Broadway Closure / 2004 Tour
Addio, Mimi: La Bohème Ends June 29 on
Bway, But L.A. & London Offer Life After Death
By Kenneth Jones, Playbill.com
29 June 2003
Baz Luhrmann's Tony Award-winning Broadway production of La Bohème ends its run at the Broadway Theatre June 29 after 12 previews and 228 performances, but it doesn't mean death for Mimi, Rodolfo and their pals.
The new conception of Puccini's operatic masterpiece — using a rotating cast of young principal singers and set in 1957 Paris — will play the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles beginning January 2004 and then London starting in spring 2004.
Kevin McCollum, one of the producers of La Bohème, told Playbill On-Line many scenarios for future mountings of the production are being explored, including limited engagements in North America. The staging would seem to be the perfect project for co presentation by those who run local opera seasons and those who book Broadway tours into regional houses.
"The good news is that we're looking forward to Los Angeles and London, and cities such as Chicago, Detroit the Twin Cities, Berlin," McCollum said. "Now that the show is available in its Broadway incarnation and they can offer a limited run, we feel it will be very, very popular. There is great interest in the show [regionally]. When you can do the kind of business we did for 31 weeks — really, our losing week was the musicians' strike week — people get interested."
In many ways, the show was a Broadway risk: An opera in Italian, with supertitles, with no stars except the late, great Italian composer. It nevertheless earned six Tony Award nominations and won two Tonys, for Best Lighting Design (Nigel Levings) and Best Scenic Design (Catherine Martin). In addition, the Tony Awards committee gave the 10 principal players in the show honorary Tonys for excellence.
Did the producers regard the show as a risk?
"I'm scared out of my mind," producing partner Jeffrey Seller previously told Playbill On-Line, prior to the Dec. 8, 2002, opening. "But I don't think that Kevin and I are really interested in producing anything in New York City that doesn't break the rules, turn convention upside-down on its head and make us feel like we could be on the brink of utter catastrophe."
Seller and McCollum's risky past productions of Rent (the Jonathan Larson rock opera inspired by La Bohème) and De La Guarda have paid off with international success. Their hope back in 1995, when they first approached Luhrmann about a U.S. staging of La Bohème, was to see both Rent and Bohème playing in New York City at the same time. The latter continues its smash run on 41st Street, at the Nederlander. Seller and McCollum's next Broadway show is the musical comedy, Avenue Q.
"Some people loved the fact that we were taking the opera out of the museum of the opera house and that we were charging a much lower ticket price than the Met," McCollum said. "It's a different experience. We weren't trying to be the Met. We were trying to be something different."
For McCollum, La Bohème was a success.
"Thirty-one weeks, eight shows a week, over 400,000 people," he said. "I think we achieved a lot of our goals. The goal we didn't achieve is returning all the investors' money. It was just not the greatest economic situation, but artistically we were thrilled. And we're very excited that more people will get to see it around the world."
McCollum said that Manhattanites came to the production, but a suburban audience didn't flock to it. The war, a musicians' strike and a depressed tourism market didn't help, either.
With a weekly running cost of $550,000, the show was facing a summer that might be soft for tourism in New York City, so "it needed to close now and strong, and keep the brand strong so we can go to another city," McCollum said. "If people aren't gonna travel to New York, we're gonna take the show out to them. It's an event, it's not just a show. Events run best when it's a limited period of time. Now, people know what it is."
Asked if New York might see La Bohème return to Broadway as, say, a limited-run holiday event some day (the opera's first two acts are famously set on Christmas Eve), McCollum said, "Nothing is impossible — don't be surprised by anything."
The show closes at a loss of about $6 million, having made back about $2.5 million.
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The production will play the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles Jan. 9-March 7, 2004, followed by a run in London, May 30, 2004-Oct. 30, 2004, the producers announced.
In a statement from Australia, where he is currently working on the film "Alexander the Great," director Baz Luhrmann said: "What drew [designer] Catherine Martin and me to mount our production of La Bohème on Broadway was not only the challenge to make Puccini's most popular of operas more accessible to a broader audience, but also the opportunity to live and work in our second home, New York City, and to be part of the Broadway experience. We can only be incredibly happy at the high artistic standards our company has maintained night after night and the enthusiastic responses of audiences and critics alike. Of course we all dream that any production on Broadway will run for 50 years but having done over 200 performances here in New York City we're now looking forward to taking our company on the road to L.A. and other major cities."
