Curtain Up! Light the Lights!

Sweat. Tears. Suspense. Rosie O’Donnell. Betting that Broadway musicals have just as many high-strung theatrics behind-the-scenes as they do onstage, filmmaker Dori Berinstein turned her camera on the cast and creators of four new shows in the 2003-2004 Broadway season: Avenue Q; Wicked; Caroline, or Change; and Taboo. The resulting documentary, the fascinating ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway (on DVD October 16), has more drama than the theater department at NYU.

Take Jeff Marx, Avenue Q’s composer and lyricist, who admits on-camera that he and book-writer Jeff Whitty “hated each other” after not seeing eye-to-eye about the direction of the show. And Boy George. Upset that his show Taboo and its producer O’Donnell had been raked over the coals by The New York Post, the singer at last meets his critic. “My instinct was to punch him in the face,” he recounts. (Get us orchestra seats for that!)

Yet, like many satisfying productions, ShowBusiness had us choked up with tender moments, too. As Euan Morton, the charming young, British star of Taboo, learns that his show will be closing and he’ll be losing his U.S. work visa, the sobbing actor laments, “It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.” Broadway may be entertaining to the masses, but for the ones putting on the shows, it’s, as one theater exec notes, “a brutal business.”

ShowBusiness: The Road To Broadway is available on DVD October 16.

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