede convencer un poco más de que está de moda por toda España. Ya están orgullosos de que estamos aquí. It means a lot to us that we bring some pride to our Ciudad Real. We understand the value of musicals, but we can always help convince them a bit more that it is in style around Spain. They’re already proud that we’re here. In “Broadway Productions and The Value of a Tony Award,” authors Boyle and Chiou (2009) discuss the effects of a Tony nomination on Broadway musicals. In fact, most of the groups brought their entire collections of awards to display in their exhibit area on the night of the performance. Many had even won Zeta trophies in other years of the festival and brought them back to proudly show them off (see Figure 35). 341 Figure 35: A theatre group’s proud display of current and previous musicals, along with their corresponding awards from other festivals in Spain. This group had won some trophies at this festival for their past production of Mamma Mia! Photo by author, 2014. Festivalgoers (and the participants) equated nominations with quality and the awards were especially helpful in aiding theatregoers’ decisions to see a show they are uncertain about. The musicals produced in Zafra did not necessarily end their journey after the festival, so award wins helped in future sales and other competition entries. Researchers have also explored the economic importance and social impact of Tony Award wins in musical theatre (Simonoff and Ma 2001) and others have written about early life obsession with the Tony Awards.104 The Zeta awards created a level of prestige, which was formalized and evaluated by a panel of “expert” judges working in the industry. They were judgement tools that could be used to attract 104. Margaret White, “We Were That Kid: Tony Eligibility Rulings and Why They Matter,” New Musical Theatre Website, May 29, 2014, accessed December 05, 2018, https://newmusicaltheatre.com/blogs/green-room/we-were-that-kid-tony-eligibility-rulings-and-why- they-matter 342 customers, or in this case more audiences and even new group members (English 2005). Ultimately, they were also tools for earning reputation. Reputation determines who gets respect, who works with whom, whose presence makes an event come alive, whose description of tradition is passed on. It comprises an intricate skein of evaluations on which performers base their interactions. Reputation is hierarchical and competitive- one person enjoys much while another gets little. It is also consensual, a collective judgment. A performer tries to outshine others, but he depends on those others to recognize his skills. (Gerstin 1998, 397) As one of the selected judges, I was required to attend all of the performances in order to evaluate the award categories listed above. The other judges included: M. J. (festival founder and organizer), María Soriano (the PhD student that also led her own lecture), Álvaro Barroso (a professional composer and band member of famed Spanish band Robe), and two gentlemen who owned their own amateur theatre company in a neighboring town. Each were selected for specializations in their areas and for professional and/or academic work in the artistic fields. Their specializations gave them – and the festival – the necessary cache to increase the cultural value of the awards given out at the festival. Trophies and awards given out by professionals working in similar industries gave it the legitimacy the groups sought through the festival. “Due to their specialized training and high levels of cultural capital, critics cultivate aesthetic dispositions that raise their legitimacy as arbiters of taste and agents of consecration” (Ferriani, Cattani, and Allison 2014, 264). Our “expert” status thus also bathed us in an air of impartiality (Caves 2000; Hirsch 1972), which gave credibility to the Zeta award as a tool for evaluation or judgement (Karpik 2010). In the week before the gala, the six judges met in one of the dressing rooms of the theatre. Our goal was to nominate three in each of the categories and also choose its winner. The nominees were announced a few days before the Gala Awards, 343 building up the anticipation and excitement to the nominees and their respective groups. The winners were announced at the Gala Awards. We had set aside about an hour to work through our decisions, but the entire process surprisingly took almost two full hours. During the process, the judges collectively went through each category and stated their opinions or top choices. Awards for costumes, lighting, set, and choreography were fairly straightforward. Each of those categories had standout leaders in their categories, so the frontrunner was evident. As there were only four groups participating in the entire festival, choosing three nominees in each of these categories meant that one of the four groups were left out of each nomination. Solidifying the nominees became an issue of “fairly” balancing out the list so that no theatre company felt completely left out. One judge admitted, “Esta claro que hay un ganador en el decorado, pero todos se han esforzado increíblemente. Por lo menos podemos repartir un poco las nominaciones” (It’s clear that there is one winner for sets, but everyone has really put in an incredible amount of effort. We can at least spread out the nominations). It was different with the acting awards, as more than one actor could be nominated from the same production. Los Miserables, for example, had multiple nominees in several different categories. One of the priorities was to be sure to establish a fair balance of nominees and to ensure that everyone had some form of recognition. Our identity is partly shaped by recognition or its absence, often by the misrecognition of others, and so a person or group of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them mirror back to them a confining or demeaning or contemptible picture of themselves. Nonrecognition or misrecognition can inflict harm, can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a false, distorted, and reduced mode of being. (Taylor 1994, 25) 344 Most of the categories went fairly smoothly. Not all judges had the same picks for every category, but a group consensus was generally enough to solidify the nominations and the categories – until we arrived at the Best Musical Award category. In this category, the judges had different criteria for what made a musical the “best of the festival.” One judge thought it was the overall audience reception of the musical and the critical responses from the theatregoers. “No podemos ir en contra del público” (We can’t go against what the audience clearly liked the most), one judge complained. “Pero eso es la razón por la que tenemos el Premio del Público, para que nosotros elijamos el que nosotros creamos que se merece el premio. Somos el jurado” (But that’s why we have an Award for Audience Favorite, so that we can choose what WE think deserves the award. We are the judges), quipped another judge. Audiences had already selected their choice and we had the winner. With their tickets at each performance, the audience members were given an orange slip of paper with a number from one to five. A “five” rating meant excellent. At the end of the performance, they were to tear off the paper at the number of their voting choice and drop it in a glass voting box as they exited the performance. The ballots were collected and tallied at the end of each performance. Audiences were essentially not comparing productions but simply rating the individual production. M. J. admitted, “Nos quitamos el follón de que solo voten por sus conocidos” (This way, we avoid anyone only voting for their friends or family). I think it must have also dealt with the logistically impossibility of voting and tallying on awards night. However, would audiences for each of the performances – which included a large number of 345 accompanying family members and friends from each of the theatres – simply not vote “five” for that performance regardless? As part observer but also a judge, I tried to remain objective during our voting process and asked the group how each of us gauged a “Best Musical.” One judge thought that it should be based on the most professional looking and sounding production. Two judges agreed that it should factor in audiences’ perception of it, otherwise they might think we made a bad choice or were not as expert as we had been positioned. I brought in the argument about originality, feeling like “best musical” should also include storyline, creativity, and effort. After all, some musicals were replicas of their Broadway counterparts and another was a musical based off of Disney songs. Another judge disagreed and said, “Sí, pero también hay musicales que son una colección de canciones de un artista o grupo. Es cómo Mamma Mia!” (Yes, but there are musicals that are a collection of songs from an artist or a group). I had been checked with a juke box musical example, which in all fairness does make up a lot of the musicals being produced today. For me, an original musical with original story should factor heavily into the decision – but for others, it was about the overall quality. Esto es un certamen de musicales de Broadway, tendrán que por lo menos tener la misma calidad. Y creo que se nota el nivel de canto y talento musical en [one of the discussed nominees] y aunque [the other nominee] sea original, no parecían tan profesionales en los coros. This is a Broadway musical competition, so they should at least have the same level of quality. I think that you can tell the level of singing and musical talent in (mentioned group) and even though (other named group) is original, they didn’t look professional in their staging. (One of the judges observations during our meeting, November 16, 2104) 346 This judge thought that it should be based on musical sound of the group. We all agreed that our decisions affected perceptions of the judges and possibly the festival itself. Because not all competitions are well run or fair, knowledge of how to distinguish the good ones from the bad can be useful for helping prospective competitors judge which competitions merit their entry and which competitions do not. Fools rush in, but wise competitors look before they leap. (Thorngate and Foddy 2010, 11) The judges could still not unanimously decide on the winner for “Best Musical.” M. J. decided that, as festival organizer, she was the deciding vote and chose to think about our conversations over the course of the week. We did not find out until the actual winner was announced on the night of the Awards Gala. All four of the participating theatres were nominated, so the thrill and excitement at the chance of winning this award was palpable that night. As M. J. walked across the stage to announce the winners of this major category, audience members whispered to each other. Groups held hands within their rows and people held up their cameras, ready to capture the excitement and precise moment. I caught a glance from some of the other judges, even though we were not seated next to each other. We were just as curious to find out which criteria helped M. J. make her decision. As M. J. pulled out the envelope, she beamed with nervous excitement as she said, “Y el ganador al Mejor Musical es . . . ” (And the winner is . . . ). Chapter Summaries Los miserables gathered