It is not ridiculous to expect that theater departments (especially at publicly-funded institutions) prioritize storytelling and, well, drama ahead of the strident promotion of pet political causes and the vilification of those causes’ detractors.

From my experience, this basic expectation is often given the Vaudeville hook at the University of Georgia. This past semester, I signed up for a Theater Appreciation course to “develop a working vocabulary … of the theater” (from the syllabus) and, much more importantly, earn my degree’s requisite credit in the fine arts. The class itself was well taught and politically benign, as any introductory theater class should be. Our professor was impartial and, where his opinions shone through, he encouraged students to think for themselves on the issues. If only the rest of the department was so tolerant.

I attended four plays as part of the course. My only exposure to drama coming into college was a handful of high school plays—wholly uncontroversial musicals like “Anything Goes” and “Seussical.” College productions, I thought, would follow that formula.

Two of the plays did follow the formula, and they were far and away the best of the lot: the university production of “The 39 Steps,” a Monty Python-esque parody of a Hitchcock rendition of a genre-generating British spy novel (say that three times fast), was one of the most innovative performances I’ve seen in any medium; the production of “All My Sons”—even though it was written by a Communist fellow traveler—was thought-provoking and moving in all the right ways, and its acting was given a booster shot by the addition of professional talent in Broadway actor and alumnus Brian Reddy.

The other two were not nearly as successful, in part because both seemed hell-bent on bludgeoning their audiences with a political message.

The first of these was “This is What I Heard” (the phrase is commonly used at the beginning of Buddhist sutras), written and performed by a student group called The Justice Agents, which, disappointingly enough, has nothing to do with D.C. superheroes and everything to do with liberal politics.

The play incorporated the theater techniques of Augusto Boal, a Communist who believed that traditional forms of theater are oppressive and do not allow theatergoers to express themselves. Boal’s vision was to transform passive spectators into “spect-actors” by empowering them to take part in a play’s proceedings and change the course of events.

“This is What I Heard” used Boal’s methods to “raise awareness of various social issues” (in this case homelessness) and “encourage bystanders to engage in conversation.” As a play meant to raise awareness of homelessness—a major issue in Athens-Clarke County and a worthwhile goal for a student group—the production was a success. As a play meant to foster open-minded interaction between cast and audience, however, “This is What I Heard” was disappointing—predictably so. As written, all of the play’s antagonists were Snidely Whiplash caricatures of conservatives.

Over the course of the play, the play’s heroine was harassed by a money-crazed boyfriend, a Rand-reading rapist, a pair of racist rednecks, a coterie of profits-over-people mid-level managers, a pharisaical church organizer (who turned away the play’s ill-starred protagonist while cooing “We’ll be praying for you”), a Tom Friedman-quoting character named “Bastard Boy,” and the Great Exploiter itself, McDonald’s. It would seem that to the Justice Agents, open-mindedness does not extend as far as the political right.

But maybe I walked straight into that one—after all, student groups can promote whatever agenda they want, however self-defeating. The faculty, surely, wouldn’t stoop to such sophomoric depths. Right? Not quite.

The other production was an “updated” rendition of “Life is a Dream,” a Spanish Golden Age classic by Pedro Calderon de la Barca. “Life is A Dream” is the story of a king who locks away his son, Segismundo, in a tower at an early age because an oracle predicted he would be a violent ruler. The play raises timeless issues of free will and fate and, after reading the original translation, I do not see why the play needed to be modernized in the first place. It was, though, and the product made a mockery of the original work.

The updated play was written by George Pate, a PhD student, and Dr. Marla Carlson, a faculty member. Dr. Carlson is author of such vital and seminal—I only wish I were using the figurative meaning of that word—work as “Performative Pornography” and “Furry Cartography: Performing Species,” which was funded through a public research grant. The pair constructed a modern narrative framework to bookend the original plot: their creation tells the story of two grifters who convince a board of insecure corporateers that they have invented a machine that will fulfill its users’ wildest dreams—but only if they earned their wealth through self-sufficiency, with no help from others. Carlson and Pate use this scenario to ridicule the notion of the self-made man, for none of the fat cats (who all came from some level of privilege) could claim absolute self-sufficiency.

From there, they singled out Ayn Rand and Ronald Reagan for scorn: at one point, a bewildered corporate exec extolled the Gipper (with much sarcasm) for “tearing down the Berlin Wall with his bare hands.” Needless to say, the line drew guffaws from a sympathetic audience. If you are confused by my description of the play, that’s because it made as little sense to me as it does to you. The framework was clunking and confusing, and my confusion was compounded by the fact that many of the play’s male characters were performed by female actors, in a bizarre experiment in “gender bending” (their words, not mine).

