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SHOW BUSINESS

"The Raw Reality of Theater"

What You Need To Know:

SHOWBUSINESS is an inspiring, but raw, tale of four shows’ journeys through Broadway. The documentary shows the meetings, creative sessions, rehearsals, openings, and closings of WICKED, CAROLINE OR CHANGE, TABOO, and AVENUE Q. The four stories culminate in the Tony Awards for New York theater. The movie also includes exclusive conversations with critics. These critics candidly speak of expectations of particular shows, prior to viewing pieces, as well as subsequent excitements and disappointments.

SHOWBUSINESS is for people who have a love and appreciation for the art of theater or have a passion to create any piece of entertainment. Theater lovers will enjoy watching the hardships and glory behind successes and failures of Broadway musicals. The movie fails, however, to gain the interest of a wide-range demographic. Its documentary format leads it to target a niche audience of mostly artists, but for these artists, the story will seem both honest and inspiring. Even so, the movie expresses a pagan, secular worldview with very strong elements of homosexuality associated with one of the four shows. There are 11 profanities and obscenities within the dialogue, as well as a bawdy musical number about Internet websites.

Content:

(PaPa, H, HoHoHo, O, LL, V, SS, A, D, M) A mostly mixed pagan, secular worldview about four Broadway shows with very strong elements of homosexuality associated with one of the shows plus one occult scene during the ending credits revealing a psychic tending to a client; about 11 profanities and obscenities; one scene showing a rehearsal of choreographed violence; an exc erpt of an inappropriate musical number repeatedly stating that the purpose of the Internet is for viewing porn and numerous scenes of homosexual content revealing cross dressers mostly pertaining to one show of focus which chronicles the life of Boy George (a personality famous for his music and blatant homosexual lifestyle); critics are revealed conversing in a restaurant drinking their various wines of choice; a few scenes of characters smoking within the action of the staged scene and one scene of Boy George smoking behind stage; and, movie says that artists and producers of shows should go with their “gut feelings,” which may engender a kind of mindlessness.

More Detail:

SHOWBUSINESS is an inspiring, but raw, tale of four shows’ journey through Broadway. The documentary shows the meetings, creative sessions, rehearsals, openings, and closings of WICKED, CAROLINE OR CHANGE, TABOO, and AVENUE Q. Theater lovers probably will thoroughly enjoy viewing the uncovered hardships and glory behind successes and failures of Broadway musicals.

Viewers are given access to exclusive conversations of critics, as well. These critics candidly speak of expectations of particular shows, prior to viewing pieces, as well as subsequent excitements and disappointments.

The movie theater is taken into a world of uncertainty as these brand new Broadway-bound masterpieces are written, changed, rehearsed, and ultimately created with no assurance of success. The honest cameras reveal actors, producers, composers, theater companies, and writers investing their time, energy, and money into a project that has no guarantees of giving back anything. The four stories culminate in one final place, the anticipated Tony Awards, the award show that is the greatest reward or greatest disappointment for a Broadway show.

SHOWBUSINESS is perhaps the perfect fit for people who have a love and appreciation for the art of theater or have a passion to create any pieces of entertainment. This being the case, the movie fails to gain the interest of a wide-range demographic. Its documentary format leads it to target a niche audience of mostly artists, but for these artists, the story will prove to be both honest and inspiring.

The movie is not the stereotypical narrative where all the noble win; the film shows the reality and politics within competitive theater. The reality is that not everybody with a good soul and good premise will win over the critics and the box office, or the Tony Awards. The movie argues that there are no sure-fire signs or tell-tale indicators of success or failure – one must follow their gut feelings and “go for it.”

The show TABOO deals with very inappropriate content. While the movie does not go into detail of the play’s subject matter, which details the life of homosexual pop artist Boy George, it does show many scenes of homosexual drag queens and other instances of effeminate men in make-up. Of course, TABOO turned out to be a huge failure on Broadway compared to other, more family-friendly shows, so maybe following one’s “gut feelings” is not the way to go if you want to be a success in the entertainment business.

SHOWBUSINESS also contains eleven obscenities and profanities, along with an excerpt of a song from the show, AVENUE Q, which expresses the abhorrent idea that the Internet’s sole purpose of existence is to view pornographic websites.