“Shrek Goes Viral: The Broadway Musical as Global Commodity”
David Savran, The City University of New York
Given the status of commercial theatre in the US as public amusement for audiences rich in cultural and economic capital, it is not surprising that the Internet has proven an indispensible promotional tool. Websites and elaborate campaigns (both on- and offline) play crucial roles in the marketing of various theatre ventures, especially Broadway musicals, which are becoming increasingly adept at using the Internet as part of a multi-pronged attack that includes merchandising and product tie-ins in addition to television and print ads. But the invasion of Broadway by large multinational corporations like Disney and Dreamworks has also radically changed the character and experience of musical theatre. No longer are the original cast album and souvenir program the only tangible objects a spectator can buy. The website for Shrek the Musical, for example, offers twenty-six items of official Broadway merchandise for sale and allows “you” to send an e-card to “your friend, co-worker, Prince Charming, evil stepsister or fairy godmother.” This last item is especially important because it gives Dreamworks access to thousands of unpaid viral marketers, who can, like the carriers of Artaud’s plague, infect an entire population with the glory of a giant, green commodity.
The success of multinational corporations at distributing their products electronically must be seen as part of a move that radically decenters the Broadway theatre and challenges its status as a forum for handmade, auratic works of art. New York remains a primary site for live performance but it is increasingly becoming merely one node in a network of both live and electronic performances that overspill national borders. Internet marketing offensives circulate worldwide both to entice spectators by disseminating news of the Broadway product and, through webcasts or webisodes, to become extensions or simulacra of live performance. However, this seemingly benign electronic distribution must also be seen in relation to a much less benign outsourcing of production. Like other multinational conglomerates, Broadway producers are discovering that a production, for example, a new revival of Dreamgirls, can be put together and run far more cheaply in South Korea than in the US. After its Seoul tryout, its Korean actors exchanged for Americans, it can be imported back to Broadway. In other words, the most distinctively and emblematically American theatre form, the Broadway musical, is, under the aegis of neoliberal globalization, becoming increasingly stateless. And live performance on Broadway is becoming an increasingly minor—and mass-produced—component of intellectual properties whose value lies in their seeming infinite possibilities for dissemination and reproducibility.
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