AMERICAN PSYCHO CLOSING — Page 4

More and more it seems that the rush to open a show before the end of the season is a really a crap shoot- I know opening a show to begin with is a crap shoot, but I have to believe if this opened in November, when critics aren't as grump with the glut of shows, and time to build and audience, things may have been different. Glad that Evan Hansen isn't waiting until the spring.

Have to see this a second time before closing. This was bold, and while always risky, was such a fascinating and enthralling experience for me. Really sad for this absolutely killer cast. Hope we get another Shiek show in the future.

I'm shocked the producers are throwing in the towel already. They needed a new more trashy marketing campaign and waited till the summer was over. This show made close to 600k this week, to close on that this soon is nuts. Bad producing on this show.

JBroadway said: ""Millennials don't appreciate the 80's, would rather spend $5000 for hip hop American history"

I KNOW you're trolling if you think the College debt-ridden millennial are the ones paying $5000 on Hamilton.



jbird5 said: "What do you mean, Evan Hansen got the Fisher Account?"

Hilarious. Thank you.



"

I'm camping it up... Seriously, I loved this production !

This will be missed. Such a stylish show - best projection design on Broadway. Some riveting stage pictures throughout the piece. And such a unique tone and score. That said, I agree with the poster who opined that it was more suited to Off-Broadway. Black comedy and satire are hard to pull off— the genres can easily divide and confuse audiences.

Still — the show wasn't doing that badly and the summer was just beginning. They beat several other shows last week.

I would have loved to have been a fly-on-the-wall when the producers discussed whether to close or not. What math was involved? What was the writing on the wall? Had they promised their investors a tighter limit on losses than is usual?

Skip23 said: "Just goes to show: Middle aged women from New Jersey just didn't want to see a edgy musical about some snake of a guy killing people (or not). They aren't going to get laid after that night at the theatre."

Complete tangent, but as someone who uses dates to help fuel my theatregoing, Broadway hasn't not been making it easy to see "date" shows lately.

Mike66 said: " I think the problem is much (but not entirely) related to the fact that Broadway (especially in the summer) relies on out of towners coming in and seeing a show or two. These occasional visitors want to see (a) something they've heard about; (b) something that's familiar in style or topic; (c) something their friends back home will have heard about.

Psycho is none of those things. "

See, I have to disagree. To me, American Psycho does have a lot of name recognition. Less than Disney. Maybe somewhat on par with The Color Purple. More than Finding Neverland and Waitress and (apparently) Tuck Everlasting.

Damn.

I thought this one had enough juice until at least Labor Day

"No-no, no-no, no-no."

I'm bummed about this. The more I thought about the show, the more I liked it. I was hoping to catch it a second time, but it doesn't look like I'll be able to. Hoping for a cast recording.

haterobics said: "undercoverusher said: "I bet Hamilton will continue to force the rest of the musicals on Broadway to fold one by one..... Lemmings, I tell you "

How can a show with no available tickets affect the current grosses of other shows?!"



I would say one show might not but there are people who have their mind set on seeing the hit show or shows when they come into town and if they can't see it, they see nothing. A few weeks ago I was chatting onlime with someone who thought they were going to come in and see HAMILTON. They had no clue how sold out it was and what they would have to do to possibly get a ticket. They decided that they would skip seeing a show. I have talked to and know a lot of people who do this. Two of my best friends who have had 2 chances to see the Lion King tour for much cheaper waited until they could see it in NYC and that is all they wanted to see. They ordered tickets months in advance and saw it while here.



Again, these people probably don't put a big dent in other shows' grosses but there are a lot of people who won't see anything other than what they had their minds set to see.

I have to say that I'm surprised how many people think this show was doing well. It was earning half its potential and the theater was rarely more than 60% of capacity. Of that 60%, there was a significant number of comp tickets and tdf tickets. A look at telecharge would show that advance sales were too low that the week-to-week survival strategy would star failing next week.

Bummed for the cast and other folks working on the show. I saw this last weekend and while I had a fun time seeing it, I didn't really think it was very good at all. I could not imagine it having a very widespread appeal, so this notice doesn't shock me, but I'm glad I saw it when I did.

Really a shame. Too bad they couldn't hold out to see whether the summer tourist influx could be lured to the Schoenfeld. The show was just dark and funny enough and often hypnotic. Better than WAITRESS in my humble opinion.

I wish that in general, BWW articles were better written (more comprehensive). The article about American Psycho gave no additional information about the show's closing, in particular why the show is closing, beyond what was stated as the headline. What's the point of that? That's so d@mned frustrating!

From what I can glean from reading articles from other sources, and using the charts of Weekly Grosses that are available at BBW, I don't think American Psycho is closing early. It looks like it's been doing poorly financially from the beginning of its run. I'm hoping others will chime in regarding interpreting the graph and charts.

The show completely lost its initial investment, and compared to other shows, it's never fared particularly well in that 'Gross % Potential' column of the weekly grosses chart. It's been stuck at ~50% of its earning potential since its second week. Other shows are hovering around that 50% mark, too but they may or may not have recouped at least a portion of their initial investment, and that makes a difference. Some shows at that 50% mark are shows that have been running for over a year now (i.e., King and I and Fun Home) so you might expect their financial potential to have already peaked.

If you look at last weeks grosses, Hamilton performed at 132.2% of its potential, Aladdin was at 90.5%, Beautiful was at 85.5%, Paramour 92.9%, Shuffle Along 84.4%, Waitress 96.4%, She Loves Me 76.4%, School of Rock 61.3%... Poor, poor Tuck Everlasting was least successful at 29.3%, which makes me very sad because I really wanted Andrew Keenan-Bolger to have great success in a starring role. Bright Star was also hovering around the 50% mark, which may not bode well.

Coupled with consistently underachieving in its financial potential, the show was honored with only two Tony nominations: best sets and best lighting. Although I'm glad the show is being honored with those possible wins, neither is the kind of award that would generally attract punters to see a musical. Score, choreography, actors awards - any of those might have offered some hope, but still don't compensate for the show's financial shortfall.

Does anyone interpret the numbers differently, or need to steer my thinking into a better understanding of those charts, and that graph from the article?