Needless to say, my exposure to university theatre is limited, at best— I have only attended one season of production, and even then I had to miss a few productions (“He Said, She Said, Ze Said: Gender Stories,” for example). So maybe I’m one hundred percent wrong in my indictment of the department, and the aforementioned performances—along with upcoming performances like the GLAAD-approved “God Sees Dog”—are anomalies, not at all indicative of a department that is really composed of impartial and dedicated scholars in the mold of Walter Cronkite and Jon Stewart.

I just won’t hold my breath waiting for a David Mamet production.

The native New Yorker is currently in Denver playing Maria in the traveling Broadway version of “West Side Story,” playing through Jan. 1, 2012 at The Buell Theatre. The new “Story” doesn’t jettison the timeless bond between Maria (Ortiz) and Tony (R0ss Lekites), but a few language tweaks and number shuffles give it a more modern interpretation.

Ortiz checked in with Big Hollywood to share her thoughts on the role and why “West Side Story” still matters, both to theater lovers and the culture at large.

BH: Do you recall your first exposure to “West Side Story,” and what are the most vibrant memories from it?

Ortiz: My first exposure to “West Side Story” was the film. I remember wanting to be Natalie Wood and dancing around to the music. My family used to sing the music all the time and act out some of the scenes. Imagine my aunt and Mom bursting out into “A Boy Like that”….pretty hilarious.

BH: Do you try to incorporate aspects of past Marias into your performance, or do you try to wipe the slate clean and make her wholly your own creation?

Ortiz: Being familiar with the character definitely helped just because I didn’t have to worry about learning lines and lyrics too much. Although I did have to memorize some new Spanish additions. I feel like I was able to take the Maria I played before and just fully flesh out who she really is. I worked really hard to make sure my Maria is a real person and not the stereotype often seen. My director gave me the freedom to explore and find my own motivations for the choices Maria makes.

BH: Talk about building chemistry with Ross before the first performance began … and has it evolved over time?

Ortiz: The rehearsal process was only two weeks. and then we had to jump into playing the roles. We’ve always sung well together and as time has passed Ross and I have gotten more comfortable as a team onstage. Offstage we’re like brother and sister, but when I step onstage as Maria I’m fully in character and all I see is Tony.

BH: The new production makes some changes to the classic musical … what are your thoughts, in general, on tinkering with classics?

Ortiz: I think that it could be hit or miss. Sometimes remaining true to the original concept of a show is needed because that’s what the audience wants to see. And sometimes it’s nice to see a piece as it would have been many years ago. A wonderful revival of “South Pacific” came to Lincoln Center in New York a few years ago, and it was a hit with audiences and critics. Those classic shows are a window into another time period and I think that shouldn’t be lost. But some pieces are timeless and something new and exciting can be found in the re-imagining of them. Like this version of “West Side Story,” the classic show still remains. The addition of Spanish just adds to the authenticity of the Sharks. But it’s not like any other “West Side Story” you’ll see.

BH: How do you see the story resonating today – as compared to how it was received during its first Broadway incarnation?

Ortiz: When it was first on Broadway it was new and different than anything else. It was controversial. Now, it’s a classic show that everyone knows and loves. But this new version surprises audiences and brings a different feel to the show. So audiences aren’t going to get just a standard version of the show. I think the updates were necessary to keep the story fresh and relevant to modern audiences.

BH: What’s your favorite song to sing in the show, and why?

Ortiz: I really enjoy “Tonight”…the whole balcony scene sets up the love story so nicely and vocally its beautiful music to sing. I also really love singing “I Feel Pretty” with the girls. We have so much fun with that number.

BH: Why do you think “West Side Story” still matters in 2011?

Ortiz: I think the themes are timeless … with everything that is going on in the world right now, the show’s subject matter is still relevant. Two gangs who may feel so different but aren’t that different really. They just want to find a place where they’re accepted for who they are. And then the idea of love trying to overcome that adversity. Those are all things people deal with today.

BH: What does playing Maria in “West Side Story” mean to you as an actress and artist?

Ortiz: She’s one of those iconic roles in musical theater. The music is beautiful and challenging. And she’s such a well written character. As an actress and singer I don’t think it’s gets much better than this. To play her every night is a dream come true, and I’ll be lucky to have another character of her caliber come my way in the future.

“West Side Story” wraps its Denver run Jan. 1, 2012 before heading to Portland, Seattle, San Jose, Sacramento, Des Moines, St. Louis and Cincinnati.

As the co-creator and producer with Christopher Lloyd Bratten of the “For The Record” series of live events held at the Barre VT bar in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, he has paid tribute to the films of the Coen Brothers and Quentin Tarantino. The series features performers re-enacting the most iconic dialogue exchanges of those filmmakers’ features, as well as singing and dancing their way through the greatest tunes of their oeuvre.