Luhrmann has promised he is working on a stage musical version of his film "Strictly Ballroom," and said he would like it to be staged in a non-traditional arena in Manhattan — like a ballroom. No timeline for a Broadway (or Off Broadway) run of it has been released, but Luhrmann said it was a natural for New York City, which has a rich dance and ballroom tradition.
The producers pulled the plug on the staging three days after it got a June 8 prime-time TV spotlight on the Tony Awards telecast. Scenic designer Catherine Martin (Luhrmann's wife) won a Tony for her sets and Nigel Levings won for lighting.
Luhrmann told Playbill On-Line in recent weeks a national tour cast would, like the Broadway staging, boast multiple casts taking on the roles of the four central lovers. In New York, David Miller, Jesús Garcia and Alfred Boe play Rodolfo in rep, opposite the rotating Mimis of Ekaterina Solovyeva, Lisa Hopkins and Wei Huang. Jessica Comeau and Chlöe Wright share Musetta opposite the Marcellos of Eugene Brancoveanu and Ben Davis.
The principals are being offered a future with the show, if they want it, McCollum said.
The day after its Dec. 8, 2002, Broadway opening, La Bohème did close to $1 million in ticket sales, pointing the Italian-language Puccini classic down the road toward being a hit.
Luhrmann, responding to recent events and their affect on Broadway previously said, "Snow. Strike. The war. Could you kick the theatre any more? But Broadway is incredibly resilient. Our world has such heaviness. It's time to get out and drink some wine, eat some food, see some theatre and have some life. There's always going to be conflict from now until we die, so let's get on with it. It's been a test for absolutely everybody. It only shows that the work itself, the shows, the care and the passion have to be that much greater. You can't be in any way complacent about it."
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Lights Out for Baz's "Bohème"
By Josh Grossberg, E Online
12 June 2003
It's rough being bohemian these days--especially on Broadway.
The (red) curtain is coming down for good on La Bohème, Baz Luhrmann's eye-popping retelling of Puccini's classic opera. The ambitious production--which, with its three rotating pairs of Mimis and Rodolfos, huge supporting cast and lavish sets, cost $8.5 million to mount--will stage its final performance on June 29 after a lackluster seven-month engagement that failed to recoup its investment.
After 12 previews, La Bohème bowed on December 8 to sparkling reviews and, at least initially, massive buzz. But, notes producer Jeffrey Seller, as time went on the show did not cross over to the tour bus set.
"I think we definitely had snob hit appeal, but I don't think we got that suburban audience," Seller told the New York Times. "We got young hipsters, Manhattan art lovers, kids and cognoscenti. What we didn't get was the Showboat audience from New Jersey."
And, in Broadway's current economic climate, those are the people who are going to make or break a production financially--a point Luhrmann was keenly aware of when he shot new promos not so long ago featuring testimonials from audience members to replace earlier, more romantic ads.
"What drew [wife] Catherine Martin and me to mount our production of La Bohème on Broadway was not only the challenge to make Puccini's most popular of operas more accessible to a broader audience, but also the opportunity to live and work in our second home, New York City, and to be part of the Broadway experience," Luhrmann said in a statement from his native Australia.
(The director's currently Down Under working on his next movie, Alexander, an epic detailing the conquests of Alexander the Great, starring Leonardo DiCaprio).
All told, La Bohème will finish its run with an estimated $6 million loss after playing 228 performances at the Broadway Theater, one of the largest houses along the Great White Way. Not helping business either was the show's budget, which ballooned by an extra $2 million, or the theater's musician's strike in March.
Hardly helping matters was the fact that this was an opera sung in Italian with English subtitles projected about the stage. It was hoped that the Moulin Rouge filmmaker's daring vision--which transplanted the tragic bohemian lover's story from 19th Century Paris to the 1950s, featured a young cast of unknowns and utilized an intimate set--would appeal to the masses. But not even $20 same-day seats could boost attendance, which hovered around 55 percent last week.
La Bohème's fate was sealed at last Sunday's Tony Awards, where it won three trophies (Martin won for her stage design, Nigel Levings won for his lighting and the show received a special Tony for its ensemble) but lost out in the higher-profile Best Musical Revival category to the Antonio Banderas-starring Nine.
