The 37 theaters that constitute Broadway occupy a few acres in midtown Manhattan. But to much of America, a Broadway show is something to be seen hundreds, even thousands of miles from Times Square -- in Atlanta or Dallas, Phoenix or Detroit or any other of the dozens of cities that make up what suitcase-toting actors wearily call "the road." Like the Shakespearean troupe in Kiss Me, Kate who "open in Venice" and schlepp their show from town to town, ensembles representing recent Broadway hits take to the byways every year. This summer at least a dozen tours have offered purportedly the same entertainments as those on the Great White Way. But are they really? The idea that what you see in Peoria might be every bit as good as Broadway makes many New York theater professionals scoff. In the not too distant past there was ample basis for derision. On this summer's evidence, however, the doubters may be narrow-minded and wrong.
Producers put shows out on the road for three basic reasons: to prepare for Broadway; to capitalize on a Broadway success already attained; and occasionally, when a show's concept and stars are more marketable than its actual merits, to bypass Broadway's fierce competition and legion of reviewers. Steep staging costs have made offerings in the first category, known as tryouts, a vanishing breed. Nowadays pre-Broadway tryouts are usually limited to one city, unless a show has a big-name cast or is a revival of a fondly remembered musical, like the current tours of Cabaret and West Side Story. Sometimes what is labeled a tryout turns into a bypass of Broadway, as happened with a just closed revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, starring Mickey Rooney, and with the Carol Channing-Mary Martin vehicle Legends!, which ran a year to box-office triumph but abysmal reviews, then closed in January after its stars said they had no desire to bring it to the Main Stem.
The essence of the road show, however, is a touring version of a work that is already firmly established on Broadway or that recently closed. Almost all tours are of musicals, although the comedies I'm Not Rappaport and Social Security played across the nation into the summer. For audiences, the crucial but often unresearchable question is how a touring version measures up to its Broadway forerunner. Based on a sampling of half a dozen offerings, including two versions of Cats, the verdict is mostly favorable. Sets may be simpler, lighting more rudimentary, and the miked-up sound systems uniformly lousy. The more a show was shaped to fit a particular space and circumstances, the clumsier it looks shoehorned -- or stretched -- into a new configuration each week. But when it comes to performance pizazz, even second-string unknowns compete effectively with first-run counterparts -- and sometimes outdo them.