But Scheel has topped himself big-time with his current show, “John Hughes: Holiday Road,” which plays Wednesday through Sunday nights before closing Dec. 30.

The two-hour extravaganza features an amazingly talented six-person cast and a five-piece rock band bringing the best of Hughes’ scenes and songs to life from his ‘80s films through “Home Alone.” Whether you’re a fan of Hughes’ high school movies (“Pretty in Pink” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”) or the “Vacation” series and “Planes Trains and Automobiles,” the interactive cabaret-style show is one of the most entertaining nights of music and comedy you’ll ever experience.

Scheel spoke with Big Hollywood recently about how the “For The Record” series – which next takes on Baz Luhrmann’s films including “Moulin Rouge” – came about, and why he thinks Hughes’ films continue to resonate with American film fans.

“I had been working in LA for a few years and my partner, who’s music director for the shows, had been looking for a project to do,” explains Scheel, who ironically grew up in the small town of Buhler, Kansas. “We started by taking complete soundtracks, knew a lot of really great singers and actors and decided to pull the best ones together and started these as concerts. We later decided to add quotable lines.”

The producing duo started with the films of Tarantino because his soundtracks actually included the most memorable lines from his films. As they refined their hybrid concept, they tried to create shows so strong that they would help define Los Angeles entertainment, creating a scene unique to the city.

Yet they also learned from a viewing of the failed “Sister Act: The Musical” that the balance of music and dialogue had to be just right if the shows were going to work.

“I was in London a year ago and went to see ‘Sister Act: The Musical,’” Scheel says. “As an audience member I was expecting to hear some of the songs that made the movie what it  was, redone in a very fun fresh way. When I got there it was an original score with none of the original songs from the movie, which was a little disappointing. Soundtracks are under-appreciated, but music helps tell these stories and in particular John Hughes helped launch a lot of British bands in the ‘80s through his movies.”

Scheel feels that Hughes’ enduring appeal lies in the fact that “we were all teenagers once,” yet Scheel was careful to make sure that the show was evenly divided between the high school era of Hughes’ work and the films set outside the academic scene.

“I’ve read a number of times that he gave teenagers a very clear, fresh, unapologetic voice, as real people with real problems and a real clear voice for that time period as well,” he says. “He had such great archetypes through the geek, rebel, princess, basket case and jock. We all identify with one of those and that’s where the universality of his material came from. I watched my dad with the ‘Vacation’ movies laughing and laughing, and kids have a classic in ‘Home Alone.’”

“There are universal truths in all his movies, I think we can all identify with different portions of his career,” he adds.

The show ends with a rousing, gospel-style romp through “Joy to the World,” which Hughes used in at least one of his many Christmas-set movies. Having built a long-running career in production management for many touring musicals, Scheel knew that sending people out with a burst of extra-spiritual uplift was a winning proposition and underscored the broad appeal of the show.

“I grew up in the church and know a ton of gospel songs, plus a number of our actors have strong ties to that music and one of our performers is married to a minister,” Scheel says. “Just like in Hughes’ movies, there are a couple of words you might want to tune out, but this is a show I can bring my church to.”

Scheel hopes to bring “John Hughes: Holiday Road” to Chicago and New York in the future, but for now, it can be seen at Barre VT bar, located at 1714 N. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles.

“Will people schlep to a movie theater to see the Metropolitan Opera? That was a question we had internally six years ago,” says Maxwell, , executive vice president for NCM Fathom Events. Maxwell long ago stopped asking those questions.

Fathom’s entertainment lineup, including the Bolshoi Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, draws a sizable audience when beamed into theaters nationwide.

“People dress up … it’s a date night for them,” Maxwell says of how patrons treat the company’s programming lineup.

Fathom doesn’t just offer the finer arts. The Colo-based company beams rock concerts, classic movies and sporting events into more than 600 theaters nationwide. The cultural slate dispels the notion that consumers only care about the Kardashian, movie sequels and Lady Gaga.

The folks at Fathom are proving there’s an appetite for more than just popular culture.

One reason why is that Fathom packages the events in ways even front-row ticket holders cannot enjoy. Cameras go beyond the stage to capture how each program comes to pass.

”Things happen with these arts programs you don’t get to see if you’re in the auditorium when it’s happening,” says Maxwell, whose company beams content is seen in roughly 140 markets large and small.

Tomorrow, Fathom will bring the New York City Ballet’s live performance of George Balanchine’s “The Nutracker” into theaters. The Dec. 13 event, hosted by Kelly Ripa, will be broadcast live to more than 550 theaters nationally at 6 p.m. EST, 5 p.m. CT and 7:30 p.m. MT (the latter will be seen via tape delay).

Ripa will take audiences backstage for a behind-the-scenes look at the production including interviews with the company’s principal dancers.