C'est la vie.
Along with La Bohème, other Broadway productions announcing post-Tony closures were the kids musical A Year with Frog and Toad and The Play What I Wrote, both of which will conclude their runs on Sunday.
With the Broadway production shutting down early, the timetable for a Los Angeles edition of Luhrmann's La Bohème has been moved up from July 2004 to January 2004. Plus, a national touring production is currently in the works. And Lurhmann hasn't soured on Broadway. He and Martin are already at work on a stage version of their film Strictly Ballroom.
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Luhrmann's 'La Boheme' to close
Ninemsn.com, 12 June 2003
AP - Baz Luhrmann admitted it was a risk, and now the Australian director's Broadway version of "La Boheme" will close on June 29 after a disappointing seven-month run.
While a critical success, Luhrmann's opulent production of the Puccini opera will end with losses of about $US6 million ($A9.2 million).
"We just didn't reach the suburban, traditional musical theatregoing audience," producer Jeffrey Seller said today.
"We reached the cognoscenti, we reached the kids, we reached the Baz fans, we reached art lovers in New York City, particularly Manhattan."
Last week, "La Boheme" played to only 55 per cent capacity at the Broadway Theatre, one of Broadway's largest houses, and grossed $US519,526 ($A794,000), below its break-even of $US560,000 ($A856,000).
According to Seller, the show recouped about $US2.5 million ($A3.8 million) of its production costs, which had ballooned to about $US8.5 million ($A13 million) by the time it opened in December.
"La Boheme" will have played 228 performances by the time it finishes its run at the end of the month.
The reviews were largely favourably, although theatre critics were more generous than opera reviewers in their praise of the production, which uses youthful, sexy singers and transplants the opera to Paris of the late 1950s. The opera was sung in its original Italian with English subtitles projected on screens.
In an interview last year, the 40-year-old Luhrmann, director of such movie hits as "Moulin Rouge" and "Strictly Ballroom," said: "Bringing Italian opera to Broadway is not the easiest way to have a hit.
"Everything I've ever made has been an enormous risk - with people saying, 'Are you crazy?' I'm not that heroic or brave. But there are things that for very personal and vivid reasons I want to go and do."
On Sunday, "La Boheme" lost the best revival-musical Tony award to "Nine," although it did manage to win prizes for its lavish sets, designed by Catherine Martin, Luhrmann's wife, and for lighting by Nigel Levings. A special Tony was also awarded to the 10 principals who rotate performances in the show.
"What drew Catherine Martin and me to mount our production of 'La Boheme' on Broadway was not only the challenge to make Puccini's most popular of operas more accessible to a broader audience, but also the opportunity to live and work in our second home, New York City, and to be part of the Broadway experience," Luhrmann said in a statement from Australia, where he is working on his next project, a film based on the life of Alexander the Great.
"La Boheme" will have a life beyond Broadway. It will play the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles early next year, January 9 - March 7, and then travel to London for a run between May 30 and October 30, 2004.
"The lesson is: go to the major cities and do a sit-down (engagement) but don't overstay your welcome," Seller said.
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'La Bohème' Is to Close After 228 Performances
By Jesse McKinley, New York Times
12 June 2003
Baz Luhrmann's daring modern restaging of the Puccini opera "La Bohème" will close on June 29, its producers said yesterday. The production, which cost about $8.5 million to mount at the Broadway Theater, recouped only about a quarter of that investment.
Jeffrey Seller, one of the producers, said that although the production had found an audience, it was not necessarily the audience that a show needed to survive on Broadway.
"I think we definitely had snob hit appeal, but I don't think we got that suburban audience," Mr. Seller said. "We got young hipsters, Manhattan art lovers, kids and cognoscenti. What we didn't get was the `Showboat' audience from New Jersey."
The production, reset in 1950's Paris by Mr. Luhrmann, the director, and Catherine Martin, his wife and chief designer, opened on Dec. 8 in a blaze of publicity, mostly a result of Mr. Luhrmann's reputation as a dynamic hep-cat filmmaker ("Moulin Rouge," "Romeo and Juliet").
That opening was one of the most dazzling in recent Broadway history, with an array of Hollywood stars including Leonardo DiCaprio, Hugh Grant, Sandra Bullock and Cameron Diaz.
