Posted by Wayman Wong on June 03, 1999 at 11:15:13:
From today's Patrick Pacheco Play by Play theater column in Newsday:
''Parade'' may have ''a transfusion'' in the not-too-distant fture, Harold Prince says, mentioning a three-month national tour that's being planned, and if that goes well, could be extended. ''Maybe we could bring it back to New York after that,'' said Prince.
Composer Jason Robert Brown's Broadway debut with ''Parade'' has left him skittish about continuing in a profession where the stakes are so high, he says. ''It drives me insane that I now have to defend 'Parade' against its perception as a failure ... because it didn't spawn five road companies. Artistically, I think we were a success. The problem is, I can't pay the rent. I wish the Tony came with a cash prize.''
There appears to be an increasing polarization in the Broadway community, Brown says, between those who ''want work that's accessible to the largest number of people possible'' to those who ''want challenging, weird, intellectually stimulating work.'' And, he says, he hates being pigeonholed as the ''arty guy'' competing against the commercial philistines. ''I hate that I'm up against Frank Wildhorn ('The Civil War') and 'Footloose.' We're all just doing our work.''