Last month, Fathom and Emerging Pictures presented “The Sleeping Beauty” and “Esmeralda” from Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet. Other Fathom cultural programs have included “The Phantom of the Opera’s” 25^th anniversary event from London’s Royal Albert Hall and “Giselle in 3D,” the first 3D ballet presentation.

The 3-D part of the equation remains a question mark as far as consumer interest, and not all Fathom Events can match the success of The Met: Live in HD series. But Fathom executives say some cultural programs need time to build an audience, and the company tries to be patient with new shows.

“They all follow similar trajectory,” says Dan Diamond, senior vice president of Fathom. “No matter what the event is, the next type in a similar character we see the numbers grow.”

”Some programs have slower starts than others,” adds Maxwell. “Awareness is key. Research tells us those who know about us and go, the response is off the charts.”

Yes, symphonies and ballets across the country are struggling to survive, but there’s clearly an audience for Fathom’s brand of the arts. And Fathom executives insist their cultural events actually boost interest in local arts.

“One of the questions early on from the Metropolitan Opera Company was, ‘will this dilute our efforts to bring people to our opera and other opera houses across the country?” Maxwell says. What Fathom found is that it did the opposite – and the company tries to help that even further by reaching out to local community symphonies to work with them and help build a cultural awareness.

“Like a great movie or a great experience at a restaurant, you tell your friends about it. That’s what’s happening here,” Diamond says.

And at a time when arts programming is being sliced from school budgets, the Fathom Events lineup is trying to emphasize the “culture” in “pop culture.”

“These are the kinds of programs that re-engage the community with the arts in general,” Diamond says.

Reilly grew up in a theatrical family, and one day his mother invited him to the set of “Sesame Street” where he met the actor playing the yellow-feathered character up close.

“He removed the head, and that kind of sealed my fate. I was in love with puppets,” Reilly says.

But it took some time, and more than a few mechanical courses under his belt, before he embraced puppetry as a profession.

Reilly, Puppet Supervisor for the traveling Broadway version of “The Lion King,” makes sure the gaggle of puppets which bring the story to life remain in perfect working order. He’s also there to help the actors, even those who may have never gotten within 10 yards of a puppet, handle the mechanical wonders with care.

The Toronto native studied to be a technician in college, learning how to rewire houses and fix cars along the way. He eventually fell into the family business where he worked on the wardrobe side of theater for 10 years. When the opportunity came along to be the puppet wrangler for “The Lion King’s” Canadian-based production, his unique skill set made him the right person for the job.

He worked on the Toronto-based version of the Tony Award winning musical for four years, and later oversaw the puppetry behind the stage version of “The Lord of the Rings.”

Now, he’s responsible for keeping the domestic version of the show in working order, using puppets modeled after the original creations by Michael Curry and show director Julie Taymor.

“Things are breaking every single day. Hopefully, they’re just tiny adjustment,” says Reilly, he keeps in contact with two puppeteer colleagues via radio communicators. “We walk around, waiting for something to happen.”

“The Lion King” puppets run the gamut, from the bulky elephants to the tiny, sophisticated bird creations. The actor playing the villainous Scar must operate two hip-based motors through hand controls. The performer behind Zazu, the mischievous bird, is responsible for manipulating a mechanical hand puppet with very fine parts inside its head, like the levers that make its eyes blink.

Sometimes no amount of preparation can prepare Reilly for what happens on stage.

One night, the exuberant understudy playing Timone “literally ripped the head right off the puppet,” he recalls. “There was a disembodied head on his hand. That was pretty horrifying.”

The actors in “The Lion King” must not only sing, dance and emote but be able to adequately work the show’s puppets in convincing fashion. That means Reilly and his team train them for weeks before they’re ready for their curtain call.

“We take someone with no puppetry training and build up those skills they need to have,” he says, be it teaching them to walk on giraffe stilts to learning how to operate three hand controls at the same time.

Touring with “The Lion King” allows Reilly to meet with talented puppeteers across the country, and he’s heartened to find so many gifted folks in his field. But he realizes today’s audiences sometimes crave the seamless effects show in movies to the more mechanical performances of your average puppeteer.

It’s one reason he’s glad the upcoming reboot of “The Muppets” film franchise doesn’t resort to computer-generated effects. It’s all about the puppets.

Reilly says puppetry gigs are harder to come by these days, one reason he’s glad to be a part of “The Lion King” show as it travels across the country.

“This is the pinnacle of puppetry work,” he says.

“The Lion King,” winner of six 1998 Tony Awards, follows the by-now familiar story of a lion cub named Simba (Niles Fitch) who endures the loss of his father (Dionne Randolph) at the hands of his wicked uncle Scar (J. Anthony Crane).

