In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • To Remind You Of My Love:London's Love Affair With The American Musical
  • Laura MacDonald (bio)

When American actor Jake Gyllenhaal commented to a journalist that British musicals no longer had a significant presence on Broadway, then-Guardian theatre critic Michael Billington responded with a roundup of the moment's British musical theatre successes, crowing, "the musical is in rude health in this country—whether Broadway knows it or not."1 Gyllenhaal was scheduled to appear in London in a transfer of a Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George (1984) and was perhaps recalling that while the George revival ran on Broadway, the only British musicals in the same season were revivals and longruns from the 1980s rather than new imports. "I don't see it as the prime function of the British theatre to supply Broadway with a chain of gold-plated, ready-made hits," Billington grumbled, but without acknowledging that American musicals outnumbered British shows in London and some, including The Lion King (1997), Wicked (2003), and Hamilton (2015), had arrived in the West End as ready-made hits.2

News reports regularly ponder London's ongoing dependence on American musicals, whether they are revivals conceived in the UK or replicas of new Broadway productions. "The West End is now lagging behind America when it comes to making new musicals," Hannah Furness reported in The Telegraph in 2017.3 She quoted Andrew Lloyd Webber, who suggested this might be because new musical development is "in the DNA" of American theatre. "There are masses and masses of theatres where you can try things out and perfect material before they ever get near to Broadway."4 Beyond comparing New York City and London's vastly different new musical development pipelines, this article explores the power and presence of American musicals in London to evaluate how [End Page 93] they continue to support the British industry in the twenty-first century. This dynamic manifests in numerous ways, but I privilege the long-term success in London of musicals generated by an established American pipeline, the Public Theater; British directors' preference for American revivals over new British work; and the overall limited support for new British musicals in London.

Anybody Have a Map?: The Venues Where Musical Theatre Happens

Regional and non-profit theatres across the United States and Off Broadway have been a key home to new American musical development, the cells where new musical development DNA is contained.5 For decades these venues have embraced musicals, to fill important slots in their seasons and to generate profits that can be re-invested in further programming. Some of these musicals make it to Broadway, reinforcing those venues' relationships with the commercial theatre center. Broadway musicals frequently travel across the Atlantic, making London an additional distribution center for such new musicals, whether they are Hair (1968), A Chorus Line (1975), or Hamilton, developed Off Broadway at the Public Theater; Waitress (2016), developed in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the American Repertory Theater; or Dear Evan Hansen (2016), which premiered at Washington, DC's Arena Stage. Because these musicals already survived the journey from a regional or Off Broadway theatre to Broadway, the process of re-mounting the same production in London (where production costs are lower than New York) is relatively straightforward.6 As at the mid-twentieth century point, such transfers are a far more calculated risk for the British producers who fund American musicals' London premieres than the riskier development of new British musicals.

London's fringe venues, many of which are less well-equipped than West End theatres, and the publicly subsidized National Theatre, sometimes take a greater gamble on British musical theatre, but still rely on musicals from New York City. The ambitious and consistently successful Menier Chocolate Factory near London Bridge alternates plays with musicals and revives Broadway classics such as Sweet Charity [End Page 94] (1966)7 as well as hosting London premieres of contemporary American musicals such as The Bridges of Madison County (2014). Tightly budgeted with first-class actors performing on a tiny stage for a small audience, and recruiting creative teams drawn from the best of Broadway and...

pdf

Share