in one corner of the post-awards reception hall, rambunctiously celebrating the evening’s wins through squeals that were passed around the group’s segregated circle. Of the eleven nominations they took home 347 seven awards including Best Musical, Best Direction, Best Musical Direction, Best Female Voice, Best Male Voice, Best Light and Sound Design, and Audience Choice Award. It was not long before this “Broadway seal of approval” was proudly touted by the theatre group to audiences and followers outside of the festival (see Figure 36): Figure 36: Using a design format more often seen with film festival winners, Los miserables proudly marketed their wins through this visual seal of approval. Tomateatro Facebook Page, November 23, 2014, accessed February 01, 2019, https://www.facebook.com/Tomateatro/. As is often the case in most amateur theatre festival competitions – in Spain as well as the United States – none of the theatre groups went home empty handed. Superhéroes took up another quadrant of the hall, ensuring their celebratory performance for Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Costumes was not overshadowed by others’. Not to be outdone, Notre-Dame de Paris erupted into some passionate flamenco routines while attempting to drown out the accompanying music heard through the speaker system, despite not taking home trophies. La brújula mágica formed a large shape of their own, taking turns jumping into the middle to show off the latest dance moves to celebrate Best Set Design and Best Choreography. At one point, Los miserables burst out into sevillanas. A derivative of flamenco and usually performed in pairs, couples joined up to dance to one of the four required stanzas. 348 “Para los Sevillanos, todo es siempre una feria” (For Sevillanos, everything is a spring fair), complained an observer from another theatre group as they mocked the traditional dance. Hardly any of the groups from the different provinces intermingled or combined, as most of the participants and their family members stayed in their respective quadrants. A few participants congratulated me on my lecture and our decisions for distributing awards, often asking about my experiences in the United States. Others asked for tips and advice for bettering chances in future festivals. One young man timidly approached and said to me: “Tú eres de Broadway y si tienes algún consejo. . . ” (You’re from Broadway, so if you have any advice . . . ). I sat back and watched the scenes unfolding before me, reminiscing about the festival, the performances, my performances, and the relationships created (or hurt) by the event itself. Mostly, I was in awe at the ability of the Broadway musical to gather so many people from different parts of Spain at one festival – allowing them to engaging in individual, regional, and national conversations about musicals themselves (see figure 37). Figure 37: A group dances flamenco in their own corner during the post-show awards celebration on November 22, 2014. Photo by author, 2014. 349 Focusing on the YQNB’s creative practices in this chapter has allowed me to look at how performance contributes to a politics of identity in a space embodied by amateur theatre groups from different regions of Spain. Broadway and musicals were deployed to articulate social and cultural agendas by the participants, organizers, as well and the lecturers. This helped reveal different power relations shaped by the festival. Musicals are spectacles, and according to Tomlison and Young, “Spectacles have been justified on the basis of their potential to realize shared, global models of identity and interdependence, making real sense of a global civil society…and the possibility combining rivalry, respect, and reciprocal understanding” (Tomlinson and Young 2006, 1). YQNB allowed me to observe and analyze a network of amateur theatre groups, motivated by their sole passion for Broadway musicals. Unlike the professional musical theatre circuit in Madrid (or other cities like Barcelona) – who are limited by financial constraints, regulatory unions, and the economic realities of musical production in an urban space – these groups possessed the freedoms of introducing musicals in ways that connected them to their communities and each other. Through its story and song choices, Superhéroes was the most Spanish of the pieces. Its characters were easily identifiable by the audience and their stories relatable. The shared Spanish symbols and recognizable musical sounds transported the audience into a world through which local audiences personally connected. For the festivalgoer and organizers, however, the Broadway musical was most accurately represented by those productions tied directly to the idea of a New-York-based Broadway. Recognitions, validation, and the majority of the awards went to the production that best represented the idea of Broadway abroad. 350 Participants fostered and reinforced their group identity through their distinctive interpretations of a Broadway at the festival. Regional identities and politics took centerstage in a festival meant to unite groups into a community with shared interests. In a way, the festival was a microcosm of Spain, highlighting how the different regions interact and how art is shared amongst them. Homi Bhabha (2004) notes that national narratives can give way to cultural and other forms of difference within the nation. Belonging within a nation does not necessarily imply sameness and membership in not homogenous (Yuval-Davis 2011, 97). The politics of belonging comprise specific political projects aimed at constructing belonging to particular collectivity/ies which are themselves being constructed in these projects in very specific ways and in very specific boundaries…boundaries often tied to locality and territoriality. (ibid, 10) A uniquely Spanish musical like Superhéroes also serves to emphasize the “non-Spanishness” of other musicals like Los miserables or Notre Dame or even La brújula mágica. In a festival focused on Broadway musicals, these “non-Spanish differences” serve to emphasize the “foreigness” of the other productions. Without having experienced it for themselves, festival audiences are not aware if these “foreign” traits are accurate representations of Broadway. They trust that these “non- Spanish” musicals are as close to Broadway as they can get. Despite this, cultural and competitive festivals like YQNB foster a sense of mutual belonging and collectivity that is dependent “fundamentally on processes of valuation and judgement” (English 2011, “Festivals and the Geography of Culture: African Cinema in the ‘World Space’ of its Public,” 63). Festivals serve as a means for producing and distributing scare symbolic resources like recognition, respect, standing, and legitimacy (English 2011, “Festivals and the Geography of Culture: 351 Africa Cinema in the ‘World Space’ of Its Public,” 64). Through the expert “storytellers” and their performances of professionalism, authenticity is constructed within the context of the Broadway experience to inform the politically-charged competitive segment of the festival. The weight of the awards, however, undermined the essence of the festival’s ability to thoroughly unite musical theatre enthusiasts under one shared interest. YQNB constructed their own idea of a professional Broadway through “storytellers” like myself, who materialized imaginaries of Broadway into meaningful exchanges during moments of the festival. As “El Broadway” or “experto Americano” I offered a unique perspective into a world unknown to them – and the technicalities of Equity membership or New York-based experiences was irrelevant. It was about the stories. Stories are different. Stories have everything that facts wish they had but never will: color, action, characters, sights, smells, sounds, emotions–stuff that we can easily relate to. We can imagine ourselves doing, or not doing, or having already done, what the story describes. Stories put facts into a meaningful, and therefore memorable, context. (Douglas Merrill, “A Story About Stories,” Forbes.com, March 08, 2013, accessed December 26, 2018, www.forbes.com) In the fourth year of the festival, M. J. promised to outdo themselves even more in bringing as much Broadway to Zafra as possible. I hoped for more musicals like Superhéroes. The festival had other plans: Yo espero que el año que viene sean todos musicales americanos y puros de Broadway. Pero nunca se sabe, eso ya depende de lo que estén haciendo los grupos amateurs y los que decidan responder a la convocatoria. I hope that next year all the musicals are American and pure Broadway. You never know, that depends on what amateur groups are doing and who decides to apply to the festival. (M. J. Pámpano, personal communication, November 22, 2104) 352 It seemed like M. J. accomplished her goal in the following year, as touted by an article in the local press called “Vuelve el único certamen de teatro musical no profesional que se celebra en España, y Quién Necesita Broadway, en su edición más Americana del 9 de abril al 1 de mayo” (The Only Non-Professional Musical Theater Contest Held in Spain is Back, And Who Needs Broadway, In Its Most American Edition Yet from April 9 to May 1), headlined the article (Region Digital. March 29, 2016, accessed October 15, 2018, https://www.regiondigital.com). Promoting the “most American” festival yet of the offerings, M. J. was thrilled about the year’s offering of Broadway selections: Little Shop of Horrors, a version of Mary Poppins, Grease, and Chorus Line. Todos los musicales que vamos a ver han triunfado en Broadway desde el momento de su estreno, convirtiéndose, algunos de ellos, en musicales de culto…Es un claro indicador de que el musical es un género vivo capaz de trascender a otras formas de arte y llegar con más facilidad al gran público. All the musicals we are going to see have triumphed on Broadway since their premieres, becoming, some of them, cult musicals . . . It is a clear indicator that the musical is a living genre capable of transcending other forms of art to reach the public more easily. (ibid) The festival in 2016 (delayed from the fall of 2015) was the last one – for the moment. With each year, M. J. confessed the number of applicants dwindled and fewer amateur groups were doing the “Broadway musicals” she wanted to bring to her pueblo. The Broadway musical shed some light on the cultural negotiations taking place at YQNB. It also raises the question on the festival’s role in creating a community of shared ideas and the consequences of grounding it in cultural forms far removed from one’s own national, regional, or even individual identity. With the original and unique musical like Superhéroes in its repertoire, I left the festival wanting to ask its participants: “Do you really need Broadway?” 353 Vamp E I don’t really need to look very much further, I don’t want to have to go where you don’t follow, I won’t hold it back again, this passion inside. Can’t run from myself, there's nowhere to hide. . . I Have Nothing” by Whitney Houston (1993) Untranslated by La Llamada (2013) 354 A Coda: Same Song, Different Pitch Theatre – its creation, reception, and polemic – is often a powerful site where citizens (and visitors) debate notions of identity and social realties. Musical theatre has an additional element, music, that sometimes blurs discussions, since we can hate the politics but simultaneously love the sounds. Some musical theatre productions are now seen as racist (West Side Story, The King and I, Show Boat) or sexist (Carousel, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Cabaret), but it is still difficult to let them go from popular repertoire because we want to sing and dance to the music. We want to relive them and are willing to put aside the social conflicts embedded in their messaging. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel is a musical that excuses domestic abuse, but nonetheless it remains a classic restaged over and over throughout the decades – a recent hit revival in 2018 on Broadway reignited that popularity. Audiences love the music, the choreography, the staging, and the memories it conjures of the first time they saw the musical. Theatre and music both unify and divide. Theatre scholars and theatre fans both love and hate Broadway musicals. This dissertation has considered these elements and has taken it to another level as the hated/beloved plays travel internationally and are transposed to other languages, other musical styles, and other interpretations. Broadway musicals have often provided opportunities for the discussion of national identity, often through the distinct perspective of an American lens. They tour across the United States and now across the globe, travels that change the show’s meaning and reception according to its location and playing space. Therefore, discourses on identity politics now include global factors, challenges, and benefits 355 that arise as a consequence of their cultural transpositions. “Local,” or smaller scale cities and rural areas are also directly affected by global cultural currents and are part of the dialogues, albeit sometimes in delayed and diluted capacities. Branding, international companies, and transnational cultural forms are mixing up the playing space – affected by the economies and politics that enclose it. A recent rise in populism and cries for the closing of borders force us to reconsider the idea of the production of unique national art forms and how to deal with sharing across industries, borders, and even genres. They question the ability of artists to produce new forms of artistic expressions in their own cultures. They make you wonder what will become of popularized transnational arts (like musical theatre) and what the next trend will be and its source. More importantly, it forces scholars and artists to think about the ways in which we privilege art that is successful globally over those locally produced in our own communities. Decades from now, Edward Soja’s “postmetropolis” world of “porous” borders between the cities and countries may become an open sea of cultural products swirling around in one borderless expanse – offering up culturally unidentifiable items and unoriginal replicas in an already saturated market. Or perhaps the open sea of cultural products will produce hybrid gems, artistically free from any one dominant cultural force or power. The open sea may, however, actually dry up into endless walls of even more borders, as cultures try and reclaim their identities and defy global commercialization. Broadway musicals, one of today’s most successful transnational cultural currencies, offered the perfect stage through which to compose these changing theoretical and cultural scores. As a professional musical theatre artist with Spanish roots, this dissertation allowed me to explore the best of both worlds: my passion for 356 Broadway musicals and the cultural underpinnings of my own heritage. As a scholar this research enabled me to reinforce the growing perception of musical theatre as a “serious” art form worthy of academic attention, while contributing to ongoing conversations about cultural transitions, identity politics, and ideas about nationalism and multidisciplinary art forms in a globalizing world. This dissertation contributes to new ways of thinking about musicals, breaking the mold of focusing simply on national identity or entertainment for the masses. Other scholars are heading in this direction. In “Megamusicals, Spectacle and the Postdramatic Aesthetics,” Vagelis Sirpoulos (2011) offers a new perspective on the musical spectacle as an aesthetic category, shifting the focus of discourse away from its narrative content and toward an aestheticization of spectacle itself. Instead of analyzing identity through the content of the Broadway musical, Sirpoulos reframes it within a conversation that crosses multiple barriers. The musicals of today “overthrew the Broadway musical’s delicate balance between dramatic narrative and postdramatic spectacle” (ibid, 32). Instead, “the prose and musical sequences tend to be two separate texts continuously interrupting each other, never finding a way to be truly integrated in a seamlessly unfolding continuum” (ibid, 29). In Unfinished Business: Broadway Musicals as Works-in-Process, Bruce Kirle (2005) treats the genre as a work-in-process that is constantly reinventing itself. The future of musical theatre research needs to include a shift in thinking about the genre from new angles – and not just from a textual point of view. Musical theatre, as Kirle notes, is an ever-changing form. Works-in-process, they are open and fluid, subject to a great deal of variation, even subversion, in the way they are performed. As such, in their original productions or over time, they often assume lives of their own that can be quite independent from the original intentions of their authors. It is their innate incompleteness – the gaps and absences caused by performance and reception [that makes them unfinished show business]. (ibid, 1) 357 Through this research, I discovered the intricacies of Spain’s early musical traditions and how they helped shape the more modern and contemporary version of the country I know. Autos sacramentales and zarzuelas were vehicles of cultural transformations, responding to specific historical moments. The autos provided a lens through which to understand how performance forms centered on the Catholic Church shifted to performances that broadened to a wider and more secular community. Zarzuelas, often labeled Spain’s unique form of musical theatre, also shed light on cultural transformations resulting from the political and social instabilities of the late 19th century and Franco’s dictatorship. More than just an analysis of musical form or structure, these historical trends revealed the cultural waves affecting the idea of a Spanish national identity. After all, musical theatre predates Broadway and even some conventional non-musical European theatre. Music has enhanced the narrative, emotion, and intensity of the storytelling – often serving as the main attraction to staged performances. Even if audiences do not take the stories home with them, they might be humming the musical tunes in their everyday lives months after seeing the performance. They sing the songs in their showers, whistle the tunes as they walk to work, or hum quietly at their desks during their day jobs. Cultural and identity politics are dependent on space and time, affected by historical and social frameworks that construct an authenticity (Martin 1995). A historical analysis of Spain’s musical traditions and the ways performance shift in function provided the framework for understanding the arrival of the Broadway musical in Spain. The Spanish premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera musical Jesucristo Superstar in Madrid ushered in a new era for Broadway musicals in Spain and other research already chronicles some of that production history in the 358 country.105 My focus was to move past a chronology of these imported Broadway musicals and to an ethnographic conversation of the cultural implications of these “Americanadas” on its participating community. Understanding why Broadway musicals made it into the hearts of Spanish artists and businesses revealed differences in perceptions, cultures, politics, and business practices. Looking at how the Broadway musical (or el musical de Broadway) is used by global corporation Stage Entertainment in Madrid, a local amateur group performing their own version of an American blockbuster like Rent, or a musical theatre festival shed light on these stake holders and the ideas they aspired to bring to these new creative spaces. As I followed theatre makers across the Spain for over four years, the concept of Broadway revealed itself in many forms: as an idea of quality theatre, revealed in the parents’ discussion at El Rey León; as a new branch of turismo de musicales (tourism of musicals), capitalized by both Madrid and Stage Entertainment; as an intended “revolutionary” form of artistic expression seen in the ATMS group in Sevilla; as a workshop helping local Spanish artists embody Broadway; or as a competitive national festival legitimizing the practice of putting on musicals. Perceptions about Broadway affected their creative decisions. In May 2016, I worked as Head of Publishing at a marketing agency in London that specialized in West End plays and musicals. I took the job as a source of income while I wrote my dissertation but being in one of the theatre capitals of the world and working with clients on some of the top productions of their time taught 105. In “Anglo-American Musicals in Spanish Theatres,” Marta Mateo (2008) offers a comprehensive historical overview of Anglo-American musicals from the perspective of selection of source texts for musicals to be translated into Spanish. It broadly chronicles the arrival of some of these musicals over the course of the last few decades, providing a reliable resource to complement the historical foundation of my research. 359 me a lot about production, marketing, publicity, and publishing for theatre in Europe. I was thrilled to combine my research with a career opportunity that fit my passions. While using the time away from Spain to write some of the historical background of the dissertation, I took advantage of my industry access to interview producers, marketers, and professional artists working on these musicals abroad. I was certain it could come in handy and add to a discussion that focuses on Broadway outside of the United States. One of those golden opportunities allowed me to sit with London producer Nica Burns to discuss global perceptions about Broadway.106 I think the perception of Broadway is that it is the home of some of the greatest musicals in the world. It’s very much a musical thing. Musicals are what made Broadway famous. The American musical and the talent. (Nica Burns, interview with author, May 11, 2016) She is not alone in her thinking. Richard Kraft, a Disney creative director and producer back in Los Angeles, affirms that today’s pop culture is very much in tune with Broadway’s musical genre. “We have an entire generation that grew up watching Disney animated musicals,” Kraft said in an article titled “Musicals Back in Vogue, and Business, as Genre Lights Up Broadway and TV” in 2017. “They have no problem with the notion that a character breaks into song to express their feelings. All we needed were a few good movies or stage shows.”107 From big movie musical hits like The Greatest Showman to La La Land to stage musical blockbusters like Hamilton, there is a renewed worldwide interest in the musical experience. 