tread (or walk) the boards
informal Appear on stage as an actor:
‘the 1,500-seat theatre where generations of actors trod the boards’from oxforddictionaries.com
Assume the existence of an iconic-to-the-point-of-being-monolithic board game that has been around for over a century. While this game is dead to tabletop gamers due to its reputation for being tired and monotonous, it lives on due to the undeniable clout provided, for better or worse, by its instantaneous name recognition. Hence this dead game has had a long afterlife due to being disentombed periodically from dusty closets and shelves and played by bored casual gamers. If you’re a publisher of this game, always one of the lowest ranked games on BoardGameGeek.com, how do you make it hip, new, and popular so that it isn’t just owned, but played? You can’t really change the rules at this point, as they have ossified over the century to be as unyielding as chess, checkers, or go. You could try to change the rules, but everyone would laugh at the result and go on torturing themselves in the official and canonical way.
If you’re Hasbro, and the game in question is Monopoly, there’s only one point of attack: the theme. And just how do you press Rich Uncle Pennybags‘ tuxedo so that it looks fresh and new after all this time? The theme of economic domination made sense in the early 20th century, a time when there was vast social inequity, economic depression caused by stock manipulation, and other forms of decadently refined money madness that rippled out in waves of poverty and want; a time when the drawn-out grind of Monopoly made intuitive sense to players that didn’t have the strength of soul to question whether they deserved to suffer this game.
Hasbro decided that, as making Monopoly relevant to millennials is a lost cause, they would make it hip, and they have teamed with The Araca Group to bring Monopoly to Broadway as a musical. In Playbill’s report of this partnership a few days ago, the initial premise for the show is that it will be “an immersive-style show, meaning that members of the audience take part in the action.”
Yes, for some reason, in a huge collection of intellectual property that includes GI Joe, My Little Pony, and Transformers, Hasbro has decided to bank on Monopoly as its winning horse in live theater. My first thought is that Mr. Potato Head may have been a more viable property for theatrical development. Simon Waters of Hasbro is more confident, being quoted as saying “…Hasbro is dedicated to delivering new and exciting ways for consumers to interact with all of our brands, and this stage adaptation will do just that….We are excited to work with The Araca Group to bring Monopoly to life on Broadway and across the country.”
The Araca Group is known for its winning productions and co-productions, including Wicked; Boeing, Boeing; A Raising in the Sun; A View from the Bridge; Urinetown; Disgraced; Skylight; and, Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune. With all these under their belt, they’re now going for the money, and recently launched Araca Media & Entertainment to adapt franchised entertainment into live theater. With this new initiative needing projects to justify its existence, it is very likely Monopoly the Musical will become a reality. While Araca CEO Matthew Rego says this opportunity is “almost too good to be true,” it seems that more realistic speculation would wonder whether Monopoly on Broadway will have as short a run as the 1990 Monopoly TV series (12 episodes), or will it stretch as long as Monopoly Millionaires’ Club (20 episodes)?
What board games would you like to see adapted into live theater, or what board games do you think would work as the theme for live theater? Will we ever see a Catan musical in which The Robber keeps coming back to plague the other characters, like Javert in Les Mis?
Cross-posted on Board of Life.