The critics seemed swept away. Writing in The New York Times, Ben Brantley called the production a "rapturous reimagining of Puccini's opera of love," adding that it was "both the coolest and the warmest show in town."
Riding on such praise, "La Bohème" sold extremely well shortly after opening, although initial estimates by the show's producers that it would sell nearly $1 million worth of tickets in a day proved overoptimistic.
Its first day was closer to $600,000, which is still good, but not the level of sales to indicate a multiyear hit.
Sales for the show began to fall off this spring. Last week "La Bohème" grossed $529,526 and played to just 55 percent of capacity.
The show was also expensive to run, costing about $560,000 a week because of its large cast — one crowd scene featured more than 50 actors — and elaborate production values.
Originally budgeted at $6.5 million, the show ran overbudget by $2 million before opening.
"La Bohème" won two Tony Awards on Sunday (for lighting and scenery) and a special award for its 10 leading players, but it lost out to "Nine" in the best musical revival category, one of the few categories that readily translates into sales.
Mr. Seller said that he would tell the cast — including its three rotating sets of Mimis and Rodolfos, the tragic lovers at the story's heart — of the show's closing after yesterday's matinee.
While "La Bohème" will leave New York after 12 previews and 228 performances, several additional productions are planned, including one scheduled for Los Angeles in January.
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C'est L'Amour: La Bohème, a Risk and a Dream Come True, Closes June 29
By Kenneth Jones, Playbill.com
12 June 2003
The risky, groundbreaking Broadway staging of Puccini's La Bohème will close June 29 at the Broadway Theatre after 12 previews and 228 performances, but will be seen in Los Angeles and London.
The Associated Press reported that $2.5 million of the production cost had been recouped, and the show closes at a loss of $6 million.
On behalf of the producers, Jeffrey Seller and Kevin McCollum said in a statement, "Doing La Bohème on Broadway was a risk we are proud to have taken, and working with Baz Luhrmann was a dream come true. While our production in New York will end sooner than we had hoped, we look forward to opening Baz's critically-acclaimed Broadway production in Los Angeles and London in 2004."
The cast was told of the shuttering between shows Wednesday, June 11, three days after the Baz Luhrmann staging of the Puccini opera won two Tony Awards June 8, for set and lighting, and weeks after the Tony folks named the rotating principal cast of the revival as 2003 Tony Honorees for Excellence.
The production will play the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles Jan. 9-March 7, 2004, followed by a run in London, May 30, 2004-Oct. 30, 2004, the producers announced.
Producer Seller told AP that the production reached a number of target audiences, including young people and the "cognoscenti," but ultimately not the traditional suburban musical theatre audience needed to sustain a show over a long run.
In a statement from Australia, where he is currently working on the film "Alexander the Great," director Baz Luhrmann said: "What drew [designer] Catherine Martin and me to mount our production of La Bohème on Broadway was not only the challenge to make Puccini's most popular of operas more accessible to a broader audience, but also the opportunity to live and work in our second home, New York City, and to be part of the Broadway experience. We can only be incredibly happy at the high artistic standards our company has maintained night after night and the enthusiastic responses of audiences and critics alike. Of course we all dream that any production on Broadway will run for 50 years but having done over 200 performances here in New York City we're now looking forward to taking our company on the road to L.A. and other major cities."
Luhrmann has promised he is working on a stage musical version of his film "Strictly Ballroom," and said he would like it to be staged in a non-traditional arena in Manhattan — like a ballroom. No timeline for a Broadway (or Off-Broadway) run of it has been released, but Luhrmann said it was a natural for New York City, which has a rich dance and ballroom tradition.
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A national tour of Bohème had been mentioned but no information was immediately available about further dates for the show, beyond L.A. Cast members who heard the new between shows Wednesday told Playbill On Line that producers seemed to downplay the notion of a tour, and that individual sitdowns might be a more likely scenario, if markets are available.
The producers pulled the plug on the staging three days after it got a June 8 prime-time TV spotlight on the Tony Awards telecast. Scenic designer Catherine Martin (Luhrmann's wife) won a Tony for her sets and Nigel Levings won for lighting.