106. Chief Executive and Co-Owner of Nimax Theatres, Ltd., Burns is an award-winning producer of over 100 shows, having also produced shows on Broadway. In 2018, one of her London theatres played the Broadway musical Young Frankenstein while another started its still-successfully- running original British musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (which she also produced). 107. Jake Nevins, “Musicals Back in Vogue, and Business, as Genre Lights up Broadway and TV,” The Guardian, September 14, 2017, accessed January 9, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/ stage/2017/sep/14/broadway-theater-musicals-big-business-hamilton. 360 Audiences flock to Broadway to be entertained, more than they go to be intellectually challenged. . . It is the home of just the most wonderful entertainment. In a Broadway theatre, when the orchestra strikes up the orchestra there is a real palpable excitement in the house, more so I think than in London. We [in England] like silence better. (Nica Burns, interview with author, May 11, 2016) As producer Nica Burns did in our conversation, Spanish artists and audiences consistently referred to musicals as “Broadway.” Broadway equaled musicals and musicals equaled Broadway everywhere I went, especially since the scope of this research was limited to those involved in musical productions. For M. J. Pámpano, YQNB festival organizer and now lifelong friend, Broadway dug even deeper: Somos como una gran familia por todo el mundo. Tanto lo amamos que mira, nos conocimos y como si fuéramos hermanos – hermanos musicales. We’re like a huge family across the world. We love it [musicals] so much that, look, we met and it’s like we’re brother and sister – musical brother and sister. Whether on a collective or personal level, the groups, companies, and individual artists highlighted in these dissertation chapters capitalized on the idea of a mythic Broadway to construct their own narratives. They embedded their creative (and business) processes within senses of regional, national, global, and individual belonging – and these relationships were always in process of negotiation. Longtime scholar specializing in musical theatre and identity, Richard Knapp grounds his theoretical work on musicals on the idea of this myth-building force: Intertwined with the mythologies elaborated and explored by the show is the mythology of the show itself, particularly regarding its ‘authentic’ evolution and development, and the remarkable way its success manifested itself in a proliferation of simultaneous productions worldwide. (Knapp 2006, 155) Stage Entertainment negotiated the professional business space by latching onto Madrid’s urban space, contributing to transformation of Gran Vía into “el Broadway 361 español” (the Spanish Broadway). Amateur group ATMS in Sevilla literally altered the narrative through their linguistic and cultural translation of Rent, offering their community an “altered” idea of a Broadway musical that fit into the local context. The YQNB festival turned the Broadway myth into its own ecosystem of musical performances, participative workshops, professional lectures, and a competitive awards system – all in hopes of legitimizing their own interpretations of the myth. In many ways, each are spectacles of Broadway as they understand them. However, the transposition of these Broadway-style musicals to Spain are still subject to the pressures and cultural politics of their space which creates conflicting sites for the exploration of belonging between city and world, region and nation, and self and community. A key characteristic of local, regional, national and international events and festivals alike is their contribution to the formation and expression of identity discourses and narratives. Many events and festivals confirm and reinforce identities, whilst others question and challenge traditional identities; some help to modify and reshape established identities, whereas others generate new identities or intend to reposition existing identities. (Merkel 2015, 5) My research positioned these Broadway transpositions as embodied processes through which Spanish musical bodies continually constructed, negotiated, and compromised cultural constructions of identity. The professional musical theatre bodies of Madrid – companies like Stage Entertainment and SOM Produce – transposed their idea of “Broadway” to the Spanish capital city through a reconstruction of the symbolic Gran Vía space. The ATMS artists engaged in linguistic and cultural negotiations with Rent to transpose it into their own version of Boheme. The regional theatres participating in the YQNB festival transposed their own identities to reinforce their legitimate belonging in the “Broadway” community, 362 while still claiming their unique stake as artists in the creative process. My research takes the transposition off of the page itself and onto the stage of current practicing artists. It is less about how Broadway came to be what it is today, and more about where the Broadway creative experience is headed. Through the rigors of transposition exercises, artists develop intimate knowledge of the characteristics of their vocabulary: each phrase’s precise length, its particular on- and off-beat character, its harmonic complexion, its contour profile, its intervallic structure, and its span. Accessible at every pitch, in each key, in any octave, a figure not only acquires different timbral qualities with distinct effect and meaning, but it can be readily appended to the beginning or ending of other figures to create longer formulations. (Berliner 2009, 116) A single change during transposition may provoke unintended consequences or an unexpected cultural interpretation. For example, making Angel free of AIDS in Boheme, while perhaps not perceived as radical to members of ATMS or Sevilla audiences, turned the original impact of the Broadway musical on its head. At every level of the process – translation, rehearsal, performance, staging, production – transposition has the potential to affect artistic representation and social change – the word “potential” is very important here, since change does not always occur. This research revealed to me that the potential for developing new original works may be located at the local, rural or semi-urban levels – away from the urban pressures of the global marketplace. Yet a transnational cultural product like Broadway is so deeply embedded in its American roots that opportunities for new adaptations (especially given the lessened copyright restrictions and official oversight) may not occur as frequently as expected. Spain’s regional differences, and equally as diverse cultures, surfaced during this research – especially as amateur theatre groups from four different provinces of 363 the country gathered to battle out who was the most “Broadway” of them all. The usually unified and collective Broadway musical community became suddenly less collaborative and more competitive, in a contest over who could perform “it” the best. The regional, professional, cultural, and economic realities of putting on a Broadway musical prevented exact replicas, so the myth needs to be codified each time to fit the “glocal” needs of its audiences and culture. It explains why El Rey León in Madrid was mythologized, while the new uniquely Spanish musical Superhéroes was critically interrogated by judges at the festival. It is through these distortions that I had originally hoped to see a reshaping of a musical theatre genre that was distinctly unique to Spain – one inspired by the Broadway musical but with the artists’ own voices, musics, stories, and cultures. I soon realized that I, too, was trusting in this artistic utopia of the freedom of voice. Instead, in Spain, I learned that there was genuine “fear” of deviating too much from the Broadway formula. The most successful musicals in Spain – The Lion King, Les Misérables, and The Phantom of the Opera – are epitomes of Broadway. At the YQNB festival, Los miserables swept the awards, despite the judges’ consensus that the original Spanish musical Superhéroes was more unique, culturally relevant, and more deserving of awards for the hard work of creating it from the ground up. For some of the judges, the “real Broadway” was somewhat lost when a Spanish community theatre group changed the musical’s stories, sounds, and back stories to fit their own identity. How much could be modified before the myth of Broadway itself was lost? Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation points to this idea of a real Broadway lost through simulation: To dissimulate is to pretend not to have what one has. To simulate is to feign to have what one doesn’t have. One implies a presence, the other an absence. . 364 . Simulation threatens the difference between the ‘true’ and the ‘false,’ the ‘real’ and the ‘imaginary.’ (Baudrillard 1994, 3) I started thinking about whether or not it was possible to create a new type of Broadway musical that deviated from the existing structural and narrative formula. Artists, critics, and theatres in the United States are constantly looking for ways to reinvent the formula to create something new – to introduce something “new” to Broadway and to be a cause of that change. Lin-Manuel Miranda brought a new aesthetic to Broadway by infusing hip-hop and rap into musicals, becoming the new wave of Broadway musical. However, outside of the United States and as observed in my research throughout Spain, “deviations from the known” become imposters and inauthentic replicas of Broadway. The irony of Broadway musicals abroad – and of culturally transposed art forms – is that in the process of moving over they are automatically hybrid, “imposters” of the originals. Guy Debord reminded us that we lived in a “society of the spectacle,” revolving around the production and consumption of technologically-mediated images that transformed social life itself into spectacles. In Broadway musicals, “the concentrated spectacle belongs essentially to bureaucratic capitalism” that hides real power structures (Debord 1983, Chapter III, Paragraph 63). The specialization of power is at the root of spectacle. The spectacle is thus a specialized activity which speaks for all the others. It is the diplomatic representation of hierarchic society itself, where all other expression is banned. Here the most modern is also the most archaic. (ibid, Chapter I, Paragraph 23) The cultural forces uncovered in the different musical theatre making spaces of Spain brought to light this mediated reality. The Broadway musical genre is historically embedded with hegemonic power structures (concepts of capitalism, 365 traditional gender and work relations, heterosexual versus homosexual, class-based power and hierarchies) that dictate the construction of these “realities” in their new cultural spaces. The idea of Broadway and how it was constructed in the different playing spaces throughout Spain – professional, amateur, and festival – revealed the important forces controlling those spaces and its players. While “safe” for the mainstream and ideal for those maximizing profits off of mass entertainment in the global space, the negotiations at the local and individual level became complex cultural negotiations attempting to balance the local