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The documentary Show Business: The Road to Broadway journeys behind the scenes of four Broadway productions mounted during the 2003-4 theatrical season that ultimately garnered nominations for Best Musical: Wicked, the Rosie O’Donnell/Boy George collaboration Taboo, Tony Kushner’s Caroline, or Change and the iconoclastic puppet review Avenue Q.

The film provides a glimpse into each stage of the theatrical process for these productions – from auditions to staging to rehearsals to previews to opening night to awards season. Show Business’ gives a rare behind-the-scenes look at the agony and ecstasy of Broadway.

Anyone who loves the theater has to see it. Following the principle participants of all four shows, and in a neat, snarky twist, the critics and columnists who might possibly tear into these shows on opening night, the tone of the film is slightly too genteel in some regards (why no clarification on Taboo’s backstage drama, for instance, when it is actually brought up within the picture?), and Berinstein, a current producer of the musical version of Legally Blonde, seems too reverent to get at some of the scabs that need picking. (And why Alan Cumming is so prevalent here is beyond reason, besides being this film’s producer, he has no direct correlation to anything depicted). (Barnes & Noble)

Watch the preview now