The definition of a "flop"- Page 2

[Liz_Bennet]

Posted: 6/26/05 at 12:42pm

Do you think a show that takes the currently trendy path of eventually recouping on its tour counts as a flop or not? I think it's nice to have a firm, formal definition of a flop, but I'm not sure if these shows count or not.

[Thenardier]

Posted: 6/26/05 at 1:16pm

Well, if a show has a tour, it means that it has to recoup its investment made to pay for the tour AND the sit-down production.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 6/26/05 at 1:21pm

Some shows recoup with post-Broadway income. SWEENEY TODD and INTO THE WOODS both moved into "profitable" status thanks to post-Broadway tours.

Hal Prince once explained that there are Hits and Flops which is purely a box-office term. And there are Successes and Failures in terms of what the show accomplishes. On the BROADWAY documentary he sums it up saying PACIFIC OVERTURES was success. "It was a flop, but it was a success."

Some people use a show's financial status to justify their like or dislike of a show. Unless you invested in a show, its financial status doesn't matter at all.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 6/26/05 at 2:05pm

From the interview with Hal Prince comes this....

"An unlikely candidate for commercial success would surely be SWEENEY TODD. It ran two years on Broadway, but it took eleven years to pay back its original investment. From now on, everything that comes in for that show is in the profit column. And I think it is indisputable that Sondheim and Wheeler wrote a work of art, with no mind on the box office."