and the global. One of the major issues I have discussed in this dissertation are the capitalistic origins of Broadway that pin the genre with the economic pressures of success through profit. Companies like Stage Entertainment in Madrid follow in the steps of Florenz Ziegfeld, bringing the most spectacular and dazzling musical productions to their local stages. Money brought the successful Follies inspiration from Paris to New York in the early 20th century. In a reverse journey from New York to Spain (and Europe), money brought the globally popular musicals like Lion King and other Broadway hits to the Spanish stage. Producers bring their versions of Broadway musicals to Spain, charged with the same expectations of high-profits and mass appeal. However, the economic and cultural differences of the theatre industry in Spain (and Europe) challenges those transitions and complicates the ease of working under the same capitalistic principles. Limited resources at the local level in Spain not only diminished the quantity of Broadway musicals translated to their stages, but also the quality. In The Field of Cultural Production Pierre Bourdieu (1993) brings the intersection of economics and art to the forefront, analyzing the field of cultural production through a complex system of hierarchies, organizational factors, economic 366 norms, historical influences, institutional powers, and genre-specific issues (differences between novel, poetry, dramatic arts, for example) to name a few. “In other words, the field of cultural production is the site of struggles in which what is at stake is the power to impose the dominant definition of the writer and therefore to delimit the population of those entitled to take part in the struggle of the writer” (ibid, 42). The further down the economic ladder these musicals moved in Spain – from the professional stages of Madrid to local amateur productions in Sevilla – the greater the influence of the idea of Broadway on local groups’ financial pressures, aesthetic direction, and artistic relationships. Ultimately, it incited competition and differentiation at local levels – as observed in the YQNB festival. “The celebrity, the spectacular representation of a living human being, embodies this banality by embodying the image of a possible role. . . They embody the inaccessible result of social labor by dramatizing its by-products magically protected above it as its goal.” (Debord: 1983, Chapter III, Paragraph 60) The professional artists in Madrid, the lecturers at the YQNB, the guest presenters at the awards galas, and the instructors at actor workshops, are embodiments of this magical concept of Broadway – a conduit between the participants (or audiences or artists) and the magical possibility of Broadway. Broadway musicals are also embedded with class, gender, and social hierarchical structures that have dictated the creative processes of the artists producing them. High production costs for spectacles like musicals force high ticket prices, which automatically limits accessibility and creates a class structure for the reception of musicals. Producers and composers will need to create stories that speak directly to those paying the customers, which diminishes and excludes the stories of 367 those on the outside. Social orders are revealed in the very organizational nature of musical theatre’s process. A director controls the vision (sometimes under the influence and “guidance” of a producer) and from there the social order trickles down into the designers, production team, actors, and audience. Each have their own place in the social order of the process. Broadway has also been a historically proud presenter of a gender politics founded principally on masculine-dominant and heterosexual narratives, and the inner workings of the creative process revealed as much. Women are usually stock characters written to be rescued or changed by their leading men. One need not look much further than most of the “romantic” relationships depicted in the musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Power imbalances and inequality between men and women are not just a thing of the past. Contemporary musicals rely on the formulas of its Golden Era predecessors. After all, Rober in ATMS’s Boheme is there to save Mimi from drugs, insecurity, and herself. The same can be said for Chicago, the piece ATMS chose as their premiere production. The musical is embedded with power structures that contradict the musical’s narrative and themes. Although sold as a female empowering musical – traditional heteronormative power structures dictate its success. The musical’s recent revival and continued success can be mostly attributed to the marketing campaign’s reliance on traditional interpretations of heterosexual romances and a feminine sexuality. Close up photography of women in black lingerie. Zoomed in shots of lips sensually blowing smoke. Or even the use of black and white photography, harkening back nostalgically to eras past. I have heard many say that Chicago is about female empowerment, and the show’s two leading female roles (Roxy and Velma) are the embodiment of that power. In “Studying Musical Theatre: Theory and Practice,” 368 Millie Taylor and Dominic Symonds unpack issues of feminism and the performance of identity of contemporary Broadway practices and musicals like Chicago. Despite a narrative that gives the two leading female characters a certain level of power, it is gained by sensationalist manipulation of the media (with the aid of a man, of course) and relies on their looks. This musical reveals a complex power structure in which the women use their looks to achieve their own ends – they end up with power and independence – but the objectification of the female bodies in the production undermines the potential feminist reading. (Taylor and Symonds 2014, 140) The way the artists in Spain played Broadway revealed the anxieties constructed and controlled by these hegemonic power structures, which ultimately subverted their own attempts to form creatively unique identities. How professional companies, amateur groups, and festival participants played host to these forces affected their creative processes and how they negotiated identities. Theatre has the power to incite discussion and force audiences to explore relationships on the stage. However, the uniqueness of the Broadway musical lies in the ability of music, dance, and spectacle to mask the seriousness of any social breeches or injustices. Musical enjoyment and technical wonders eclipse content and narrative. The 2008 musical Next To Normal won the Pulitzer-Prize for brining awareness to bipolar disease and its effects on every member of the family. However, many of the reviews focused on Tom Kitt’s innovative score and Alice Ripley’s vocally-superior performance. The bipolar subject matter received little attention when it was brought over to Spain by an Argentinian theatre company. The selling point was its status as a Broadway hit musical. In the film “Team America,” there is parody of Rent in a song sung by puppets called “Everybody Has AIDS.” The musicality of the scene excuses film viewers into laughing about AIDS, as if their musical artifice automatically labels it as something “less serious” or to be parodied. It is only by becoming consciously 369 aware of these embedded structures that musical theatre artists and organizations can affect change in their own participation and redirect power – promoting originality and creativity in their own musical theatre processes. In all of the spaces explored in this dissertation, the artists and companies were unable to separate the musical theatre genre from New York City itself. New York City too often becomes a placeholder for the entire country, with is narrative of exceptionalism becoming one of substitution and even erasure: as New York City goes, so goes the country. Musical theatre histories tend toward an unreflecting and often unconscious focus on Broadway, neglecting national tours and alternative centers of musical theatre production. (Bringarder 2011, 228) In the United States, a large source of new original musical theatre sits at the regional levels – far from the unmanageable budgets needed for many of today’s Broadway musicals. Regional theatres worldwide engage in new play initiatives to encourage works by new authors for changing audiences. The Eugene O’Neill National Musical Theatre conference in the United States supports the work and development of new musicals, responsible for bringing new voices to the genre like Lin Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights. In its early history, America borrowed on European musical histories – operas, operettas, music halls – to create a form of their own. In the same way, Spain has its own myths and stories that are ripe for musical exploration. The musical theatre genre has the potential to become a site of resistance through which longstanding musical traditions can be embraced or challenged. As artists move away from the city and into local regions, the freedom of restrictions in translations, licensing, and financial pressures, opens the door for adaptations that meet and challenge the needs of local audiences. Yet, throughout my research, opportunities were missed. The Broadway model in Spain substituted creativity for replicas that 370 were as close as possible to their New York City counterparts – whether seen live or copied from taped performances found on YouTube. Sometimes, Broadway musicals were even sold as new and unique artistic offerings for communities not familiar with the genre or its hits. In February 2019, I attended a musical production in Sevilla called Bútterfly, touted as a musical project inspired on the opera Madame Butterfly. Instead, it was a Spanish-translated version of the hit musical Miss Saigon: same story, same songs, same plot, and much of the same staging as on Broadway and the West End. Much like ATMS with Boheme, it disassociated itself from the Broadway source while still recreating the same material – just in a different language. Butterfly also relied on the familiarity or awareness of its original source opera, Madame Butterfly. The title helped draw a connection to a more popular source for Spanish audiences, as many of them had never heard of Miss Saigon but had heard of Madame Butterfly. Spanish audiences with no previous exposure to Miss Saigon were thoroughly impressed with originality and creativity of the group’s new work, as evidenced in the numerous conversations I had with audience members and other artistic friends in the lobby during intermission and after the show. This transposition of title may have also been a way for the group to disassociate itself from its actual source material (Miss Saigon), in order to promote a sense of originality and innovation. Another upcoming project in the province of Málaga involves the famous actor Antonio Bandera’s initiative of building of El Teatro Soho del Caixabank – “pionero en el país y una rareza en el resto del mundo” (pioneer in the country and rarity in the world).108 Once 108. Regina Sotorrío, “La Inédita Aventura de Antonio Banderas,” El Diario Sur Online, February 18, 2019, accessed February 21, 2019, https://www.diariosur.es/culturas/inedita-aventura- antonio-20190218214401-nt.html. 371 again, it is based on a “modelo