Bruce Springsteen on Broadway: The Boss on His ‘First Real Job’<br />Thinking that only Broadway could offer the kind of elegant, intimate experience they were looking for, Mr. Springsteen<br />and Mr. Landau scouted theaters available from all three of the major Broadway owners — Shubert, Nederlander and Jujamcyn — before deciding on Jujamcyn’s Walter Kerr, one of the smallest.<br />People stay in their seats.” He added, “It invites a certain decorum and a certain atmosphere<br />that is very conducive to the nuances of what Bruce does with this particular show.”<br />In Colts Neck, Mr. Springsteen led me through his home studio, a long, wide-open room with row upon row of guitars — “the land of 1,000 guitars,” he said with a laugh — along with assorted keyboards<br />and drums, where he has worked on most of his music for a decade.<br />“Our idea was to respect Broadway as a unique place<br />and to try and to do what’s customary as long as our creative needs were being met,” Mr. Landau said, listing off what he called “the conventions of Broadway”: “The show starts, there’s absolute silence.<br />In Broadway terms, Mr. Springsteen is planning a one-man show; unlike in his arena marathons,<br />he’ll be onstage for two hours with a baby grand piano and an “array of guitars,” he said.<br />But he intends to offer something different from a typical concert, where the songs and spoken words will add up to what he calls a “third entity.”<br />“This isn’t a rock concert transported onto a small stage,” Mr. Roth said.<br />“The way he combines the spoken words with the songs he’s chosen to do sounds like a very simple thing,” Mr. Landau said.