A guilt-ridden Simba leaves his home and grows into a hearty young lion. When he bumps into a pair of life-affirming creatures named Timon and Pumbaa, he decides to reclaim his rightful place as king of his jungle and revenge his father’s death.

The tale may feel a tad musty after too many viewings of the 1994 animated film, but the stage presentation crackles with a combination of visual majesty and earnest performances.

Yes, Randolph and Crane are mimicking the stellar vocal work of the animated film’s actors, James Earl Jones and Jeremy Irons, respectively. But the stage actors aren’t content with bland impersonations. They bring a vitality to the production mirrored by the outstanding artistry around them.

Every scene in “The Lion King” boasts a wondrous puppet creation, a rousing musical chant or a dance number evoking the mystery of the African continent. Performers dance up and down the aisles en route to the stage, from massive elephants to singers adorned in African garb. It’s an all-encompassing experience, a style of wholesome storytelling geared for all ages.

The inventive animal contraptions make sure there’s always something wondrous to behold, but the true marvel is how the puppetry gear worn by Crane and co. enhance their performances.

The songs, alas, remain an uneven bunch despite the potent brand of Elton John and Tim Rice. For every rousing number like “Circle of Life,” there are too many others which feel like place holders. Far better are the African chants which open the production and help bridge several key sequences in the musical.

Act II benefits from the lively exchanges by  Timon and Pumbaa (Nick Cordileone and Ben Lipitz), the scene-stealers immortalized the goofy sing-along “Hakuna Matata.” They, too, rely heavily on the animated source material, but their collective comic timing is impeccable.

The current tour, the first since the show last hit the road in 2002, is playing at The Buell Theatre in Denver  through Dec. 4 before moving on to Baltimore,  Minneapolis, Richmond, New Orleans, Orlando, Miami, Greenville, Houston and St. Louis.

His 2010 play ‘American Night: The Ballad of Juan Jose’ features a Mexican man cramming for his U.S. citizenship test who dreams of how immigrants have been mistreated over the years.

But Montoya isn’t letting Mexicans – or illegal immigrants – off the hook through his art.

“’American Night’ doesn’t cheerlead for illegal immigration. It’s a problem. I’m not supporting open immigration,” says Montoya, whose celebrated play details how Mexicans often live under the thumb of powerful drug cartels.

Montoya, an actor/playwright and founding member of the satirical comedy trio Culture Clash, includes several Tea Party characters in ‘Night’ during a faux Town Hall meeting. The situation brims with humor, but he thinks the vitriol on both sides of the immigration debate is no laughing matter.

“Issues like immigration are so frozen in amber on both sides of the issue. No one gets a chance to have a conversation about it,” he says.

So Montoya applies a liberal dose of humor to spark a dialogue he says is desperately needed. That means including a disco dancing version of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio in ‘Night.’

“That’s the satire and the weapon, the tool from my tool box. I don’t want to take a gun to the border, just a healthy sense of humor. It helps disarm the other side of the aisle,” he says. What he tries to avoid in his work is tipping the scales too heavily in his own favor.

“If every Mexican immigrant has angel wings and every Anglo is the bogeyman, that will be a disservice,” he says. “I’ve seen those plays before, and it’s bad.”

‘American Night’s’ current incarnation, running through Nov. 20 at Denver’s Ricketson Theatre, references the fledgling Occupy Wall Street movement. He admits both the Tea Party and OWS are “ripe for satire,” the latter in part for its incoherence.

Montoya recalls a conversation with singer Michelle Shocked who had recently visited one of the OWS gatherings.

“She told me, ‘I’m struggling to find the here here, the core, the center. There seems to be a lot of competition within the people camped out.’” he says.

Montoya, whose credits also include appearances in films like ‘Larry Crowne,’ ‘Falling Down’ and ‘Nacho Libre,’ is one of many left-of-center artists working in the entertainment field today. But he’s not itching for more conservatives to add balance to the arts conversation.

“The right isn’t necessarily writing plays, but they dominate the airwaves,” he says. “We need a cool medium, or left, that has a practical element to it.”

Yet Montoya has little interest in preaching to his choir.

“I know I can do the show in L.A. and my Chicano brothers and sisters will follow me. This show needs to be in places like Denver and Phoenix.” And to win over more neutral crowds, Montoya takes a lesson or two from the Right, like the need to pick oneself up by the bootstraps.

“I’m borrowing from the other side of the aisle … Republican ideas that actually work in our favor,” he says.

Montoya is currently wrapping production on his film directorial debut based on his 2006 noir play ‘Water and Power.’ The story of two Chicano brothers – one a police officer, the other a politician – caught the attention of the Sundance Institute which commissioned him to make it into a motion picture.

“We filmed for 12 nights in Los Angeles, a harrowing and rewarding experience,” Montoya recalls, particularly when a homicide occurred not far from the film set.

