Attention, Broadway!
On the recent failure of the Bob Dylan Broadway Musical, which will close on November 19 after only 28 performances: Are you really and truly THAT shocked? Here's a hint: The words "Bob Dylan" and "Broadway Musical" should never ever ever be in the same sentence! These times they are a-changin' indeed, but as far I'm concerned, this smacks of the apocalypse.
STOP IT. Cease! Desist! It's enough that you decided to ruin a perfectly good Adam Sandler movie by beating the dead horse that is 1980s nostalgia, and though Billy Joel is a little more up your alley, I PROMISE that as a Long Island punk teenager, Billy was NOT doing ballet at the drive-in! I will say without a shred of doubt that John Lennon rolled in his grave at the atrocity that was Lennon, which failed because the "rock opera" is dead. Go listen to the Hair soundtrack if you're feeling nostalgic. Oh, and I can't even describe the shades of red I turned when I flipped through the latest issue of Vanity Fair and discovered that fucking High Fidelity is being subjected to Broadwayization. I absolutely, positively guarantee that Rob would have rather listened to 80 straight hours of Latin, Bulgarian, whatever fucking world music was trendy that week, than the soundtrack to RENT.
Pretty embarassing when you line it all up like that, isn't it?
Stop trying to turn theater geeks into rock stars, leave Bob Dylan alone, and do the unthinkable: write a new show. You can't let Wicked carry you forever.
