The Sunday Giveaway: Two Tickets to Disgraced at Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center’s LCT3 Theater is back on the Sunday Giveaway this week, with a brand spankin’ new play called Disgraced, by Ayad Akhtar.
To put it in press release pitch . . .
It’s the story of Amir Kapoor (The Daily Show’s Aasif Mandvi), a successful Pakistani-American lawyer who is rapidly moving up the corporate ladder while distancing himself from his cultural roots. When Amir and his wife Emily (Heidi Armbruster), a white artist influenced by Islamic imagery, host a dinner party, what starts out as a friendly conversation escalates into something far more damaging.
Pretty good description, don’t you think?
Boiling down your plot to a blurb isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do when you’re producing a show. But, since time and time again what focus groups tell us they want from a show is a good “story”, it’s essential to learn how to do it, and learn how to do it well.
So that’s what we’re going to do this week!
Pick one of these three Broadway shows below and distill them down to one silly sentence. Got it? One sentence designed to sell tickets/describe to the audience exactly what the show is.
And the shows are . . .
- West Side Story
- The Producers
- Les Miz
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FUN STUFF:
– Get Your Show Off The Ground! Workshop coming up on 11/17. Only a few spots left. Register today.
THE PRODUCERS: There was bloody life on the stage before “Rebecca.” An entertainment story of ambition and greed… At the end, the show must go on!
West Side Story: Romeo and Juliet as a big, gay musical!
Les Miz – A bunch of 99 Percenters try to find the meaning of life — in France.
In a world driven mad, they’re behind the wheel.
The Producers
Les Miz
We’re all just trying to survive for “One Day More”!
WSS:
Something’s coming… and it’s death with side of gangs singing and dancing!
The Producers
A down-on-his luck theater producer and his shnook accountant come up with a scheme that they can make more money with a show that is a flop than a hit which leads them to search for the worst script they can find… and they produce it- with hysterical results.
Steal a loaf of bread and have your ass chased by a crazed cop for years…and you wonder why they’re called “Les Miz?”
Les Miz- It’s the story of a guy who keeps meeting face to face with a stalker thanks to genuine coincidence and many plot holes, set to the backdrop of france, where women and children get brutally murdered before whiny men do.
Les Miz – JvalJ steals some bling then is forced to spin on a turntable for 3 hours while singing very high notes!
WSS: when true love challenges ethnic pride everyone leaves the musical either tearful or in “The Rapture
Frank
West Side Story: “Tony is a member of a Polish gang. His new girlfriend’s brother is the leader of the Puerto Rican gang. It’s the Upper West Side… and somebody’s going to get their ass kicked.”
Les Miserables: Escaped convict adopts a dead prostitute’s daughter and becomes the mayor of a small town in 19th Century France before getting involved with young revolutionaries on the barricades while evading arrest from a ruthless police inspector.
The Producers – Two small unattractive men oogle a usless Blonde Swedish secretary as they attempt to produce the worst musical ever with obscene hopes that it will make them rich!
west side story: just like “Romeo and Juliet” but in 1950s New York, and without quite as much death.”
West Side Story, the singingest, dancingest gang in town!
West Side Story –
The titillating story of the Secret Lives of the American Teenager; full of gang violence, racism and teenage premarital sex – when tensions are this high in east New York, someone is going to die…and they will sing about it.
The Producers: A musical comedy about life in the theatre with Jews, Nazis, Gays, Swedes, Irish Cops, Prison Love, Deceit, Corruption, Betrayal, Greed and Geriatric sex.
Or to be more concise…
The Producers: It’s like Ken Davenport’s blog, only funnier and set to music.
The Producers: The audience learns that Adolph Hitler’s middle name is Elizabeth and that he was descended from a long line of British Queens!
West Side Story: So, there’s this great romance, and the boy dies, but, God, the music and dancing!
Les Miz: A guy trying his best to look like Hugh Jackman saves the life of a street bum when all the gendarmes would have had to do is check his chest for the number 24601 amidst barricades in streets and stomping through the yecchy sewers of Paris to the tune of some sort-of upbeat music.
A singing and dancing Hitler? Why not!? According to these two producers, anything really can be made into a musical!
The Producers – You wish you’d invested in this.
Les Mis: Guy steals loaf of bread and gets chased by police for 50 years!
Les Miz:
“You’ll see why it ain’t called “Les Happy””.
The Producers:
“The hit based on a flop!”
West Side Story
“Two gangs, two lovers, three hours.”
PRODUCERS: A hapless con man and a producer wannabe are foiled in their plan to make money by selling more than 100% of a sure-to-fail show to investors, when the show becomes a surprise hit.
Certains guerre qui se passe dans dévasté la France et les gens chanter des notes parfois trop élevés pour un homme de réellement chanter de façon réaliste et pour certaines femmes trop faibles; épique.
Impossible love, great score and choreography, tragic end! Living the American Dream?
West Side Story!!!
“The Producers”: One ‘normal Joe’ and one eccentric bohemian pair up in a tax evasion scheme involving the production of a horrendous Broadway play, only to find the tables turned, in a hilarious ‘twist of fate’ which ends up with them being called out on their misdeeds by both the IRS and their livid investors.
The Producers is a musical about love, betrayal and fraud; otherwise known as the backstory of Rebecca
WSS: Gangs sing & dance (and fight) as Tony & Maria find romance (“Tonight”) while Anita & the Girls look askance (with bite) and no one stands a chance (ain’t right).
A con man proves it is possible to fool (almost) all of the people all of the time.
Love blossoms then wilts against the backdrop of gangwar, racism, and strife in this Shakespeare-esque 1950s musical.
Les Miz:
(French) things fall apart.
Mel Brooks’ cynical and hilarious film that lacerated the pretensions of Broadway creators , producers and audiences alike becomes a valentine to itself in Brooks’ ridiculously popular stage version and results in the most significant development on Broadway in the last ten years: premium pricing.
West Side Story:
Two New York City gangs are going to rumble… Romeo and Juliet style.
West Side Story is, thanks to Shakespere’s original play on which it is based, the musical that has been a wild success for decades in spite of an entirely rip your heart out ,sad ,downer ending.