La La Land now had an official opening date, and the Olympia Theater was throwing every dime they could scrape together into marketing (which, let's be real, wasn't a ton, but it was everything they had).
They blew the whole publicity budget just to crank the heat up a little.
If you were a Broadway junkie, you couldn't miss it: full-page ads in all the big theater magazines, a giant billboard out front of the Olympia, the works. The message was loud and clear: something new was coming.
Walk down the Great White Way and somebody would shove a La La Land flyer in your hand, grinning like they'd just discovered fire: "Hey! Brand-new musical at the Olympia, La La Land! Come check it out!"
Most people barely glanced at it. The title didn't ring a single bell.
Tourists and regulars kept walking, politely (or not so politely) waving off the flyers. A guy and a girl dancing under the stars? Cute, but… what is this, 1957?
A jazz musical about chasing dreams in L.A., no famous source material, no big-name composer attached; yeah, good luck getting New Yorkers to care.
Still, a handful of people (mostly young women) stopped and took a flyer. Romantic love stories still hit that demographic right in the feels.
Bottom line: the buzz was basically nonexistent. Everyone in the production had already braced for a slow start. No built-in audience, no safety net. They were banking on one thing: if the show was actually great, word would spread. It happened with Hairspray. Quality can still win… in theory.
The real question hanging in the air: could a Hollywood director actually make something that Broadway crowds would eat up?
March 1, 2006.
6 p.m.
A drizzly, miserable Thursday night.
Curtain time across Broadway. While the big houses had lines snaking around the block in the rain, the Olympia looked like a ghost town.
A handful of people shuffled up to the box office, grabbed tickets in thirty seconds flat, and ducked inside. The vending machines by the door hadn't sold a single soda all day; the drinks in there were probably older than some of the ushers.
Inside the theater: maybe a hundred people scattered across twelve hundred seats. Dripping umbrellas, damp coats, zero excitement.
You could overhear the conversations and almost thank the rain.
"Ugh, it's pouring. I'm not standing in line for Wicked tonight. This place had no wait; whatever."
"La La Land? Never heard of it, but it's dry in here."
"Figured I'd duck in and kill a couple hours till the rain stops."
"Rain ruined my whole theater mood, but… sure, this'll do."
Pretty much everyone in the house tonight was only there because everywhere else had a line and they wanted to get out of the downpour.
Joy actually found herself grateful for the weather. Without it, opening night might have been twenty people and a tumbleweed.
Still. Butts in seats were butts in seats.
Backstage, the cast was buzzing with nerves, throwing on costumes and slapping on makeup. A lot of them hadn't been on a stage in front of a real audience in forever. Some had day jobs, but every single one of them loved this crazy business enough to be here tonight. Nobody wanted to be part of a flop, but everybody secretly dreamed of being in the next big thing.
Joy stood in the wings, staring out at the half-empty house, stomach in knots. Could she really pull this off? Could she make these soggy, grumpy strangers fall in love?
Too late to worry now. Showtime.
Less than a third of the seats were filled when the lights went down.
House chatter:
"New show, huh? Never heard of it. Looks like the whole creative team is rookies."
"Eh, just killing time. Hope it's worth the ticket."
"Cheapest seats on Broadway, at least."
"Heard the cast isn't even full-time pros… kinda regretting this already."
Then the countdown clock hit zero.
The overture slammed into the house like a shot of pure adrenaline.
That brassy, playful, sexy jazz hit everyone square in the chest. The stage exploded with color and movement, and the tiny audience actually shut up for the first time all night.
Holy crap; real, honest-to-God jazz. Fresh, clever, cheeky jazz that didn't sound like anything they'd heard since Chicago.
People leaned forward a little. Okay… this might not suck.
And then the story started rolling.
It's the kind of hopelessly beautiful love story that makes you embarrassed for how much it gets to you. A struggling actress and a broke jazz pianist fall for each other while chasing impossible dreams. Yeah, it's been done before; except somehow this one felt personal. Like every viewer saw pieces of their own life up there.
A city where people burst into song when they're happy and dance when they're in love. Endless twilight piers, planetarium nights, mountaintop waltzes under the stars; L.A. never looked so magical.
Dreams make everybody equal.
A 30-piece live band sat right in the middle of the stage, riffing like mad, trading licks with the actors, even bantering with the audience. The (female!) conductor doubled as emcee and sometimes straight-up joined the dancing. Music and story melted together perfectly.
Every big number was pure movie-magic romance: the waltz under the stars, the tap dance that turns into a conversation, the two of them floating above the city like they owned the night.
The whole show used song and dance to say the stuff regular words never could: the butterflies, the heartbreak, the what-ifs.
The finale drenched the stage in the brightest, boldest colors imaginable; then slammed you back into real life with a bittersweet gut punch.
The curtain came down on an ending that wasn't perfect… but felt honest.
First reaction from the audience: Damn. That was romantic as hell.
Second reaction: Wow, they did all that with like six actors and a couple of sets? Cheap and gorgeous.
Third reaction: That jazz score! It teased you, flirted with you, broke your heart, and put it back together.
People walked out floating. The women especially looked like they'd just fallen in love for the first time. Pink bubbles practically hovered over their heads. You'd swear somebody slipped something in the water.
Joy watched them file out, smiling like idiots, and thought: Okay. We might have something here.
But the box office didn't care about pink bubbles.
For the entire first week, every single performance hovered right around 33% capacity. Same as opening night.
The cast started panicking.
"Told you we never should've done this show. It's career suicide."
"She has no idea what she's doing. All that big talk, and now look; dead room every night."
"All these months of work, down the drain."
Gaultier kept calming everyone down. "Guys, chill. This week's Broadway Reporter hasn't dropped yet. If the review's strong, next week could look totally different."
So the entire company pinned every last hope on one publication.
The Broadway Reporter: the Bible of theater. Every week they score new shows based on audience buzz and pro critics. A high score = instant sold-out status. A low score = close in a month. No recordings, no cast albums yet, no YouTube bootlegs; if people want to see the show, they have to buy a ticket. That one magazine basically decided who lived and who died.
Hairspray opened to the same empty houses last year… then the Reporter gave it an 8 and it exploded overnight.
Joy and the whole team waited on pins and needles.
Was La La Land going to be the disaster that proved she was out of her depth… or the love letter that conquered Broadway?
March 7, 2006.
The new issue hit the stands.
One of the senior critics wrote:
"Cynicism isn't welcome in La La Land. The show is immune to doubt, to eye-rolling, to every jaded instinct we New Yorkers carry in our bones. We know it's a fantasy, but we don't have the heart to pop the bubble; because somewhere inside, we all still remember our own pink-colored dreams.
I haven't felt this mushy about a musical in years. The score the show got says everything that needs to be said."
Everyone flipped to the back page, heart in throat.
If you hadn't seen the show yet, the number probably floored you.
If you had seen it, you just grinned like an idiot.
NEW MUSICALS THIS WEEK
La La Land: 9 out of 10.
That was it.
Didn't matter what anyone else thought anymore.
Broadway had a new darling, and everybody knew it.