Let out those waistbands, theater lovers: Food, and food culture, keep elbowing into the spotlight
From pie-baking to chocolate-making, several New York productions are putting edibles front and center—in some cases, with the audiences invited to eat as part of the performance. At the same time, New York restaurateurs and gourmet-food entrepreneurs are integrating Broadway performers and show tie-ins into their own business models.
Examples of both are growing fast.
This Sunday, the New York City Wine & Food Festival, the largest annual culinary event in the city, will host a $175-a-ticket “Broadway Tastes” showcase, headlined by theatrical star Neil Patrick Harris and his actor and chef husband David Burtka. The brunch-time gathering will spotlight more than 10 Broadway shows, with cast members and chef-partners serving up dishes that tie in with the productions.
Among the edible offerings: a decadent chocolate cake from the“Matilda” team—alluding to an infamously gluttonous scene in the musical—and Cuban-inspired breakfast empanadas from the “On Your Feet!” show based on Gloria Estefan’s rise to stardom.
Lee Schrager, the New York City Wine & Food Festival founder and director, said there isn’t any secret why Broadway has embraced gourmands of late: Food has become a major force in popular culture—the Food Network is distributed to more than 100 million American households—and the theatrical community would be foolish not to tap into that mass market.
Plus, he said, food naturally dovetails with just about any dramatic scenario, as evidenced by the breadth of the “Broadway Tastes” menu items.
“What can you not connect with food, except dieting?” said Mr. Schrager.
For its part, Broadway is a $1.3-billion-a-year industry that drives huge tourism to the city, an audience many restaurateurs salivate for.
This past summer, for example, celebrity chef Geoffrey Zakarianhosted a “Brunch with Broadway Stars” at his Times Square Lambs Club, where performers from shows such as “Chicago,” “Something Rotten!” and “Waitress” entertained diners as they downed Bloody Marys and pricey pancakes. The series is expected to resume later this fall.
Mr. Zakarian said the idea was born from the fact the Lambs Club has already become something of a hangout for Broadway artists and producers. Plus, he considers the restaurant business a kind of theater of its own.
“It’s like three shows a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner,” he said.
Some attendees of the brunch series like the fact this “show” serves up more intimacy than the theaters.
“It’s allowing fans of Broadway to see the actors up close,” said Joseph Egan, a New Rochelle, N.Y., resident who attended a recent brunch featuring cast members from “Waitress.”
Onstage, the culinary connections seem to keep coming.
On Broadway last spring, audiences saw Jesse Tyler Fergusonstarring in the farce “Fully Committed,” a one-person show about a frenzied reservationist at an ultra-trendy high-end restaurant. At the same time, the musical “Waitress” launched, telling the story of a small-town woman with an abusive husband, a dead-end job and a flair for making artistic pies with names like the “Betrayed By My Eggs Pie” and “Ginger Snap Out of It Pie.”
The latter continues to play to near-capacity crowds, with attendees buying more than 1,000-plus mini mason-jar pies weekly—at $10 a pop—from concessionaires in waitress garb who roam the aisles, according to the show’s producer Barry Weissler.
Fresh pies, conceived by the show’s very own pie consultant Stacy Donnelly, are made before every performance, so the aroma wafts through the theater, engaging audiences with more than just their eyes and ears.
“It’s like Smell-O-Vision in the old movies,” said veteran Broadway producer Ken Davenport.
More food-minded productions are being cooked up for later this season.
For the musical “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” producers plan to play up the edible connections, saying they are in talks with “the best chocolatiers and makers of marvelous treats to launch a line of delicacies” tied to the musical.
Around Thanksgiving, Food Network star Alton Brown brings a one-week limited run of “ Alton Brown Live: Eat Your Science” to Broadway, offering a live-theater extension of work he has done on cable TV.
Mr. Brown said he doesn’t foresee offering the audience any samples en masse, but the vaudeville-inspired production will feature everything from a mock game show to a cocktail-making demonstration.
As for whether his live show could be called theater in the truest sense, Mr. Brown quipped, “I’ll be sure to throw in some Shakespeare. Or how about some Ibsen?”
Food also features prominently in several immersive theater productions, where the audience doesn’t just sit passively during the performance, but experiences it more actively.
Starting in mid-November, audiences at the Irish Repertory Theatre’s world-premiere production of “The Dead 1904,” based on aJames Joyce’s “The Dead,” will enjoy a holiday meal “inspired by descriptions of the feast in Joyce’s story,” according to show producers.
The work will be staged at the American Irish Historical Society’s Fifth Avenue townhouse.
In February, the London-based Tooting Arts Club brings its production of Stephen Sondheim’s cannibalistic-themed musical “Sweeney Todd” to the Barrow Street Theatre. The theater will be transformed into the pie shop that is central to the show, with the audience having the opportunity to partake of the savory crusted creations.
“It adds a very communal element to the experience,” said Rachel Edwards, one of the show’s producers.
Not everyone is buying into all this feasting at the show—or the sometimes thinly conceived food-theater mashups.
Allen Salkin, author of “From Scratch: The Uncensored History of the Food Network,” said some can run the risk of coming off as “gimmicky” or, even worse, a crass attempt by both the theater or restaurant communities to cash in on each other’s popularity.
Veteran New York restaurateur Keith McNally, who worked briefly as an actor, is also critical of the cross-pollination—but for somewhat different reasons. He loves food and he loves theater, but he prefers that they each stand on their own.
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