When Broadway Becomes a Chore
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Shalom, Broadway lovers!On this week’s marquee: A) an exploration of the role child labor plays in the openings of many Broadway shows; B) a Broadway Blast about Chicago; C) a StageStreams panel discussion about the upcoming Broadway season; D) a quiz about Broadway characters in prison; and E) a Last Blast about Brigadoon.
ESSAY: Not every child in the Broadway canon enjoys the sound of music in a Von Trapp mansion or gets to fly a kite with Mary Poppins and the Bankses; more often, child labor drives the drama (think of the “miserable” Cosette with her broom). Before Broadway kids belt their dreams about how they’d do anything to seize the day tomorrow, they’re usually scrubbing floors, selling papers, or folding laundry. From Annie’s orphans to Oliver!’s workhouse boys, child labor is practically a rite of passage onstage. This observation isn’t mere trivia—it’s Broadway’s sly critique of capitalism and tradition. Whether in household chores or street labor, Broadway’s children kick off their shows in toil. The workhouse boys in Oliver! shuffle through hunger and humiliation, their empty bowls clattering like drums as they march toward a meager ladle of gruel. Each orphan in Annie is unhappy and rues the day she was left behind, her chores slamming in rhythm as she sings defiance into being. Newsies stages a strike against Pulitzer’s exploitation, echoing the 1899 Newsboys Strike. Fiddler on the Roof weaves domestic chores into pleas for autonomy, underscoring Jewish resilience amid pogroms and stifling old ways. There were no raindrops on roses or spoonfuls of sugar for these children. Their opening numbers ground fantasy in gritty realism, shading tones of hope amid hardship, reminding us that sometimes, dreams demand defiance. In the first ensemble number of each show, children sing out their wishes while performing labor, in a home or on the street. Consider these four openings: Few openings capture the collision of labor and longing more viscerally than Oliver!’s “Food, Glorious Food.” The workhouse boys shuffle in grim unison, bowls in hand, their footsteps and clattering dishes all over setting a march-like rhythm. They are performing their duty—lining up for another meager ladle of gruel—yet the music bursts into fantasia. “Hot sausage and mustard! / Cold jelly and custard!” The lyrics catapult from starvation to a banquet of the mind. In this song, drudgery is the drumbeat for yearning; hunger dreams are literally choreographed into labor. If Oliver! revels in fantasy, Annie goes for biting parody. The orphans’ chores—scrubbing, dusting, polishing—become percussion as buckets slam and brushes scrape in perfect rhythm. “It’s the Hard-Knock Life” doesn’t console; it mocks: “Instead of treated, we get tricked; / Instead of kisses, we get kicked.” Nursery-rhyme cadences are twisted into bitter complaint. Their spunk reframes victimhood as swagger, the fantasy here not of riches but of naming injustice aloud. Labor and music fuse into resistance, with any given sarcastic rhyme sharpened by the scrape of a mop. On New York’s streets, the newsboys of Newsies make their living hawking “papes,” but the show turns their toil into athletic spectacle. “Carrying the Banner” mirrors the rhythm of their cries in rapid-fire patter, while high-kicking choreography transforms drudgery into acrobatics. The song balances camaraderie with complaint: “Ain’t it a fine life, carrying the banner through it all.” Their imagination, sparked anew, sees cigars, money, and girls around every corner, despite their daily street labor. Even as they gripe, they dream of solidarity, and their work itself provides the beat. Shifting mood, in Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye’s daughters fold laundry as they sing “Matchmaker, Matchmaker.” The motions are gentle, repetitive, almost ritualistic, proof of their wistful monotony. Their lyrics cast the everyday act of preparing linens against the far larger preparation of their futures: “Matchmaker, Matchmaker, make me a match…” At first it is playful, but as the song deepens the girls imagine darker possibilities—marriages of duty rather than desire. Domestic labor frames their yearning and their anxiety, giving physical shape to their inner negotiations with tradition. By opening shows with child labor of various sorts, Broadway doesn’t just frame its themes; it mirrors anxieties—poverty in Oliver!, orphanhood in Annie, exploitation in Newsies, tradition in Fiddler on the Roof. These kids don’t sing to escape their chores; their labor itself becomes the song, a spunky expression of their hopes, dreams, and fears. For Broadway’s wistful youth, even toil finds a tune. Labor becomes lyric, repetition becomes rhythm. Unlike Snow White’s diminutive