Cruise entertainment doesn't have the best of reputations, but I took my maiden voyage earlier this year and it was a real eye-opener. I was there to review shows on board the Celebrity Eclipse, and both the productions and facilities were extremely impressive. The theatre itself was actually of a far higher standard than many of the West End's crumbling playhouses – more comfy seats, better sightlines, excellent acoustics and high-end equipment.
Celebrity spends up to $1m per show for three 60-minute productions on every ship in its line. Each vessel has a 1,150-seat theatre, employs a cast of 18, plus nearly 40 musicians, a stage crew of six and various other technical crew across the music lounges on the ship.
And cruising is a huge growth area in the entertainment business. Looking across some of the other lines – P&O has its own on-board theatre company with more than 100 entertainers, Royal Caribbean is staging cruise versions of Hairspray and Chicago, and elsewhere there are licensed versions of Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals or other popular shows such as Saturday Night Fever.
But no Chekhov. The full story is here.
Tyler, unusually for you, I think that you may have missed out on an opportunity to segue this story into a discussion of ‘sunk costs’ and the theatre industry.
Cruise ships are considered the main back up option for dance majors. Though performing rehashed Broadway musicals and copies of Las Vegas showgirl numbers for cruise patrons may not be saving theater, I suspect it is keeping the employment numbers up for graduates of US dance departments.
By providing the “backup” or “day” jobs for the industry, ships keep the number of artists high and supports the economies of scale for all the supporting industries (such as dance schools).
Furthermore, having a boring, fallback job that still relies on the same basic skills means that performers can hone their abilities while they use their spare time to create new work.
Here’s my question: who do you contact to submit plays? I’m a free market playwright — I’m more than happy to “sell out” and have my works produced aboard ship.
“no Chekhov”: that settles it; I’m not cruising.
The post is good . I often think its difficut to make it easy. But now, I will try my best to make it easy and simple.
The theatre industry *shouldn’t* be saved. It doesn’t satisfy any important consumer desire; it’s just entertainment for the easily amused, or those who want to signal how cultured they are.
Stuff people don’t want shouldn’t be propped up. But if you can confine ‘em all to cruise ships, that’s a start. I’ll just avoid those like I avoid drinking acetone, I mean wine.
Cruise ships attract more people to the theatre. People who would not normally go to the theatre might go to a theatre on a cruise ship because it is “something that people to on cruise ships.” If they have a good experience, they might continue to go to the theater after they have returned home, and maybe even see something new or experimental.
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