Few things make Montoya happier than seeing audience members linger after one of his shows. During some performances of ‘American Night,’ patrons are encouraged to take the same citizen’s test that the main character is cramming for in the production.

It’s a serious side to his satirical work, one with direct ties to the thoughtful comedy influences of his youth – ‘Saturday Night Live’ and ‘Monty Python.’ He says the passage of time only enhances his ability to satirize the world around him.

“That’s one of the good things that happens with age, the satirical things get sharper and more surgical,” he says. And that comes in handy when he’s trying to nudge a few hearts or minds, as is the case with ‘American Night.’

“If you find yourself cheering a hardworking immigrant man seeking a legal path to citizenship, let your lawmaker know that,” he says.

In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus is lashed to the mast so that he can hear for himself the Siren’s song, which lures men to their deaths on the rocks. I had to be lashed to my chair to watch the 65th Tony awards and, as I feared, despite the ginned up hoopla, Broadway is on the rocks! 

The Broadway Musical is America’s gift to the world. In its Golden Age – the 1940s to the early 1960s – the creation of the Musical was raised to a fine art; from Oklahoma to My Fair Lady, the Musical reached its zenith. But then the Sixties took hold, along with its Progressive agenda, and the downward spiral began. The always prescient Ayn Rand foresaw the enshrining of mediocrity as a means to control the hearts and minds of the public in the person of arts critic Ellsworth Monkton Toohey, who aimed to create a society that would be “an average drawn upon zeroes.” This is Broadway today: the sum total of zeroes. 

Since the onset of the Obama regime, the Great White Way has become the Great White-Guilt Way, with racism redux and the red nail polished talons of the GLAAD-iators bared reflexively at the imagined ignorant and the homophobic. J’accuse! Come to the theatre and pay $195 to feel bad about being an American. When John Kander was asked about the relevance of his latest musical, The Scottsboro Boys, a minstrel-style retelling of the 1931 trial of nine teenaged blacks accused falsely of rape, he snapped, “Of course it’s relevant. America is still a racist country!” He said this despite the fact that America had just voted in a black president. 

Is it a coincidence that when Rocco Landesman, producer and president of the Jujamson Theatre group since 1987, was selected to head up the National Endowment of the Arts in 2009, Broadway joined the nexus of Washington, DC, Hollywood and the Main Street Media in promoting a pro-gay, Anti-American left wing agenda? Since Obama and his crew came to power, the planned assault on the hearts and minds of the theatre-going public has been inescapable. Gone are the lighthearted musicals that were the staples of Broadway; enter the era of pandering to the politics of special interests. A list of the shows that have been produced on Broadway since 2008 says it all: 

 BILLIE ELLIOT: A musical with a Socialist/Gay message. The score is by gay icon Elton John and features a big production number featuring a cross-dressing 12-year-old boy who sings of the joyous freedom of dressing as a girl. The number climaxes with the gay 12-year-old giving a full on the lips kiss to the title character. This show is aimed at kids. Margaret Thatcher is demonized in this show in the persona of a giant, looming marionette clutching at a chorus of striking miners. 

HAIR: The iconic anti-war musical from the Sixties was dredged up again with a cast of squeaky clean “hippies” regurgitating the tired, and incoherent, deconstructionist bilge that connected with an earlier generation in free fall. This musical fulfills the baby boomers’ desire to recreate their glory days. 

YANK: A play about a gay GI love affair in WWII. This was produced at the same time that DC was deciding about gays in the military and the future of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. 

MEMPHIS: A rock musical about racism and rock ‘n’ roll in early 1950s Tennessee. Yet another white-guilt orgy in which an illiterate DJ rises to prominence through the promotion of black music on his radio and TV show despite the furor of the racist southern whites. This show is a barrage of clichés followed by the kitchen sink, with a score that is about as reminiscent of early fifties rock ‘n’ roll as Lawrence Welk was of progressive jazz. This show won the 2010 Tony Award for best original score; however, it was the only original score that was nominated for a Tony Award that year. 

SCOTTSBORO BOYS: A musical about nine African American teenagers who, in 1931, were falsely accused of raping two white girls. This embarrassing attempt to dredge up the past sins of Jim Crowe was presented as a Minstrel Show of all things; the Interlocutor was, of course, a white man. This show opened and closed off-Broadway, was transferred to the Guthrie Theatre in Indianapolis, and then opened on Broadway for the 2011 season. It opened and closed in a blink of an eye, but was nominated for 12 Tony Awards. 

NEXT TO NORMAL: A turgid rock musical about a mother with worsening bipolar disorder who talks to her dead son (he committed suicide) while ignoring her husband and daughter. This exercise in angst plays to the Left’s continuous assault on the strength of the family; attacking the idea of family unity has long been an objective of both Communists and Progressives, and this brain numbing rock melodrama served the cause so well it was awarded Pulitzer and Drama Desk Awards. 

