David Mamet Rolls In His Grave* Crying, “Oy, Where Are The Adults These Days?”

Broadway producers look for that lucrative tween market, which obviously has more cash than it knows what to do with:

For Broadway producers, 10-year-old Jamie Carroll looks like an ideal theatergoer: she downloads scores off of iTunes, is a fervent proselytizer when she likes something and has lots of friends, two of whom she brought along to a recent Saturday matinee of “Legally Blonde.” “A lot of my friends say it’s the best musical they’ve ever seen,” she said.

Maybe. But Jamie’s father and her 14-year-old brother would not join them, considering the show too girly. Even her mother, Tacey Carroll, was only present as a chaperon: “This is a little more for them,” she said, echoing several other mothers at the theater, one of whom even dropped off her young charges and went shopping.

And that’s the rub for Broadway producers, for whom teenage and tween girls have become the demographic of the moment, wooed by marketing campaigns and featured as central characters in a flurry of shows in development, including “13,” about a teenager from New York who is transplanted to Indiana; “Princesses,” which is basically “High School Musical” meets “Gossip Girl”; and a musical adaptation of the movie “Clueless.”

Increasingly, though, some worry that the sugar-and-spice enthusiasm may be misplaced, because while teenagers and tweens may be helpful in creating a hit, they are far from enough to ensure one. For that, you still need grown-ups — lots of paying grown-ups — to want to come to a show.

*Just kidding, Mr. Mamet! We can’t wait for that Duran Duran thing to end to see your next play staged!

“Floating” Is The New “Black”

This Summer we’ve had floating pools, floating dramatic presentations, floating science barges and now floating opera:

The Mary A. Whalen, a 69-year-old retired tanker, used to deliver diesel, gas and kerosene up and down the Atlantic coast. The tanker — docked at Red Hook’s container port normally off-limits to the public — makes its grand debut this weekend as a cultural maritime center with the Brooklyn-based Vertical Player Repertory’s version of “Il Tabarro.”

The repertory had done a land-locked version of the Puccini opera about adultery, murder and the rough lives of waterfront workers, but wanted to do it again on the water. When it discovered the tanker run by the nonprofit PortSide NewYork, the two groups dove into the production.

“It was our idea all along to use the tanker for performances,” said Carolina Salguero, director of PortSide NewYork. “The concept is to become a waterfront hub” to bring the marine industry together with its inland neighbors.

. . .

Judith Barnes, Vertical Player Repertory’s executive director, enjoyed hearing stories from the stevedores, who will actually share the stage with the performers. The opera, originally set on a barge on Paris, is being transformed as Red Hook circa 1938 — the year the tanker was built.

“We really wanted to ground it — or perhaps I should say anchor it — with a connection to reality,” Barnes said. “The jury is still out on the acoustics. We’re not using amplification and have no band shell, but water is a great amplifier. So is the concrete pier, and the boat is metal, which is good. We have to contend with ambient noise and the elements.”

Despite the challenges, Barnes wants to do it again with other waterfront works. “This is truly bringing art to life.”

Location Scout: Gowanus Inlet.

As The Residents Living On Avenue Q Will Tell You, It’s All Downhill Once The Music Meets The Book

It’s been the subject of Craig’s List performance art and a television show. Now, there’s the musical:

With its residents already sporting multicolored neckties, cowboy boots and top hats, Brooklyn’s hippest neighborhood already resembles a costume drama. Now Billyburg is about to hit the stage for real, in a musical, no less, featuring songs such as “Craigslist Hookup” and ode-to-the-L-Train “One Stop [To Excitement].”

See also: Williamsburg! The Musical.

Sometimes Self-Obsession Cuts Both Ways

Better that they’re talking about it than simply ignoring it like one more tired old David Blaine stunt:

When Clinton Hill artist Travis Clarke decided to spend seven nights sunset to sunrise in the eight-by-eight front window of Soapbox Gallery at 636 Dean St., he came prepared with typed description of the live art installation, titled “Wishing dead trees back to life.”

The piece is about “attempting to do something that seems impossible,” said the artist’s statement posted at the gallery, which sits between Carlton and Vanderbilt — directly across the street from Bruce Ratner’s controversial arena, residential, office and retail project.

Little did Clarke know just how the statement, the dead tree limb in the window and his somnolent, halogen-lit body next to it would resonate with neighborhood residents, many of whom have learned a whole lot about trying do something that indeed has proven to be (so far) impossible.

“Could the tree also be representing the possibility of a future dead neighborhood?” asked one area resident, Lumi Rolley, on her anti–Atlantic Yards blog, No Land Grab.

The owner of the gallery, Jimmy Greenfield, also couldn’t resist the metaphor.

“It’s an homage to nature right across a piece of property that will eventually be covered in tarmac against the wishes of a community that tried very hard to stop [it].”

. . .

“I just don’t believe he can actually sleep,” [Dean Street resident Jim Everitt] said. “A lot of trucks and buses bang around down here.”

Clarke agreed that getting rest was no easy task, even with two mats as bedding.

“The other night someone yelled obscenities at me,” he told The Brooklyn Paper during the daylight hours when he is not imprisoned in the gallery. “He was with his family and children. A couple of people have commented on how the piece is an example of gentrification. People talk about money a lot.”

. . .

Clarke said a connection could be drawn between his art and Ratner’s controversial, state-supported development, albeit not one he made before his nights on Dean Street.

“People in this neighborhood went up against a very powerful system,” he said, adding that the connection wasn’t “the most curious thing” he heard from passing sidewalk critics.

Can Anyone Explain Why This Isn’t Already A Reality Television Show?

The next Music Under New York class is announced, and it’s a beaut:

Coming soon to a subway platform near you: an insect goddess, a flamenco guitarist and a beatboxer who plays rap music on the flute.

Introducing 21 new sub way stars — musicians who recently won MTA auditions to perform for straphangers, part of the annual Music Under New York program.

“I’m the insect god dess that’s come to lift everybody out of their boring day!” announced Meghan McGeary, who kicked off the 20th year of the program by singing and playing drums in the rock-opera duo Dagmar 2.

Wearing a gold bustier and matching high heeled boots, an aviator cap with goggles and a gold- trimmed set of green mesh wings, McGeary sang a quirky song about a guy who can’t get out of bed in the morning – and the “insect goddess who plunges from the ether to rescue him.”

. . .

Flute beatboxer Greg Pattillo turned heads with his unusual use of the classical instrument, which he uses to play everything from Sesame Street to raps like Jay-Z’s Hard Knock Life. “Flute has such negative connotations,” he lamented. “I’m out to make flute cool again.”

The 21 winners were whittled down from 500 who sent tapes to MTA officials. Seventy finalists auditioned before a panel of MTA officials and fellow musicians.

The winners are allowed to perform in the subways for life, including selling their CDs. They include a country singer, Japanese tap dancers, a man who plays the kora, a West African stringed instrument, and a duo that plays the erhu, a Chinese stringed instrument.