17 A2 bright lights on broadway

CHAPTER 1 Welcome to Broadway! WHAT IS A BROADWAY SHOW? Toby is in New York City to see his first Broadway play. His eyes are wide as he walks through Times Square. He can't believe how many bright lights there are. Toby is only six, but older children and even adults have the same feeling. Times Square and the bright lights of Broadway can make anyone feel like an excited child. New York City started having plays in the early 1700s, but the first big theater wasn't built until 1750. After the trains and subways were made in the late 1800s and early 1900s, plays became very popular in New York City. In 1891, theaters started using bright white lights to advertise the plays. People called the area "The Great White Way" because the white light filled the streets.

Broadway got its name because in the past many theaters were on the street called Broadway. Today, there are only five theaters on the street, but there are about 40 Broadway theaters in the area. Today, a play is a Broadway show if the theater has seats for more than 500 people. An Off-Broadway theater usually has 99 to 499 seats, and most theaters in New York City with fewer than 99 seats are Off-Off-Broadway. Toby is one of about 12 million people who see a Broadway play each year. The more people that go to a show, the more successful it is. The Phantom of the Opera is the longest running Broadway play with over 10,000 shows. Some shows aren't as successful, and some even flop. For example, in 1981, the play Frankenstein closed the same night it opened!

CHAPTER 2 On Stage MANY THINGS HAPPEN ON STAGE BEFORE AND DURING A BROADWAY SHOW. Toby sees Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. His Uncle Kevin is a stagehand on the show. After the play, Toby goes backstage for a surprise. Toby says, "When Kevin told me I might get to meet someone, I said, What? Who?' And it was Spider-Man!" Toby knows the person he met is not really Spider- Man, but the actor who plays him. In fact, he didn't meet the actor who plays the main Spider-Man. It was the actor who plays Spider-Man flying through the air. In the play, eight actors play Spider-Man. Some of the actors are stunt people. They fly in the air over the stage and over the audience. Toby was really happy to meet the actor. Many people wait after shows to meet actors and to get their autographs.

There are many different parts for actors on Broadway— big and small. Sometimes, an actor plays several small parts in the same play. Often, an actor has small parts or is in Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway shows for years before making it big on Broadway. For some parts, actors go to open auditions, sometimes called "cattle calls" because hundreds of people, like a group of cows, wait for a turn. Some get called back to audition again, but only some of those actors get parts. Others make it big quickly. Reeve Carney, who plays Peter Parker and Spider-Man in Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, was not an actor before he got the part. He was a singer and guitar player in a band when one of the writers and directors of the play discovered him.

Some actors prepare all of their lives to be in a Broadway show. They are called stage actors. Bernadette Peters is a stage actor who has starred in plays since 1959. Her first part was playing Tessie in the Off-Broadway show The Most Happy Fella. Two of her most famous Broadway parts were Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun in 1999, and Sally Plummer in Follies in 2012. Other actors start in movies and on television shows and then come to Broadway. Daniel Radcliffe became famous for playing Harry in the Harry Potter movies. In 2008, he was in his first Broadway show, and in 2011, he got the lead roles in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Broadway actors rehearse or practice a play on stage for several months. They work with directors and coaches. The director works with all of the actors to make all of the play go well. Coaches often help actors with certain things. For example, Daniel Radcliffe is from England and has a British accent. In How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying he plays an American. Language coaches often help actors learn to speak differently than they normally do. Sometimes the writers of the plays are also directors and work on stage with the actors, and other times they are not. If a play has dancing in it, choreographers work with the actors to teach them the dances.