“What ultimately got the play to New York,’’ said Kenny Leon, who directed “Stick Fly’’ at the Huntington and on Broadway, “was that folks came to see it in Boston, in a sold-out theater in Boston, and [producers] saw the dynamics of how it played in front of a live, sophisticated, and diverse audience.’’
Elsewhere in town, too, New York is feeling Boston’s influence. “Once,’’ a musical that was workshopped last year at the ART and has become a hot ticket in the East Village, is slated to move to Broadway in March. Meanwhile, Stephen Karam’s “Sons of the Prophet,’’ which premiered last spring in a Huntington production, just wrapped up a critically acclaimed off-Broadway run.
So the two leading theaters in the Boston area have their eyes on New York - and vice versa. But what does this dual focus mean for audiences? When shows originate in Boston with an eye on New York, are local theatergoers buying tickets to what are, in essence, previews?
In the case of “Sons of the Prophet,’’ the answer is essentially yes. Karam rewrote “Sons’’ significantly after its world premiere at the Huntington, dropping a major subplot involving the relationship between two key characters. The play was also streamlined from two acts to one. Both changes were improvements, but the thousands who saw the work at the Huntington experienced what turned out to be a preliminary version.
“I didn’t go into Boston thinking, here’s a half-finished play,’’ said Karam. “It was one of those things that I wished I had thought about it sooner.’’
It could be argued that Boston is used to serving as a test audience, having been for decades a tryout town for Broadway-bound productions. In those cases, though, it was widely understood that New York was the goal, and Boston just a stop along the way. By contrast, audiences develop proprietary feelings for their regional theaters, like the ART and the Huntington.
