“Broadway By The Decade” reviewed by Julia W. Rath

Highly Recommended **** Director Michael Weber hosts a 45-minute retrospective of Broadway musicals in Porchlight Music Theatre’s new online video “Broadway by the Decade.” This show is a tribute to an art form that was originally called American musical comedy and later known as Broadway.

Weber (who is also the artistic director of Porchlight) traces the roots of the musical from the opera and operetta to the present-day. He narrates Broadway’s evolution beginning a hundred years ago, progressing ten years at a time. He illustrates his highly researched chronology via a medley of vintage theatrical posters and photographs of composers, directors, producers, playwrights, and performers. Interspersed with scenes taken from popular A-list musicals, one per decade, the video adds dramatic effect by featuring contemporary vocalists, who unleash fresh energy into older songs and scripts. For example, the song “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” from “Showboat” is used to represent the 1920s, the feature song “Guys and Dolls” embodies the 1950s, and “Who Am I” from “Les Miserables” corresponds to the 1980s. Singers include Neala Barron, Blu, Darilyn Burtley, Lucy Godinez, Donterrio Johnson, James Earl Jones II, Michelle Lauto, and Michael McBride. McBride also serves as the accompanist and music director. Videographer/editor Austin Packard (whom you accidentally see in a reflection) and audio engineer and sound mixer Eric Backus make the production come alive.

When Jerome Kern composed his best-loved musical comedy “Showboat”, he could not have imagined that future generations would consider him a major founder of American music theatre. But to paraphrase Kierkegaard, “Life must be lived forwards but can only be understood backwards.” When we look back at the last 100 years, we cannot help but ask a number of questions: What makes a specific musical tick in each of the various decades? What makes one story and its music survive over time, while others not so much? Does it have to do with its lightness or its charm? Its glitz or its glamor? Or its depth of story or lack thereof—or how contemporary or singable the music is? Times change and tastes change as the years go by. Whether an audience wants to escape reality or embrace it or question it often determines the characteristics that music theatre takes throughout history.

When the musical comedy originated in the 1920s, this was an era of relative prosperity, and people wanted to be entertained. Musicals competed with the dramatic plays of that era not to mention the movies: first the silent pictures and then in 1929, the talkies. Today with COVID and the inability to produce stage shows, Porchlight Music Theatre has turned to making an entertaining chronology on the history and development of musicals that enhances our appreciation of the performing arts in general. But it is also cathartic. It gives us permission to crave the good old days of normalcy and to reminisce about past shows that we may have seen or wanted to see. It fulfills our wish for a future time when Broadway can (and will) return to its former glory and we can experience the thrill of watching live performances once again and look into the eyes of the actors. If the past is any indication of the future, “Broadway by the Decade” points to the fact that there will be a lot of memorable musicals to come in the course of the next 100 years—and we will all be the better for it.

Tickets for “Broadway by the Decade” are available now thru October 25th. Tickets run from $15-$50. For tickets and more information, please go to: https://porchlightmusictheatre.org/events/broadway-by-the-decade/

Once you receive your link and password, you will have 72 hours to watch the video stream online on Vimeo.

If you have questions, please email the box office at boxoffice@porchlightmusictheatre.org
or call 773-777-9884.

Note that Porchlight Online has a virtual 2020-2021 season!
For more information about future shows, visit: https://porchlightmusictheatre.org/news/

Please consider making a donation to Porchlight in order to support Chicago’s home for music theatre during these critical times. Go to:
https://porchlightmusictheatre.secure.force.com/donate/?dfId=a0n46000003zajWAAQ.