anglosajon” (Anglo Saxon model) and its premier production will be A Chorus Line. Although it offers a new model of privatized theatre with an educational professional training component, the work coming from this theatre will draw from Broadway and the West End. Throughout this research, I found that the perspective that the Broadway-style musical was the only acceptable form of musical theatre most affected those at the local level. The local level is where, after all, new stories and new forms of artistic expressions are created. The pressures of mounting Broadway musicals at the local level are one of the reasons the YQNB festival permanently ended in 2016.109 Its organizer M. J. Pámpano confessed: Dejamos de hacerlo primero porque era muchíiiiismo trabajo y cada vez teníamos menos tiempo; porque es verdad que al hacerlo tantos años seguidos habíamos agotado todas las grandes producciones de teatro musical amateur cercana (no se hacen producciones nuevas todos los años, se amortizan durante todo el tiempo posible los grandes montajes que se hacen); y, por último, es verdad que al querer hacerlo cada vez mejor, necesitábamos más dinero y ya no era tan fácil conseguir patrocinadores. Y esas cosas. We stopped doing it first because it was so much work and with each one we had less time; because it is true that in doing so many of them years in a row we had exhausted all the great productions of nearby amateur musical theater (new productions are not made every year, the great productions that are made are amortized as much as possible); and, finally, it is true that in wanting to do it better and better, we needed more money and it was not so easy to get sponsors. And things like that. (M. J. Pámpano, e-mail communication, February 19, 2019) An Encore of the Question: Who Needs Broadway? A few weeks after arriving from the United States for this research in 2014, I saw La llamada (The Call) in Madrid – a new Spanish musical that has been 109. There have been recent inquiries on the YQNB festival facebook page, asking fans and past participants of their interest in having the even reinstated. M. J. Pámpano has not discarded the idea of bringing back the festival at a future date. As of the beginning of 2019, no plans have been set to remount the festival. 372 sweeping the headlines and catching attention as the most significant piece of musical theatre in Spain today. Performances were at El Teatro Lara in the hipster area of Malasaña. The theatre’s location off of Gran Vía, the proximity of trendy bars nearby, and the crowds of young adults pushing up against the front doors of the theatre immediately set the tone for what I hoped was my first true experience at a uniquely Spanish contemporary musical. I stood in the crowd next to a young woman and her mother. I asked her how it compared to Broadway musicals and she was most excited about the fact that this was something more “artistic” and “less expensive” than what was being offered on Gran Via with El Rey León or Priscilla. She quickly added: No tiene nada que ver con Broadway. Esto es nuestra historia – escrito por españoles, interpretadas por españolas, y totalmente nuestro. Mejor que Broadway. . . esto no es como la chatarra que sale de allí. This has nothing to do with Broadway. This is our history – written by Spaniards, performed by Spaniards, and totally ours. Better than Broadway. . . this is not like the junk that comes from there. The musical tells the story of two teenage girls at a Catholic summer camp, grounded by the camp’s nuns one night for coming back home drunk. The two girls dream of becoming a singing girl group. One of the girls is grappling with their sexuality and an attraction to one of the younger nuns at the camp. The other is haunted by visions of a “God” who sings Whitney Houston songs to her from a literal stairway to heaven literally built into the balcony of the theatre. Meanwhile the nuns struggle with identity issues of their own – questioning sexuality, the call to sisterhood, and the complexities of religion and adolescence in today’s society. Over half a million viewers have seen the musical and the musical is still running today in 2019 to sold out audiences. Worldwide productions have been 373 performed in Mexico and plans have been made for a production in Russia. In 2017, the movie version was released and launched its authors into Spanish pop culture stardom. Javier Ambrossi y Javier Calvo are now simply known as “Los Javís,” in very much the same vein as Hollywood’s The Cohen Brothers. They are now film directors (of their movie as well as a top Spanish TV series) and celebrity guest coaches on the Spanish version of American Idol. One reviewer credited the musical’s success with its simplicity and its proximity to Spanish life and culture: Quizás el secreto del éxito sea que la obra está en la cercanía. En espíritu se asemeja más a comedias televisivas inteligentes y llenas de menciones a lo cotidiano como 7 Vidas que a esos musicales de la Gran Vía basados en canciones pop que esconden su vacuidad dentro de ampulosos números de baile. La sencillez como virtud. La llamada es una obra tan simple en ejecución que empezó representándose en el hall del Teatro y solo en su segunda temporada, y visto el éxito pasó al escenario. Y allí continuará, aseguran, mientras siga triunfando como hasta ahora. Perhaps the secret of its success is that the show lies in proximity (a closeness to its audience). In spirit, it most resembles intelligent television comedies full of everyday situations like 7 vidas (a Spanish TV show) than those musicals of the Gran Vía based on pop songs that hide their emptiness in bombastic dance numbers. Simplicity as a virtue. La Llamada is such a simple work in its execution that the first shows were in the “hall” of the Theater and only in its second season, and due to its success, went onto the (main) stage. And there it will continue, they say, as long as it continues to succeed as much as it has until today.110 The stories did not strike me as particularly relevant of adolescents today, as I know of very few that still go to summer camp run by nuns. Several Spanish friends that also saw it explained its relevance in connection to Spain’s complicated past with religion. They enjoyed the musical’s themes based on some of the things that have identified Spain in the past, and some of their own past experiences growing up as 110. Iñigo López Palacios, “El triunfo de la sincillez inteligente,” El País Online, December 19, 2013, accessed September 30, 2018, https://elpais.com/cultura/2013/12/18/ actualidad/1387379149_896930.html. 374 adolescents in a religiously confused community. When asked what made it current, the response was “Whitney Houston.” Over 80% of the musicals score are Whitney Houston songs, originally sung by a white male (coincidentally an American actor in the premiere). The lyrics to the Houston songs are even in English. I sat in wonder as the audience sang along to all the Whitney Houston songs, fully immersed in what was supposed to be a uniquely Spanish musical. In reality, it was very much like the Broadway musicals of this dissertation and it revealed many of the same embedded hegemonic power structures. Spanish reality television stars step into God’s shoes for sometimes even just a week at a time to show off how well they can sing the songs of Whitney Houston. It looked and sounded more American to me than the El Rey León did in Madrid. I was beginning to value Superhéroes much, much more, as “the little Spanish musical that couldn’t.” For Spanish audiences and its creators, it was a response to a new cultural shift in their lives – one that for me did not seem that different or unique to one culture. In regard to La llamada, Juanjo González (theatre critic of Broadwayworld Spain) asked, “Porque le estamos dando a todo el mundo hamburguesas cuando tenemos que estar metiéndoles lentejas” (Why are we giving everyone hamburgers when we should be feeding them lentils [a traditional Spanish stew]) (J. González, personal communication, November 14, 2014). Instead, they are indeed – as my advisor observed – “putting Spanish toppings on a pizza.” Broadway musicals shaped cultural trends, helped redefine a musical culture, and provided a platform for new voices in America. As these musicals make their way into new international territories, the cultural transpositions become a different pitch of the same song. 375 Appendices APPENDIX A List of “Musicals” in Spain since 1970 The list is a comprised of compiled data from the database archives of El Centro de Documentación Teatral (CDT) in Madrid, Spain on October 30, 2014. Focusing on the search for “musicales” and “Broadway” in Spain starting in 1970, some records showed full production information while others were incomplete. As evidenced by the incomplete entries and at the caution of the historian at the CDT, this list may not necessarily be an exhaustive list of all musicals performed in Spain since 1970 through 2014. The season year, performance venue, and Company name were noted if made available through the entries. 1970 Fiddler on the Roof Teatro de la Zarzuela (Madrid) Teatro de la Zarzuela 1973 American Folk Dancers Teatro de la Zarzuela (Madrid) Teatro de la Zarzuela Gigi Teatro Cómico (Madrid) Compañia Teresa Rabal 1974 Godspell Teatro Marquina (Madrid) Compañía de Manuel Collado 1975 Jesus Christ Superstar Teatro Alcalá Palace (Madrid) Jaime Azpilicueta Hair Teatro Monumental (Madrid) Jesús Quintero 1976 Sugar Manuel Otero 1980 Evita Teatro Monumental (Madrid) Jaime Azpilicueta Piaf Teatro Muñoz Seca (Madrid) Natalia Silva 1982 Jesus Christ Superstar The Sound of Music Teatro Principe (Madrid) Comp. Alonso Millán 1984 Jesus Christ Superstar Teatro Alcalá Palace (Madrid) Jaime Azpilicueta 1985 Snoopy Teatro Alcázar (Madrid) Producciones Aragón, S.A. 1991 Snoopy Teatro Goya (Barcelona) Focus Memory Teatro Goya (Barcelona) Focus 376 1992 Cabaret Teatro Arriaga (Bilbao) Festival Olimpic de les Arts* Fisterra Broadway (Santiago de Compostela) Compañía de María Les Miserables Nuevo de Apolo (Madrid) Co-producc. Tamayo y Mackintosh Melodías de Broadway Teatro Tivoli (Barcelona) Focus 1993 Les Miserables Escuela de Música (Bergara) Escuela de Bergara Algo Especial Teatro Victoria Eugenia Producciones Ángel (San Sebastián) García Moreno. Violeta Teatre Malic (Barcelona) Teatre Malic Barnum Teatro del Centro Juvenil Porta Oberta Little Shop of Horrors Casa Municipal (Asturias) Opereta Producciones Threepenny Opera Teatro Garraye (Pamplona) Ayto. de Pamplona 1994 Chicago Teatro Santo Domingo (Madrid) The English Theatre Workshop King Arthur Castell de Bellver (Mallorca) Ayuto. de Palma Broadguay!!! Calderón de Alcoy (Alicante) Jácara Teatro* 1995 Sweeney Todd: Sondheim Teatre Poliorama (Barcelona) Centre Dramàtic de la Generalitat de Catalunya 1996 The Rocky Horror Show Off Producciones Resaca Tearte Malic (Barcelona) Compañia Chévere* 1997 Assassins Jove Teatr Regina (Barcelona) Memory Fiddler on the Roof Teatro Muñoz Seca (Madrid) Crac al Gag Els Pirates Teatre Victória (Barcelona) Dagoll Dagom Sweeney Todd: Sondheim Teatro Albéniz (Madrid) Pigmalión* Man of La Mancha Teatro Lope de Vega (Madrid) Pigmalión 1998 Threepenny Opera Rialto (Valencia) Centre Dramátic de la Generalitat Valenciana Guys & Dolls Teatre Nacional Catalunya. Teatre Nacional (Barcelona) Catalunya 1999 I Love You…No Change Teatro Zorrilla (Barcelona) Vánia Producciones. Beauty and the Beast Teatro Lope de Vega (Madrid) Rock&Pop España/Factoría Disney RENT Teatre Principal (Barcelona) Rock&Pop España/Focus The Half-Euro Opera Teatro de Sevilla (Sevilla) Centro Andalúz de Teatro Oliver! Bergarak Ofteoiak Grease Escuela de Teatro Tremp. Little Shop of Horrors Teatro Avendia (Madrid) Forma y Cultura 377 Chicago Teatro Nuevo Apolo (Madrid) Forma y Cultura Grease Teatro Lope de Vega (Madrid) Pigmalión La Magia de Broadway Teatro Lara (Madrid) Pigmalión 2000 Una Tarde en Broadway Teatro Gayarre (Pamplona) Quintavenida A Little Night Music Teatre Grec (Barcelona) Teatro Nacional Catalunya* West Side Story Sala Falla del Conversvatorio Escuela Superior de (Málaga) Arte Dramático de Málaga Annie Teatro Nuevo Apolo (Madrid) Espectáculos 1880 Woman of the Year Teatro Calderón (Madrid) Normark Memory Pal. de Exposiciones (Madrid) Sateco Working Teatre del Sol de Sabadell Teatre del Sol (Barcelona) Jekyll & Hyde Teatro Nuevo Apolo (Madrid) Espectáculos 1880 Jesus Christ Superstar Génesis Oliver! Teatro Principal (Alicante)* Asoc. Don Bosco* Oliver Twist (Adaptation) Teatre Municipal (Barcelona) Coco Comín Falsettos Teatro Lara (Madrid) Pigmalión 2001 Kiss Me, Kate Teatre de Barcelona (Barcelona) Institut del Teatre * The Full Monty Teatro de Novedades (Barcelona) Teatreneu The Wizard of Oz Teatro Principal (Alincante) Telón Cerrado* 101 Dalmatians Gran Teatro Cubierto Parque Attrac. A Chorus Line Teatro Bretón (Salamanca) Cero Teatro Cinderella (Adapt.) Sala Mozart (Palma de Mallorca) Centre Stage Benvinguts a Broadway Sala Crespi (Terrassa) Filagarsa My Fair Lady Teatro Coliseum (Madrid) CIE Stage La Cage Aux Folles Teatro Nuevo Apolo (Madrid) Pigmalión The Fantasticks! JC Produccions Jesus Christ Superstar Teatro Romano (Sagunto) Musicart Evita Sala Magna (Palma de Mallorca) Centre Stage Hello Dolly! Teatro Calderón (Madrid) MV Teatro 2002 The Phantom of the Opera Teatro Lope de Vega (Madrid). CIEStage/Mackintosh Poe Teatre Poliorama (Barcelona) Dagoll Dagom Peter Pan: The Musical Pal. Congresos del Campo N. (Madrid) Theatre Properties Peter Pan: The Musical Pal.Congresos del Campo N. (Madrid) Pigmalión Hair Escriny When Harry Met Sally Harry & Sally The Threepenny Opera Teatro Cuyás (Gran Canarias) Festival d’Estiu• 2003 Chicago Sala Valle-Inclán (Madrid) RESAD* Joseph and the… Asociación Arte Escénico Jugant a Rodgers Auditori Municipal (Barcelona) El Musical Més Petit Cats Teatro Coliseum (Madrid) CIE Stage Jesus Christ Superstar Teatro Valverde (Valverde) Taller Municipal Valverde Cabaret Teatro Nuevo Alcala (Madrid) CIE Stage Follies Teatre Artenbrut (Barcelona) Wai Entert.* We Will Rock You Teatro Calderón (Madrid) Wonderland Theatrical Productions, Queen 378 Theatrical Productions, Phil McIntyre Promotions, Tribeca Theatrical Productions The Wizard of Oz Mikael Theatre (Pamplona) Iluna Producciones Seven Brides for Seven Brothers Teatro Nuevo Apolo (Madrid) Suspiro Producciones The Threepenny Opera RESAD 2004 Blood Brothers Teatro Novedades (Barcelona) Pigmalión Off Broadway El Musical Més Petit. Merrily We Roll Along Tela-Katola Fame Teatro Tívoli (Barcelona) Coco Comín/Sol de Sabadell Dirty Dancing Elite Prod. Artísticas The Mikado Zum Zum The Wizard of Oz Butaca del Patio The Musical of Broadway Musikanz Mamma Mia! Teatro Lope de Vega (Madrid) CIE Stage Mar i cel Nacional de Catalunya (Bcn) Dagoll Dagom Hedwig… Sol de Sabadell (Bcn) Musical Més Petit Broadway Millenium Keops Karnak Teatro Songs of Broadway Producciones Tragaluz West Side Story Teatro Nuevo Apolo (Madrid) Spektra Entertainment 2005 Chicago ESAD Murcia Hoy No Me Puedo Levantar Teatro Rialto (Madrid) Grupo Drive I Love You…Now Change Teatro de las Aguas (Madrid) Tela-Katola The Mikado Teatro Serantes (Vizcaya) Dagoll Dagom Victor/Victoria Teatro Coliseum (Madrid) CIE Stage 2006 Pirates of Penzance Cor de Cambra Grease Teatre Victoria (Barcelona) Butaca Stage The Threepenny Opera Parq. Santa Catalina (Canarias) Atalaya* Merrily We Roll Along Teatre de Barcelona El Musical Més Petit The Producers Stage Entertainment (CIE) 2007 Into the Woods Dagoll Dagom Jesus Christ Superstar Teatro Lope de Vega Stage Entertainment The Wedding Singer Teatro Alcalá (Madrid) Videomedia Naked Boys Singing Poliedrics Les Miserables (Adapt.) La Butaca Vacia 2008 Urinetown ESAD Murcia Una Gema de Broadway Cafeteria del Teatro (Madrid) Dreamers Theatre High School Musical Auditorio de Roquetas (Almeria) Stage Entertainment Sweeney Todd: Sondheim Teatro Español (Madrid) Teatro Español The Wizard of Oz Mundiartistas 379 Historia del Pop Español Musikanz Around the World.. BRB Internacional Spamalot Teatre Victória (Barcelona) Filmax Stage Tricicle Mortadelo y Filemón Teatro Campoamor (Asturias) Anexa The Diary of Anne Frank Teatro Calderón (Madrid) Atticus Entertainment 2009 Chicago Teatro Coliseum (Madrid) Stage Entertainment Saturday Night Fever Teatro Coliseum (Madrid) State Entertainment Jesus Christ Superstar La Trouppe RENT (adaptation) Teatre de Lleida (Lleida) Aula Teatre de Lleida Oliver! Palacio de Festivales EAS Palacio Festivales The Wizard of Oz La Bicicleta Mary Poppins La Ratonera Little Shop of Horrors Barcelona SAT Sant Joan 40: El Musical Teatro Rialto (Madrid) Grupo Drive 2010 Do You Love Me? DGB Producciones Forever King of Pop Stage Entertainment Les Miserables Teatro Lope de Vega (Madrid) Stage Entertainment The Wizard of Oz La Rinconada (Sevilla) Buho & Maravillas Amor, Amor Producc. Conciertosentido Gatos La Trepa Annie: The Musical Teatro Nuevo Alcalá (Madrid) Theatre Properties Avenue Q Teatro Nuevo Alcalá (Madrid) Grupo Smedia 2011 Shrek: The Musical Teatro Nuevo Alcalá (Madrid) Theatre Properties Forever Young Teatro Compac (Madrid) Tricicle The Sound of Music Auditorio Tenerife (Canarias) Grupo Drive Urinetown Tela-Katola Broadway Baby (Adapt.) Sala Galileo (Madrid) Bimón Producciones Grease Cúpula Las Arenas (Barcelona) Pinkerton Produccions Tick, Tick…Boom Teatro Lara (Madrid) Tela-Katola The Lion King Teatro Lope de Vega (Madrid) Stage Entertainment The Threepenny Opera Auditoria de Galicia (Santiago) Centro Dramático Galego 2012 Evil Dead El Musical Cines Kinepolis (Madrid) Producciones de Candar Follies Teatro Español (Madrid) Teatro Español My Fair Lady Auditorio Tenerife (Canarias) Stage Entertainment The Sorcerer’s Pub Versus Teatre (Barcelona) Sursum Teatre República Bananera Versus Teatre (Barcelona) La Barroca Records a Broadway Teatre L’Atlantida (Barcelona) La Nota Teatre Beauty and the Beasty Teatro Calderón (Madrid) Stage Entertainment Los Amigos de Walt Disney Coral Europa 2013 The Wild Party Teatr Gaudí (Barcelona) Vocal Factory, BCN No Way to Treat a Lady Teatro Alfíl (Madrid) Tela-Katola Marry Me A Little Espai Lliure (Barcelona) Teatre Lliure Marta Tiene Un Marcapasos Coral Europa 380 La Llamada Teatro Lara (Madrid) MGP Productions Hedwig ESAD (Málaga) ESAD Málaga Escuela de Calor Moon World Records Oliver Twist Teatro Central (Sevilla) La Tarasca 2014 Blood Brothers Teatre del Raval (Barcelona) Anexa 381 APPENDIX B La Sociedad General de Autores y Editories (SGAE) The Spanish General Society of Authors and Publishers The information below are key highlights of the organization and were obtained directly from their website. More information can be found online at http://www.sgae.es/en-EN/SitePages/index.aspx. SGAE is a private entity devoted to the defence and collective management of the intellectual property rights of our over 100,000 members. We have been operating since 1899 and the repertoire administered today by the SGAE exceeds ten million musical, dramatic, choreographic and audio-visual works. The Intellectual Property Act establishes the obligation for each use of Dramatic and Choreographic works to be expressly authorized by their authors and rights holders. In order to guarantee legal certainty in the use of Protected works and in representation of the authors and rights holders, the SGAE offers a licensing service for the establishment of the conditions in which the works are used. • Copyright fee • Territorial scope of the licence • Language in which the performance is authorized • Duration of the licence • Exclusive or non-exclusive licence [We also represent] foreign authors in Spain. This is because we have signed representation agreements with societies of authors around the world so as to guarantee the protection of the works of creators in 209 territories. If you use protected works on your premises, then you need to obtain permission from the corresponding copyright holders. We are conscious it is impossible to obtain permission from all the individual authors, but you needn’t worry; to be able to use any musical or audio-visual work which is part of the repertoire of SGAE, whether it is Spanish or from abroad, you will need our license to make use of such repertoire and increase the profitability of your business. Businesses needing to obtain copyright licensing include: • Restaurants and hotels • Bars • Wedding Events • Gyms • Clubs • Dance and Theatre • And more 382 APPENDIX C ¿Y Quíen Necesita Broadway? Criteria and Application Rules The following is an untranslated (original Spanish) form sent to all interested theatre groups, outlining rules, regulations, criteria, and awards. ! BASES! !!!!! III!CERTAMEN!! NACIONAL!! TEATRO!MUSICAL!! AMATEUR! !!!!!! Y"QUIÉN"NECESITA"" BROADWAY" ! ! 1. Podrán) inscribirse) en) el) III) Certamen) “Y) quién) necesita) Broadway”) únicamente) grupos! de! teatro) de) carácter) no! profesional) que) representen) obras) de) teatro! musical.) Cada) compañía) podrá) presentar) tantas) obras) como) desee,) siempre) y) cuando) no) hayan) sido) representadas) nunca) en) Zafra.) Las) voces) han) de) ser) en) directo.)) 2. Las) representaciones) tendrán) lugar) los) días) 18) y) 25) de) octubre) y) 8) y) 15) de) noviembre)de)2014,)en)el)Teatro)de)Zafra)(Badajoz).)) 3. Las) agrupaciones) que) deseen) formar) parte) del) proceso) de) selección) deberán) enviar,)antes)del)5!de!septiembre!de!2014,)la)siguiente)documentación:) • Solicitud)de)inscripción)debidamente)cumplimentada.) • Historia)del)grupo.) • Texto)íntegro)del)libreto)del)montaje.) • Ficha)técnica)y)artística)de)la)obra)a)representar.) • Fotografías)de)la)representación)y)críticas)de)prensa,)si)las)hubiera.) • GRABACIÓN)ÍNTEGRA)DE)LA)OBRA)(se)admite)DVD)o)similar)) • Fotocopia)del)C.I.F.)del)grupo.) • Documento)oficial)acreditativo)de)exención)de)I.V.A.) 4. La) documentación) recibida) quedará) en) propiedad) de) la) Comisión) organizadora) pudiendo) utilizar) el) material) fotográfico) y) publicitario) en) ésta) o) en) posteriores) ediciones)del)Certamen.)También)la)compañía)autoriza)a)la)organización)a)difundir) la)obra)en)todos)aquellos)medidos)de)comunicación)posible.) 5. La) solicitud) de) inscripción,) así) como) el) resto) de) documentación) requerida,) se) remitirá)a:) III!CERTAMEN!NACIONAL!DE!TEATRO!MUSICAL!AMATEUR!! “Y!QUIÉN!NECESITA!BROADWAY”!! Casa!de!la!Juventud! Plaza!Villa!de!Madrid,!s/n! 06300!Zafra!VBADAJOZV! 6. La)Organización)designará)un)Comité)de)Selección)(formado)por) la)Organización,) Concejalía) de) Cultura) y) Casa) de) la) Juventud),) el) cual) elegirá) a) CUATRO! grupos! titulares!y!DOS!de!reserva!de)entre)todos)aquellos)que)hayan)enviado)la)solicitud) 383 !!!!!!!! Solicitud!de!participación! