On Broadway

FEATURING:
Helen Mirren, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, August Wilson, Hal Prince, James Corden, John Lithgow, Tommy Tune, Alexandra Billings, David Henry Hwang, Oskar Eustis, Nicholas Hytner, Jack O’Brien, Daniel Sullivan, Trevor Nunn, Julie Taymor, Sonia Friedman, Jeffrey Seller, and Tony Kushner.

DIRECTOR: Oren Jacoby
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Pat Schoenfeld, Stephanie P. MccLelland, No Guarantee Theatricals, John Breglio, Betsy West, Barbara H. Freitag, and Riki Kane-Larimer
PRODUCERS: Oren Jacoby, Holly Siegel.
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Buddy Squires, Bob Richman, Tom Hurwitz
EDITING: Abhay Sofsky, Ted Raviv, Steven Wechsler

As Broadway audiences prepare for the return of live theatre after an unprecedented absence of 18 months, an all-star cast tells the inside story of the last time Broadway came back from the brink. On Broadway shows how this revival helped save New York City, thanks to innovative work, a new attention to inclusion, and the sometimes uneasy balance between art and commerce.

Interviews with legends of the stage and screen, including Hugh Jackman, Helen Mirren, Christine Baranski, August Wilson, James Corden, Alec Baldwin, John Lithgow, Viola Davis, and Ian McKellen take us behind the scenes of Broadway's most groundbreaking and beloved shows, from A Chorus Line to Hamilton. Archival clips of iconic performances by Lin Manuel Miranda, Patti Lupone, Bernadette Peters, James Earl Jones and Mandy Patinkin punctuate this hurly-burly ride through the main street of American show business.

Now that New York City faces an uncertain path forward in its recovery from a devastating pandemic, this documentary from Academy Award®-nominated director Oren Jacoby and the producers of RBG shows how Broadway led the way in the city's last great rebirth and provides a model of how it can come back again.

 

百老汇大道，又被戏剧爱好者称作“宽街”，是纽约市重要的南北向道路。位于其中心地带42街附近的时代广场周围云集了几十家剧院，是美国戏剧及娱乐业中心，因而百老汇这一词汇已成为美国现代歌舞艺术、戏剧活动、娱乐业的代名词。百老汇一路走来，曲折不断，它的成功反应了美国多元化的国民面貌。

四五十年代的百老汇曾占据着美国流行文化的中心，电台播放的所有热门歌曲均来自百老汇，好莱坞争相改编翻拍如《俄克拉荷马》（Oklahoma！）、《西区故事》（West Side Story）等热门剧目。那段黄金时代涌现出了众多美国优秀剧作家。随着流行文化的更迭，与变得混乱危险的街区治安环境，1968年至1972年期间，百老汇的观众人数在短短四年间流失过半。附近街区令人避之不及，众多剧院无戏可演，常年暗灯，甚至连整个纽约市都徘徊在破产的边缘。