B'way Generation Gap

It ain't just between the grown-ups and the tweens, says Riedel:

Just how big is the audience now for the classic old Broadway shows? Smart producers I know believe that the audience has finally clicked over from the World War II generation to the baby-boom generation.

Your grandmother loved "South Pacific." Your mother loves "Jersey Boys."
Good point. Has the "nostalgia era" just moved up a few decades? And will classic 40s and 50s musicals (and plays in general) soon be greeted as if they were 19th century curiosities?

That was the feeling I had at Hairspray, surrounded by bopping boomers who quite unironically behaved as if they were at Bye Bye Birdie. See also the continuing Grease machine. (Holding steady at 85% capacity.)

Riedel's context, by the way, is the push to bring back the Laurents-Lupone Gypsy on Broadway next year. Uphill battle, believe it or not.