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! III!Certamen!Nacional!de!! !!!!!!!!!! Teatro!Musical!Amateur!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Y!QUIÉN!NECESITA!! BROADWAY!2014! ! EL!GRUPO! Nombre_______________________________________________________________! Dirección______________________________________________________________! CIF!del!grupo___________________________________________________________! Localidad__________________________Provincia_______________CP___________! Página!web____________________________________________________________! EOMail_________________________________________________________________! Nombre!y!apellidos!del!representante______________________________________! Teléfono!_________________________Otro!teléfono_________________________! ! EL!MONTAJE! Título_________________________________________________________________! Autor_________________________________________________________________! Duración!aproximada_______________________!CON!descanso !!!SIN!descanso !! Número!de!componentes!(actores,!cantantes,!bailarines)!!!____________________________! ! LAS!FECHAS! Indica!del!1º!al!4º!la!fecha!de!preferencia!para!la!representación:! 18!de!octubre! ! ! 8!de!noviembre! ! ! 25!de!octubre! ! ! 15!de!noviembre! ! ! ! ! ¿Por!qué!medio!has!conocido!esta!convocatoria?_____________________________! ! Solicita!ser!admitido!en!el!proceso!de!selección!del! II!Certamen!Nacional!de!Teatro!Musical!Amateur!“Y!quién!necesita!Broadway”! ! En____________________________________!a_______!de!______________!de!2014! ! ! ! FDO:!___________________________________________! Representante!del!grupo! 384 debidamente)cumplimentada.)La)decisión) tomada)se)comunicará)antes)del)día)9! de!septiembre!de!2014!a)todos) los)grupos,)seleccionados)o)no,)siendo)entonces) cuando)se)concrete)el)día)de)la)actuación)de)cada)uno)de)los)seleccionados.) 7. Los) grupos) seleccionados) deberán) confirmar) por) escrito) a) la) Organización) su) participación)en)el)certamen)tras)conocer)la)elección)del)Comité)de)Selección.) 8. Los)grupos)seleccionados)deberán)enviar)a)la)Organización)tanto)los)programas)de) mano)como)la)cartelería)de)la)obra)seleccionada)antes)del)día)19)de)septiembre)de) 2014.) 9. Serán) por) cuenta) de) los) grupos) participantes) la) autorización) del) autor) y) los) derechos) de) representación) de) las) obras) presentadas,) así) como) los) gastos) derivados)de)los)Derechos)de)Autor)de)las)mismas.) 10. Las) obras) seleccionadas) deberán) ser) representadas) sin) cambios) de) texto) con) respecto)al)libreto)enviado)adjunto)a)la)solicitud.)La)modificación)de)alguna)de)sus) partes,) omisiones) o) añadidos) sobre) el) texto) enviado) puede) ser) motivo) de) descalificación.) Asimismo,) la) supresión) o) cambio) de) actores) o) actrices) participantes)según) la)documentación) recibida)en)el)momento)de) la) solicitud)de) participación)será)motivo)de)descalificación)siempre)que)no)haya)sido)comunicado) con)la)suficiente)antelación)a)la)Organización.) 11. Los)grupos)seleccionados)tendrán)a)su)disposición)las) instalaciones)del)Teatro)de) Zafra)desde)las)10)de)la)mañana)del)día)de)la)representación)con)el)fin)de)realizar) el)montaje)de)la)escenografía)y)llevar)a)cabo)posibles)ensayos.)Tanto)el)montaje)y) el)desmontaje)como)la)carga)y)descarga)del)material,)correrá)a)cargo)de)los)grupos) participantes.) 12. Las)características)técnicas)del)escenario)del)Teatro)de)Zafra)son)las)siguientes:) Escenario:)14,95m)x)10,15m)x)13,19m)hasta)la)parte)inferior)del)peine) (corbata)no)incluida)) Corbata!fija:)10,37m)x)1,30m)x)6,49)m) Embocadura!fija:)9,45m)x)6,49m)(altura)) Hombro!derecho:)2,88m)x)10,15m)x)6,90m) Hombro!izquierdo:)2,63m)x)10,15m)x)6,90m) Foro:)14,58m)x)1,55m)x)6,90m) Chácena:)7,64m)x)10,15m)x)6,70m) Foso!escénico:)9,40m)x)7,15m)x)2,64m) Foso!de!orquesta:)9,40m)x)4,37m)x)2,34m)) 385 13. El)acto)de)clausura)y)entrega)de)premios)tendrá)lugar)en)una)Gala!el!sábado!22!de! noviembre!de!2014.)A)él)deberá)asistir,)al)menos,)un)representante)de)cada)uno) de)los)grupos)participantes,)teniendo)que)ser)esta)persona)uno)de)los)integrantes) que)formó)parte)en)la)representación,)no)pudiéndose)delegar)en)personas)ajenas) al) grupo.) El) grupo) que) no) esté) representado) perderá) su) derecho) tanto) a) los) premios)obtenidos)como)a)la)ayuda)económica.) 14. En) la) Gala) de) Clausura,) que) tendrá) lugar) en) el) Teatro) de) Zafra) el) día) 22) de) noviembre)de)2014,)un)Jurado)Oficial,)designado)por)la)Organización,)determinará) los)siguientes)premios:) • Premio)al)Mejor)Espectáculo:)) ) ) 1.000)€)+)trofeo) • Premio)a)la)Mejor)Actriz:)) ) ) ) Trofeo) • Premio)al)Mejor)Actor:)) ) ) ) Trofeo) • Premio)a)la)Mejor)Voz)Femenina:) ) )) Trofeo) • Premio)a)la)Mejor)Voz)Masculina:) ) )) Trofeo) • Premio)a)la)Mejor)Dirección:)) ) ) Trofeo) • Premio)a)la)Mejor)Dirección)Musical:) ) Trofeo) • Premio)a)la)Mejor)Coreografía:) ) ) Trofeo) • Premio)al)Mejor)Vestuario:)) ) ) ) Trofeo) • Premio)al)Mejor)Decorado:)) ) ) ) Trofeo) • Premio)a)la))Mejor)iluminación)y)Sonido:) ) Trofeo) • Premio)Especial)del)Público:))) ) ) Trofeo) Ningún)premio)podrá)ser)declarado)desierto)por)parte)del)jurado.) ) 15. Asimismo,) todos) los) grupos) participantes) obtendrán,) en) concepto) de) gastos) de) desplazamiento,)800)euros.)) 16. La) presentación) de) la) documentación) exigida) implica) la) aceptación) de) las) presentes)bases)en)su)totalidad.) 17. Cualquier)circunstancia)no)prevista)en)las)presentes)bases)será)resuelta)de)forma) inapelable)por)la)Organización.) ) ) ) ) COORDINACIÓN)DEL)CERTAMEN:) Asociación)Cultural!CEREZO17! Dirección:)María)José)Pámpano:)609.978.094.) Correo)electrónico:)yquiennecesitabroadway@hotmail.com) ) PATROCINADO)POR:)Exmo.)Ayuntamiento)de)Zafra,)Clínica)Dental)Oris.) CON)EL)APOYO)DE:)Casa)de)la)Juventud)de)Zafra.) CON)LA)COLABORACIÓN)DE:)Plétora)Teatro.) ) ) MÁS)INFO)EN)FACEBOOK" 386 APPENDIX D Event Brochure for ¿Y Quíen Necesita Broadway? 387 388 APPENDIX E Rate Card for Actors in Madrid through Union de Actores. www.uniondeactores.com http://www.uniondeactores.com/images/web/adjuntos/convenios-y-tarifas/20171113- Tabla-Tarifas-Minimas-Actores-Audiovisual-y-Figuracin-2017.pdf TARIFAS 2017 AUDIOVISUAL ¡ATENCIÓN! Todas las cantidades son brutas, exceptuando las dietas que son netas. Tarifas válidas hasta el 31 de diciembre de 2017. Han sido reguladas y establecidas según los convenios colectivos negociados por la Unión de Actores y Actrices y representan una actualización en base al índice de precios al consumo. (En concepto de cesión de derechos de fijación, reproducción y distribucción se cobrará ei 5 % del sueldo o caché pactado, al final del contrato, con el último pago. El resto de los derechos se cobrará por AISGE.) AUDIOVISUAL CINE Categoría €/sesión €/semana €/mes Protagonista 744,5 3.364,50 8.965,74 Secundario 542,17 2.411,22 6.728,97 Reparto 406,62 1.682,23 4.766,33 Pequeñas Partes 162,65 672,6 1906,53 (+ 5% de Derechos de Propiedad Intelectual aparte) TELEVISIÓN Y PUBLICIDAD Categoría €/sesión €/semana €/mes Protagonista 681,73 3.039,90 8.106,16 Secundario 486,96 2.165,51 6.043,27 Reparto 389,55 1.611,51 4.566,14 Pequeñas Partes 155,79 644,62 1.826,45 (+ 5% de Derechos de Propiedad Intelectual aparte) BAJO PRESUPUESTO * Categoría €/sesión €/semana €/mes Protagonista 552,23 2.495,57 6.654,87 Secundario 451,83 2.009,34 5.607,46 Reparto 351,42 1.452,15 4.119,09 Pequeñas Partes 140,57 580,85 1.647,63 (+ 5% de Derechos de Propiedad Intelectual aparte) * Cuyo coste sea hasta 750.000 € / Películas para televisión o cine, telefims (TV movies) / Están excluidas las series televisivas y sus capítulos Dietas Cada comida principal 40,16 € Complemento de pernocta 20,07 € Desplazamiento en vehículo propio 0,19€/km Hotel con desayuno por cuenta siempre de la productora. Ensayos Protagonista y secundario 50€ / día Resto de categorías 40€/ día FIGURACIÓN Concepto 2017 2018 Salario día 43,00 € 45,50 € Complemento jornada especial 8,00 € 8,25 € Hora extraordinaria 12,50 € 13,00 € Manutención 12,50 € 13,00 € Consultar tarifas actualizadas en la web www.uniondeactores.com 389 APPENDIX F List of nominees and winners in each of the categories at the “¿Y Quién Necesita Broadway? III Certamen Nacional de Teatro Musical Amateur de España” (Who Needs Broadway? III National Competition of Amatuer Musical Theatre in Spain) in Zafra, Spain (2014). MEJOR ACTRIZ (Best Actress): Patricia Pérez Berbel, Los Miserables Ana Luceno, Superhéroes (WINNER) Amalia Escriña, La Brújula Mágica MEJOR ACTOR (Best Actor): Mariano Mejías, Los Miserables Pedro García, Los Miserables Chema Higuera, Superhéroes (WINNER) MEJOR VOZ FEMENINA (Best Female Vocals): Patricia Pérez Berbel, Los Miserables (WINNER) Miriam Pérez Berbel, Los Miserables Sara Navacerrada, La Brújula Mágica MEJOR VOZ MASCULINA (Best Male Vocals): Gustavo García, Los Miserables Jaime Rebollo, Los Miserables (WINNER) José Luis Roldán, Notredame de París MEJOR DIRECCIÓN (Best Direction): Gustavo García, Los Miserables (WINNER) Miguel Ángel Maroto, Superhéroes Verónica Hellín, La Brújula Mágica MEJOR DIRECCIÓN MUSICAL (Best Musical Direction): Daniel Otero, Los Miserables (WINNER) Miguel Ángel Maroto, Superhéroes Guillermo Molinero, La Brújula Mágica MEJOR COREOGRAFÍA (Best Choreography): Miguel Ángel Maroto, Superhéroes Rafael Lara y Carlos Rey, Notredame de Paris Sandra González, La Brújula Mágica (WINNER) MEJOR VESTUARIO (Best Costume Design): Pepe Vázquez, Los Miserables Mª Luisa Ortega, Superhéroes (WINNER) Álvaro Fernández y Paloma Sanz, La Brújula Mágica 390 MEJOR DECORADO (Best Set Design): TEION, Los Miserables Manuel Romero, Notredame de Paris José Luis González y Paloma Sanz, La Brújula Mágica (WINNER) MEJOR ILUMINACIÓN Y SONIDO (Best Lighting and Sound): Antonio Villar y Enrique Galera, Los Miserables (WINNER) Rodrigo Manchado, ErAudio y Laura Villarejo, Superhéores Verónica Hellín y Manuel Belizón, La Brújula Mágica ESPECIAL DEL PÚBLICO (Special Audience Award): Los Miserables, Tomateatro (WINNER) Superhéroes, Believe Notredame de Paris, Esfiga Teatro Musical La Brújula Mágica, Musicales 3C MEJOR ESPECTÁCULO (Best Show): Los Miserables, Tomateatro (WINNER) Superhéroes, Believe Notredame de Paris, Esfiga Teatro Musical La Brújula Mágica, Musicales 3C 391 Bibliography Interviews and Lectures Burns, Nica (Co-Chair and CEO of Nimax Theatres). May 11, 2016. Calderón, Manuel. October 4, 2014. Charrington, James (CEO Dewynters, Ltd). May 17, 2016. Gándara, Nono. October 10, 2014. Garcia, Gustavo. October 17, 2014. Maroto, M. A. October 25, 2014. Mena, Fernando Ramos. “Cosas a tener en cuenta a la hora de producir mi propio montaje.” Lecture Session, III Certamen Nacional de ¿Y Quién Necesita Broadway?, Zafra, Spain. October 26, 2014. Pámpano, M. J. March 15, 2018 Romero VI, Juan Pablo. October 10, 2014. Villar, A. October 17, 2014. Reference List Aaltonen, Sirkku. 2000. Time-sharing on Stage: Drama Translation in Theatre and Society. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Abalkhail, Jouharah M. 2018. “Challenges of Translating Qualitative Management Data.” Gender in Management: An International Journal 33 (1): 66–79. doi:10.1108/GM-03-2016-0029. Addo, Ping-Ann. 2009. “Anthropology, Festival, and Spectacle.” Reviews in Anthropology 38 (3): 217–36. Adler, Steven. 2004. On Broadway: Art and Commerce on the Great White Way. 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