Best Musical Tony Winners That Were Financial Flops — Page 2

"ALW has gotten away with mediocre shows before but this time the public was not fooled."
The show opened with the largest advance in history, and it got some of the best critical reviews of any ALW show. In addition, a lot of the public enjoyed the show, but similar to Follies, it found that it was incredibly expensive to run. You basically neded a sold out house to try and recoup money, and the cast, orchstra, and set were huge. The public was fooled, because the show was well attended for 4 years, before it started losing money quickly only because itcouldn't sell out every night.

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Eliminate the best musical revival award? That's a terrible idea.

While some revivals - especially those of really old, "dated" shows - tweak the book, there aren't many (FLOWER DRUM SONG?) that throw out the entire book and re-write it. The score always remains virtually the same. Some are carbon copies. While THE PAJAMA GAME boasts a re-worked script, it's only here and there - much of the original book is there. To then qualify a show that opened 50+ years ago as a BEST MUSICAL just doesn't make sense. It already won that award, or it was already nominated for that award. It's score has already been recognized. It just doesn't make any sense.

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You know, "Passion", "Titanic", "Kiss of the Spider Woman", "Sweeney Todd", and "Sunset Boulevard" are some of my favorite shows. And despite the fact that they were financial flops by the end of their runs


A show's financial status should be no barrier to liking a show (and it should not be used as weapon against you by those who didn't like a show.)

The balance sheet should ONLY matter to you if you were an investor.

Believe it or not there are investors who happily put up the $ for a show they believe in even knowing it may not pay back 100%, let alone show a profit. But Broadway investors often take part in several shows and the huge returns on a smash hit often offset relatively small losses on shows that run 6-months to a year but close without recouping.

Anyone who invested in the original SWEENEY TODD knew that they were part of a ground-breaking musical, and even if it only returned 59% of its investment upon closing, they probably knew the show would have a life after Broadway. And their faith was rewarded some 10 years later when through regional stagings and multiple revivals it finally moved into the black.

I don't know why we as fans are so concerned with a show's financial status, when what really matters is whether the show achieved all of its goals (making it a success) or not.

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Updated On: 4/3/06 at 12:02 PM

It used to be test of a show's popularity if it ran more than 500 performance. That level alse seemed to generally ensure financial success as well. (Many hits in the 40s and 50s ran less than 500.. REDHEAD, SILK STOCKINGS, PLAIN AND FANCY, THE BOY FRIEND) but in the 60s a handful of popular hits closed in the red: MILK AND HONEY was the first. Then WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN, GOLDEN BOY and later FOLLIES and the rvival of CANDIDE all achieved long runs but failed to pay back. A show not paying back after a two or three run is no longer proof that it wasn't popular...just that the costs were above what it could bring in.

At 804 performances, RAGTIME should have been a hit, but with an inflated breakeven of $600K per week (though that figure is normal now for big musicals, at tehb time it was $150K above average.) it would have needed to run 4 years at capacity to pay off.


Now Toronto's LORD OF THE RINGS comes with a weekly nut of $1 million. If it sells out for one year it can pay back its $27 million productuion costs.

The stupid thing is that producers believe audiences want to see a show based on who much it costs and trumpet those costs in all the press materials. Hollywood too has spun madly out of control with a "bet we can spend more" mentality. And yet in terms of return on its investment, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN was probably far more successful that any of the expensive (overblown) blockbusters we were bombarded with last summer.

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