friends, Broadway’s young laborers aren’t whistling while they work. The music comes first. They’re working—while they whistle. NOTE: MARQUEE now delivers an interpretive essay about a Broadway show every Thursday. Next week’s issue will contain a lead essay about Les Misérables. BROADWAY BLAST: “Defensible.” That’s how Billy Flynn sizes up Roxie’s case in Chicago’s “We Both Reached for the Gun.” On paper, it looks like pure legal jargon. But when he sings it, the music slows down on the last syllable: “defensi-BULL.” The rhyme isn’t just slick patter—it’s a confession. Billy’s defense is, quite literally, bullshit. That twist is more than a joke; it’s the show’s thesis. Chicago is built on exposing institutions as performance, and here the lawyer’s own syllables betray him. And Flynn, framed onstage like a vaudeville puppeteer with Roxie perched on his knee, sells his case the way he sells her: with showbiz patter polished for applause. Kander & Ebb lace the number with this sly irony: the courtroom is a cabaret, the jury an audience, and justice a script revised on the fly. By the time Billy splits “defensible” into “bullshit,” the verdict is sealed. Chicago insists that in a world of razzle-dazzle, truth doesn’t need to be true—it just needs to rhyme. StageStreams: If you’re wondering what new Broadway musicals and revivals are coming to Broadway over the next few months, this video is for you. Produced by CUNY TV, four Broadway journalists dish on the season’s upcoming shows and their prospects. My favorite moment was the panel’s discussion of the creators’ new approach to the revival of Chess. It’s what one of the panel calls a “tricky show,” but it contains a top five hit in America, “One Night in Bangkok.” Viewers will learn that the current season, both on- and off-Broadway, is surprisingly “revival heavy,” with everything from Mamma Mia! to Beetlejuice to Bat Boy to Ragtime hitting the boards. Oh, and check out the discussion of 44, a new off-Broadway show about Barack Obama’s presidency. The video is a great way to catch up on what to expect on the Great White Way in the coming season.  QUIZ: Last week, the cinematic version of Kiss of the Spider Woman hit theaters. Name at least three more major Broadway shows in which a main character is imprisoned. For extra credit, identify at least six more. Answers at the end of the issue, below the Last Blast.
Note: A full calendar of upcoming classes is always available at TheBroadwayMaven.com.• Monday, October 20 at Noon ET Sondheim Academy with Sondheim expert Gail Leondar-Wright (Members only) • Sunday, October 26 at 7 pm ET Kander & Ebb with Juilliard Prof. Edward Barnes (Members only) • Monday, October 27 at Noon and 7 pm ET Stephen Sondheim 101 with Broadway Maven David Benkof (Members only) • Tuesday, October 28 at Noon ET George Gershwin’s Broadway with UW Prof. David Armstrong (Members only) • Monday, November 3 at Noon and 7 pm ET Mel Brooks 101 with Broadway Maven David Benkof (FREE, register here) • Monday, November 10 at Noon ET Kinky Boots with music educator Mateo Chavez Lewis (Members only) SAVE THE DATE: Lyricist Richard Maltby, Jr. will be visiting us Tuesday, November 18 at Noon ET to talk to MEMBERS ONLY about writing the lyrics to Miss Saigon.
LAST BLAST: Some lines in Brigadoon are as evanescent as the town itself — fleeting, magical, but full of implication. Check out this dialogue between Meg and Jeff — “Russia is in Europe, isn’t it?” “Yes, more and more.” “It’s not far from here. You just cross the Channel and turn left.” What looks like idle flirting over maps actually doubles as edgy political commentary. Brigadoon opened in 1947, just as the Truman Doctrine was tightening Western focus on Russian expansion. These throwaway geography gags feel whimsical, but they carry a Cold War weight. Even in a land where magic pauses the clock, nothing in the world of men (or in Europe) remains still for long. SOLUTION: Among the many possible answers to this week’s quiz: Parade (Leo Frank), Hairspray (Edna and Tracy Turnblad), Chicago (Roxie and Velma), Les Misérables (Jean Valjean), Man of La Mancha (Don Quixote/Cervantes), and the title character in Sweeney Todd. The Broadway Maven is a vibrant educational community that helps its members think more deeply about musical theater. Every month, members may attend 5-15 expert-led classes and innovative Broadway experiences, all for just $18. We also foster enthusiasm for Broadway through the FREE weekly Substack newsletter MARQUEE and host an expansive YouTube channel. It’s your home for Broadway appreciation. Contact The Broadway Maven at DavidBenkof@gmail.com. You're currently a free subscriber to MARQUEE: The Broadway Maven's Weekly Blast. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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