THE BOOK OF MORMON: This slick, potty mouth attack on the Mormon Church and Christianity, not to mention ridiculing tribal Africans, is the critics’ favorite this year. It has been hailed as an old fashioned musical; it is no such thing. I do not recall an old fashioned musical that revels in gutter language and a continuous assault on decency. I don’t recall any of the past masters writing lyrics like, “F**CK GOD/ F**CK HIM IN THE ASS/F**CK HIM IN THE C*NT/ F**CK HIM IN EYE” Of course, the real motivation behind this foulmouthed show is to attack and ridicule the Mormon Church because of its refusal to recognize gay marriage. Politically charged organizations like GLAAD are obsessed with attacking the Mormon Church and this is a particularly offensive example of their obsession. And of course, the Mormon boys in this diatribe are closet gays. Set in an AIDS ridden African village, the critics swooned over the “sparkling wit” of The Book of Mormon. Well, if having an AIDS infected villager running around yelling he wants to rape a baby to cure his disease and another complaining that his scrotum has maggots is the height of wit, then the Algonquin Round Table was just a nattering kaffeeklatsch. 

These examples are just the tip of the iceberg that sunk Broadway. I heard of two extremely talented writers who were told by a Broadway producer that, “your work is brilliant, but you won’t get it produced in the present climate’;” the present climate meaning, their work did not conform to current low standards and prevailing politically correct content. As if any more proof of the incursion of Progressivism on Broadway is required, then consider this: on the 23^rd of June, the Broadway musical Sister Act will be hosting a political fundraiser for Barack Obama. The price of admission will be $250 for the Mezzanine, $1,000 for orchestra, and $10,000 for tickets and a photo with Obama. Of course, all these examples could be brushed off as circumstantial; but, as a Southern friend of mine observed, a thousand flies don’t lie! 

I am barely skimming the surface in this article; I would have to write a book to encompass the tendentious, stifling climate of Broadway. A climate in which straight men have to remove their wedding rings when auditioning and writers have to dumb down their work and lean to the left if they want to get produced. As the infamous Ellsworth Toohey opined: “Kill man’s sense of values. Kill his capacity to recognize greatness or to achieve it. Great men can’t be ruled. We don’t want any great men. Don’t deny conception of greatness. Destroy it from within. The great is the rare, the difficult, the exceptional. Set up standards of achievement open to all, to the least, to the most inept – and you stop the impetus to effort in men, great or small. You stop all incentive to improvement, to excellence, to perfection . . . Don’t set out to raze all shrines – you’ll frighten men, Enshrine mediocrity – and the shrines are razed.” 

Ellsworth Toohey has won and the lights have gone out on Broadway.

When I went to see Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life at the Ridgeway Four here in Memphis, there was an insufferable hipster couple sitting behind me that chatted in a loud whisper during the duration of the movie; sadly, my harsh glances were unable to silence them.  Once the end credits began to roll, one of them sarcastically quipped, “Well, that’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back.”  This prompted me to angrily whisper “Then leave!”  I have no idea if they heard me or not.

I expect (but do not excuse) this kind of behavior from teenagers watching the latest Michael Bay bonanza.  However, when I’m going to see something decidedly outside the mainstream like this, I expect to be in a theater with like-minded folks who are there to see the movie, not to socialize during it.  I also expect to be in a theater with people who are more interested in the movie than their cell phones, which create a lovely light-show distraction for everyone unfortunate enough to be sitting behind them.

A couple of days later I was talking with my buddy Andy, who hosts the fantastic Hollywood Saloon podcast, and I brought my Tree of Life-related incident up.  Movie fans love to bitch about their bad experiences in the theater, it always leads to a good bit of catharsis.  But Andy said something that gave me pause.  He said: “Do you remember movie ushers?  What happened to them?”

Does anyone remember a time when someone was acting a fool in the theater, and a dude with a flashlight would come up and straightens their ass out?  When I say “acting a fool,” I mean anything from excessive talking to simply putting your feet on the chair in front of you.  You don’t really see that anymore.  This begs the question as to why movie houses have felt the need to do away with ushers.  The most likely answer is to save money, theaters can hardly be bothered to keep projectionists on staff anymore.  Do they feel that their humorous PSAs that discourage talking and cell phone use beforehand do the job for them?  Because anyone considerate enough not to use their phone during the film has already turned it off, the rest simply don’t care whether or not a panda voiced by Jack Black insists they turn their phones off.  The Alamo Drafthouse is a theater chain that has the right idea, not only do they eject rowdy moviegoers, but they sometimes make an example of them as well.

