entitledNot Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musi-
cal Flops(1991) commemorates the failure of this
production.
The final years of the 1980’s saw a slight decline in
British imports, with Lloyd Webber’sAspects of Love
(pr. 1990) being eclipsed by a return to Americana
in the form of Tony winnersJerome Robbins’ Broadway
(pr. 1989) andCity of Angels(pr. 1989). This trend
would continue into the 1990’s, with American musi-
cals receiving critical acclaim and British imports
seeing huge box-office numbers.
Impact The Broadway musical had been, until the
1980’s, thought to be an art form exclusively mas-
tered by Americans. The 1980’s proved this theory
wrong. British and French musicals, particularly
those created by Andrew Lloyd Webber and pro-
duced by Cameron Macintosh, brought pop ele-
ments into the traditional musical score that allowed
them to transcend what younger audiences saw as
out-of-date show tunes. Additionally, the use of ag-
gressive marketing campaigns by Macintosh forced
American producers to find other ways in which to
sell their productions to audiences. Television com-
mercials and branded items in addition to the tradi-
tional posters, T-shirts, and programs became the
new norm. To accommodate the lavishness of the
productions and the increased marketing costs, av-
erage ticket prices rose tremendously, from $25 in
1980 to well over $50 in 1988. The rise in ticket prices
was also a result of declining productions and audi-
ences. There were sixty-seven productions on Broad-
way in the 1980-1981 season, while the last season of
the decade saw only twenty-nine productions.
Further Reading
Block, Geoffrey.Enchanted Evenings: The Broadway
Musical from “Show Boat” to Sondheim. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1997. An exploration of
music as a dramatic tool in musicals of the twenti-
eth century. An important resource for discern-
ing stylistic differences between composers in the
1980’s.
Flinn, Denny Martin.Musical! A Grand Tour. New
York: Schirmer Books, 1997. A look at the history
of the American musical on both stage and
screen. Useful for understanding the form’s de-
velopment over time.
Jones, John Bush.Our Musicals, Ourselves: A Social
Histor y of the American Musical Theatre. Lebanon,
N.H.: Brandeis University Press, 2003. Literate ex-
amination of how musicals promote social change.
Includes important insights into the 1980’s politi-
cal world and Broadway’s response to it.
Larkin, Colin.The Virgin Encyclopedia of Stage and Film
Musicals. London: Virgin Books, 1999. An excel-
lent resource covering both American and British
musicals.
Mandelbaum, Ken.Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of
Broadway Musical Flops. New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1991. A look at musicals that have flopped,
including 1988’sCarrie.
Mordden, Ethan.The Happiest Corpse I’ve Ever Seen:
The Last Twenty-Five Years of the Broadway Musical.
New York: Palgrave for St. Martin’s Press, 2004. A
compelling and detailed account of the Broadway
musical and the effect the 1980’s had on its devel-
opment.
Singer, Barry.Ever After: The Last Years of Musical
Theatre and Beyond. New York: Applause, 2004.
Covering musicals from 1975 to the early twenty-
first century, Singer’s analysis concerning the
1980’s is particularly compelling.
Suskin, Steven.Show Tunes, 1905-1991: The Songs,
Shows, and Careers of Broadway’s Major Composers.
New York: Limelight Editions, 1992. A phenome-
nal resource for exploring Broadway composers
throughout the twentieth century.
Wilmeth, Don B., and Christopher Bigsby, eds.The
Cambridge Histor y of American Theatre.New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2000. Covering thea-
ter from post-World War II to the 1990’s, this
text’s analysis of theater in the 1980’s is unsur-
passed.Brokaw, Tom
See also Cats;Phantom of the Opera, The; Theater.Broderick, Matthew
Identification American actor
Born March 21, 1962; New York, New York
Broderick, a highly charismatic actor starred in serious and
comedic productions on both stage and screen in the 1980’s.
His disarming manner combined with a forceful stage pres-
ence, enabling him to realize several of the most memorable
characters of the decade.
Matthew Broderick, a major young actor of the
1980’s, was born into an artistic family. His father,The Eighties in America Broderick, Matthew 149