Theaters' NY focus may test Hub audiences
So the two leading theaters in the Boston area have their eyes on New York - and vice versa. But what does this dual focus mean for audiences? When shows originate in Boston with an eye on New York, are local theatergoers buying tickets to what are, in essence, previews?
In the case of “Sons of the Prophet,’’ the answer is essentially yes. Karam rewrote “Sons’’ significantly after its world premiere at the Huntington, dropping a major subplot involving the relationship between two key characters. The play was also streamlined from two acts to one. Both changes were improvements, but the thousands who saw the work at the Huntington experienced what turned out to be a preliminary version.
“I didn’t go into Boston thinking, here’s a half-finished play,’’ said Karam. “It was one of those things that I wished I had thought about it sooner.’’
It could be argued that Boston is used to serving as a test audience, having been for decades a tryout town for Broadway-bound productions. In those cases, though, it was widely understood that New York was the goal, and Boston just a stop along the way. By contrast, audiences develop proprietary feelings for their regional theaters, like the ART and the Huntington.
A Cricket World Cup on homeground comes close to achieving the impossible: just about any kind of programming gets advertisers, lots of people make money, and everybody has a good time doing so. (Except perhaps the pressured cricketers and the losing