Given how much we pay to see movies these days, especially when they’re in 3D, the presence of an usher in the theater should be a courtesy.  The usher should be there to ensure that paying customers can enjoy the film without having to worry about rowdy jerks spoiling it for everyone else.  Theaters may be concerned that this will drive off business, but so do the idiots they let run riot in their theaters.  If the texters and the talkers do leave, good riddance, who needs ‘em?  Those willing to play by the rules should be rewarded, not punished.  Theaters are constantly worrying about how to keep their attendance levels up and extending the customers this courtesy would be a big step in the right direction.

Make sure to watch Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo’s magnificent “Moviegoers Code of Conduct” (above).  As far as I’m concerned, these are the official rules of going to the theater, if you can’t abide by them, just wait for the DVD and watch the damn thing at home, because no one likes you.

This article originally appeared over at Hunter’s Movie Man Cave

In many popular narratives of the period, it was the Baby Boomers (born 1943-1960) who “ruined” the movies. Here’s the pretentious film snob summary of the death of Hollywood’s alleged second Golden Age, as popularized by Peter Biskind. The seventies were filled with bold, dark art and transgressive intellectualism. Then the greedy Baby Boomers – like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas – made “Jaws,” “Star Wars,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “E.T.” All of a sudden Hollywood did not want to make serious, grown-up pictures. Now it was the age of blockbusters so simple that 3-year-olds can summarize them.

It was the 1980s when Boomer Blockbuster filmmaking would arrive in the event pictures of Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson. We see this tendency further in the films of arch-Boomers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. For a definition of Boomer cinema just look at the output of their company Imagine Entertainment. These aren’t the New Wave-influenced pictures of Roger L. Simon’s generation.

It was the Boomers who also gave us our most strident and simpleminded cinematic leftists: Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, and Michael Moore. Think about these three careers. Over the past 30 years have any of them shifted an inch in their political thinking? Of course not and neither have most Boomers who are still arguing over sex, race, and the Vietnam War as though it were still 1975.

If I speak with some hostility about the Boomers’ failings and excesses it’s partially because that’s my nature as a Millennial/Gen Yer. According to William Strauss and Neil Howe’s books each generation acts as a check on the excesses of its parent generation. As young adults in the ‘60s and ‘70s the Baby Boomers declared war on the cultural institutions of their GI Generation parents. The GIs (born 1900-1924) are what Howe and Strauss describe as a “civic” generation; they were driven toward creating social harmony. The Boomers (an “idealist” generation) were a check on that, fomenting greater individualism in the 1970s and culture wars in the 1990s. That our electoral maps are so split today is their fault. When the Civic GI President Ronald Reagan won in 1984 it was almost a solid red map. My generation – also a Civic generation – is a reaction against Baby Boomer extremes and will seek to create greater social harmony. This will become much more apparent as the younger Gen Yers in junior high and high school now start to make waves in 10 years.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet (born 1957) has been emblematic of the divisive Boomer paradigm for his whole career. His plays and films are famous for the “Mamet style” of short bursts of memorable dialogue and the mainstreaming of casual profanity.

And so in his book detailing his rightward shift away from a “Brain-Dead” Hollywood leftist, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture, the reader finds this same mindset applied to the political essay. The need to divide the world into clear cut categories of Liberalism and Conservatism pervades the text. Mamet even capitalizes them to Emphasize the Great Importance of the Political War between Boomer Liberalism and Boomer Conservatism. Gone is Simon’s sense of skepticism in Turning Right at Hollywood and Vine.

The Secret Knowledge is a collection of 39 short essays. Mamet has crafted an experience like the signature Boomer film “Forrest Gump.” Life is like a box of chocolates – and devouring the delicious morsels of Mamet’s book is an addictive treat, filled with surprises. Who cares if it’s just a political sugar rush? Most conservatives are familiar with the bibliography Mamet cribs his ideas from: Sowell, Hayek, VDH, Friedman, etc. Thus they won’t learn anything life-changing but will still enjoy the thrill of Mr. Mamet’s Wild Ride. And if that sentiment doesn’t summarize the Boomer cinema of Lucas-Spielberg-Bruckheimer-Moore-Stone then what does?

The endowment of the Baby Boomer Hollywood Apostates is the call to fight, the drive to confront with big special effects, and the need to divide ourselves from the intolerable. This makes for satisfying blockbuster popcorn films and effective (James Carville-Karl Rove style) political warfare. While there is plenty to critique in the failings of the Boomer presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush credit must be given: the Boomer political strategists were masters. Too bad they wasted their brains on winning the electoral fights while ignoring (and sometimes exacerbating) the more vital policy fights.

In Part 4 of the Hollywood Revolt, we’ll see how the Gen X leader Andrew Breitbart is reinventing this confrontational spirit – what he calls Righteous Indignation — and redirecting it in a more pragmatic, effective way than the Boomers ever could.