Trafficking in Transnational Brands: The New “Broadway-Style” Musical

Abstract

In a theatre world increasingly dominated by multinational corporations, in which brand-name companies make the rounds of international festivals and multilingual performances are bankrolled by consortia of state-supported theatres, the national identity of theatrical productions is becoming more and more difficult to decide. This identity crisis is especially pronounced in the case of the one theatre form that for generations has been associated with a single New York thoroughfare that for people around the world symbolizes singing and dancing, glamor and dazzle. The form to which Broadway is categorically linked, the Broadway musical, may have circumnavigated the globe countless times, but a national and municipal identity remains embedded in its name. In the twenty-first century, however, this jet-setting genre needs to be analyzed less from a national or international perspective than a transnational perspective that emphasizes interconnectedness and the cross-border fluidity of cultures and species of capital. Shows such asThe Lion KingandWickedmay have premiered in New York, but their continuing multibillion-dollar success in cities on six continents suggests that the traffic in the most popular form of theatre in the world can no longer be linked to one metropolis or one national tradition.