Luhrman told Playbill On-Line in recent weeks a national tour cast would, like the Broadway staging, boast multiple casts taking on the roles of the four central lovers. In New York, David Miller, Jesús Garcia and Alfred Boe play Rodolfo in rep, opposite the rotating Mimis of Ekaterina Solovyeva, Lisa Hopkins and Wei Huang. Jessica Comeau and Chlöe Wright share Musetta opposite the Marcellos of Eugene Brancoveanu and Ben Davis.
Luhrmann wasn't certain whether the road company would also have three Rodolfos and Mimis. "It will have to be multiple casts," he said. "That is sure. But what we're finding is certain players can sustain a little more and some a little less. It's going to be about individuals."
The day after its Dec. 8, 2002, Broadway opening, La Bohème did close to $1 million in ticket sales, pointing the Italian-language Puccini classic down the road toward being a hit. As was the case with other shows in early 2003, the opera took a hit at the box office with the advent of the recent musicians union strike, and the war in Iraq.
Luhrmann, responding to recent events and their affect on Broadway previously said, "Snow. Strike. The war. Could you kick the theatre any more? But Broadway is incredibly resilient. Our world has such heaviness. It's time to get out and drink some wine, eat some food, see some theatre and have some life. There's always going to be conflict from now until we die, so let's get on with it. It's been a test for absolutely everybody. It only shows that the work itself, the shows, the care and the passion have to be that much greater. You can't be in any way complacent about it."
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Enthusiastic reviews greeted the production, which Luhrmann sets in 1957 Paris rather than the Paris of the 1840s. Previews began Nov. 29, 2002, after a largely sold out tryout in San Francisco. The production at the Broadway Theatre uses a rotating cast of principals due to the show's vocal demands. With the thought that people on return visits might like to see a different cast (Ben Brantley said he cried at all three viewings of the varied cast), the producers have made the cast list public at the box office, through Telecharge and on the official website, www.bohemeonbroadway.com.
Luhrmann invited movie audiences in 2001 to think in a new visual language for his picture, "Moulin Rouge," and urged theatre audiences to reimagine the possibilities of the live form with La Bohème.
Reveling in a theatricality that some are saying hasn't been seen since the potent work of Harold Prince in the 1970s, Luhrmann freely shows stage hands and stage managers, props and effects-machines — the mechanics of the event behind the rich, classic romance that has been a sensation on opera houses for generations.
Luhrmann's goal was to rediscover the story using young, lean performers, placing them in a world that, if not as mammoth and opulent as what can be seen at the cavernous Metropolitan Opera, is still visually arresting. The Paris Latin Quarter section of the show (Act II) has had audiences gasping and applauding for the monochromatic, neon-punctuated work of designer Catherine Martin.
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The Nov. 29 first preview of Baz Luhrmann's staging of La Bohème represented new territory for musical theatre: A major commitment from major producers to produce a major Italian-language opera on Broadway.
It helps that the title is a brand name like Puccini's La Bohème, arguably the most-produced opera in the history of the world. It also helps that this production, when it was first seen in a staging by the Australian Opera in 1990, was a sensation Down Under. Set in Paris of 1957 with comely young sopranos and tenors, it was revived twice in the 1990s, and director Luhrmann and designer e Martin returned to shepherd the American debut, complete with English surtitles.
Of course La Bohème was a risk for producers Jeffrey Seller, Kevin McCollum and Emanuel Azenberg, but Seller (who, with McCollum, guided Rent to Broadway) suggests it's not worth doing if there's no risk.
"I'm scared out of my mind," Seller told Playbill On-Line in fall 2002. "But I don't think that Kevin and I are really interested in producing anything in New York City that doesn't break the rules, turn convention upside-down on its head and make us feel like we could be on the brink of utter catastrophe."
Seller and McCollum's risky past productions of Rent (the Jonathan Larson rock opera inspired by La Bohème) and De La Guarda have paid off with international success. Their hope back in 1995, when they first approached Luhrmann about a U.S. staging of La Bohème, was to see both Rent and Bohème playing in New York City at the same time. The latter continues its smash run on 41st Street, at the Nederlander.
