As to "13" I've heard it's awful. I heard it was awful here in LA, awful in its other tryout, and now awful in NY. It's blatantly designed to try to capture the demographic all B'way producers are trying to capture - the tweens and teens. B'way has, in fact, become all about that demographic and if they don't stop trying to emulate the motion picture industry, it really will be the end of B'way as those of us knew and loved it. Someone told me I had to go read the threads about this show on B'wayworld, which is, of course, populated by twelve to seventeen year olds - those are the ages of 90% of the people who post there and say things like "In all my years of theatergoing." I went and read for about two minutes and had to stop. Some of the children have already become "emotionally invested" in the show and have seen it several times (that's their term for "adopting" a show). A few of the older teens hated the show, but they are yelled at by the younger teens. It's all quite ridiculous. Will it succeed? Who knows anymore. The producers obviously have money and ego (they recorded the cast album before they started previews), so it probably won't close immediately if the reviews stink. If they get middling reviews, they'll probably do what all producers do - keep it open for a year and close at a complete loss of its entire investment, just like Xanadu, which is now closing two weeks early because the producers don't want to lose even MORE money. NOW they become fiscally responsible. Amazing.