Joining the six previously-announced international leads for the staging on Broadway are Daniel Webb as philosopher Colline, Daniel Okulitch as musician Schaunard, William Youmans as Musetta's Alcindoro and Adam Grupper as landlord Benoit. The ensemble of La Bohème comprises Enrique Abdala, Christine Arand, Janinah Burnett, Gilles Chiasson, Charlotte Cohn, Michael Cone, Vanessa Conlin, Sean Cooper (as Customs Officer), Patricia Corbett, Evangelia Costantakos, Lawrence Craig, Dan Entriken (as Parpignol, a toy seller), Graham Fandrei (as the Sergeant), Bobby Faust, Katie Geissinger, Jennifer Goode, Paul Goodwin Groen, Joy Hermalyn, Robb Hillman, Adam Hunter, Tim Jerome, Katherine Keyes, Laurice Lanier, Morgan Moody Marcus Nance, Daniel Neer, Debra Patchell, Patricia Phillips, Jamet Pittman, Martín Solá, Radu Spinghel and Mark Womack. The production also features a children's chorus of 15.
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A 67-minute "highlights" cast album — featuring all principals handling various sections of the opera — was recorded in California for Dreamworks and is in stores.
The Broadway staging's producers are Jeffrey Seller, Kevin McCollum, Emanuel Azenberg and Bazmark Live, with Bob and Harvey Weinstein, Korea Pictures/Doyun Seol, J. Stine/I. Pittelman/S. Nederlander and Fox Searchlight Pictures.
Musical director Constantine Kitsopoulos conducts the 28-piece orchestra, which includes two electronic keyboard players, sweetening the orchestra. The company does indeed perform with body mikes.
The opera has a legendary score by Giacomo Puccini — even those who avoid opera will recognize "Musetta's Waltz," if only from its interpolations in movies. Reviews were not good 100 years ago, but the score outlived the critics.
Luhrmann's La Bohème premiered in 1990, and became the biggest hit in the history of the Sydney Opera House and a sold-out sensation. It played return engagements at the Sydney Opera House in 1993, when it was recorded for video, and in 1996.
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The design staff includes "Moulin Rouge" Academy Award winners Catherine Martin (scenic design and co-costume design) and Angus Strathie (co-costume design), with Nigel Levings (lighting design) and Acme Sound Partners (sound design).
Onetime actor Luhrmann is internationally known for directing the films "Strictly Ballroom" (which he began as a play), "Romeo + Juliet" and the Academy Award nominated "Moulin Rouge." He has worked in film, opera, theatre, music and events management. With Martin he is the founder and director of Bazmark. In 1988, he created the critically acclaimed opera, Lake Lost, with composer Felix Meagher, where he first collaborated with designer Catherine Martin.
The four-act opera is offered with one intermission and two scene changes. The conceit of the staging has stage crew making scene changes in full view of the audience. The actors appear under a contract with AGMA (The American Guild of Musical Artists) rather than Actors' Equity Association, the usual union for Broadway performers.
Why is this production set in 1957?
"For all the talk that this is another wacky Baz Luhrmann groovy show, all decisions are based on revelation of character, revelation of plot," Luhrmann said. "We wanted to make it as much like the experience Puccini's audience would have had in the 1890s. A lot of the humor [back then] had to do with an understanding of the characters — what a bohemian of the 1840s was. The 1840s bohemian basically got around in large, velvet, floppy hats and checked pants and beards like ZZ Top. It might be difficult and an unnecessary burden to decode for a contemporary audience what that is, so we wanted to see: Could we re-set it in a bohemia that could be more accessible?"
Luhrmann said it helped that Catherine Martin's father is a professor of French history and that her mother is French.
"We spent a lot of time in Paris, living the bohemian life and researching all different periods of bohemia, and found that '57 was a good social-economic match [with the 1840s bohemian life]," Luhrmann said. "And indeed, the bohemian of the 1840s was [living in a] post-war time . Louis Philippe was a boring king but a good one, and so the bourgeoisie flourished. Their kids were rebelling without cause: There were non-politicized bohemians. And '57 was a time again when you had this sort of non politicized bohemia."
And what of the sickness of Mimi in 1957? Is she tubercular?
"[1957] was also the year in which broad inoculation for tuberculosis took place," Luhrmann said. "Clearly, this being a primary plot point, there has to be a reasonable amount of credibility that [Mimi] died from tuberculosis. For those reasons, '57 became our year. It wasn't like, 'Gee, don't people look great in leather jackets?' Much as they do look good, it's not my favorite visual period, the '50s. My favorite things are irrelevant to me. My taste is irrelevant. It's about decoding the work and revealing the power of that to the audience."
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