Black box space on Broadway — Page 3

Melissa, agreed. There are, of course, a bunch of theatres in the 42nd corridor (and elsewhere in midtown west) that are parts of development deals that included theatres, and there are also air rights transfers galore involving broadway theatres. Not all of these things are non-controverial, but I also think the Hudson Yards area will become a destination for theatres eventually. Funny that the ill-fated 37 Arts complex may end up being at the center of a new universe, a decade or so too late for its original producer-developers.

One of the things I dislike most about the board is the way users assume they know what other users do and do not know about. I don't want to get into it, but I am in fact very familiar with Broadway economics and budgets, and I freely admit what I do and do not know. The people I've talked to that have pooh-poohed this idea have not been serious business people, just acquaintances I've sat around playing what-ifs with.

Where is this extraordinary extra expense you're talking about (you say it would equal the cost of 10 shows)? Rental on a Broadway house is usually going to be around 6% of the gross - if you have a show doing $800K in gross, that's $48K a week, a bit more than $200K a month, and around $2.5M a year. I honestly have no remote clue about midtown Manhattan commercial real estate rental prices. How much was the monthly lease for the Virgin Megastore spacem for instance? I ask honestly - was it more than $200K? If so, then I begin to see where this model falls apart. It doesn't have to be its own building - as long as there were sufficient public access where you could efficiently traffic 1000-odd patrons in and out in a safe and timely fashion, it could be anywhere in the League-defined "grid".

And I've worked in spaces similar to what I'm talking about so I've seen spaces transformed. I did and saw multiple things at the Zipper Theatre, which was literally an old zipper factory with mostly old car seats (which were surprisingly comfortable.) The Head Theatre at Centerstage Baltimore is an open space that can be reconfigured season to season, and I've done both a big proscenium-style musical with 500 seats, and also a 300-seat thrust configuration. What about those types of models can't be scaled up for a Broadway-sized project?

A Broadway theatre comes equipped with very little - you're renting all your lighting and sound gear anyway. Obviously installing some kind of complicated flying/trap system will probably be prohibitive, but a show with that kind of scenic requirement wouldn't be the right fit for this model anyway.

They reconstructed the frickin' RSC space at the Park Avenue Armory, and what I'm picturing is way less ornate than that. Any automation means you're going to be building a second deck and bringing in all the winches and motors, anyway. What difference does it make whether it goes onto the floor of an existing Broadway stage or somewhere else?

Yes, it will require extra money up front for conversion, but how is that so different from a Broadway show with a super-complex physical production? Can't it be figured into the set budget and the take-in? Let's say Hal Prince wanted to revive "Candide" in its environmental staging. Why not at a space like Roseland? Where does the economic model break down? Again, I ask honestly. I'm not seeing it. How does it inflate the weekly breakeven beyond the point where you can make your nut? How does it inflate the preproduction to such an extent that recoupment becomes impossible? How does it significantly scale back your potential gross? I don't see where the numbers are so wildly out-of-step with a typical production, they're just allocated a bit differently.

This all reminds me of the threads that pop up from time to time where people ask why all the midweek matinees are on Wednesday, and wouldn't it make sense to spread them out over the week? Those threads are filled with millions of reasons why it would never, ever work (even though it does in London). And, of course, there are now provisions in the Equity contracts to allow for Friday matinees and 6-show weekends, and several shows are starting Thursday matinees next year. But according to the BWW braintrust, that cannot and will not ever happen.

I just finished reading the Joseph Papp/Public Theatre Oral History and lots of people told him that what he was doing was impossible, too. I'd love to see Broadway burst beyond of the proscenium model and I don't see why it can't be done by bold, creative thinkers.

Temms--I'm not even sure we are talking about the same thing. Artc3 wants immersive theatre on Broadway, but you are talking about the Zipper and the scaling up the Head which is something else completely. Honestly, there's too much flux in what you're saying (remember those enterprising producers? I really don't know how to respond. Broadway theatres cannot be opened like popups in empty stores, but in any event the rent around the old Virgin store is about $1200-1500 a square foot, and that's triple net. You'd be talking about removing floors and heaven knows how you deal with the columns. (Broadway audiences don't fancy them.) We are not talking a load in, we are talking many many millions of dollars. (Think Spider-Man and keep going.)The basic problem with everything you're saying is, and I am not trying to insult you, naive. These serious people you haven't spoken to? Where are they? Why aren't they putting up these shows at Manhattan Center where there are no fixed seats?

Artc3--I think the problem is divergence. I don't want to see Here Lies Love with 1200 people. That's no longer immersive, it's standing on Times Square during rush hour. Think Fuerza Bruta and start multiplying. So a theatre owner and a producer want big, and the show wants small. It's not a contract issue. The Helen Hayes (except for the current special situation), the Booth, the Lyceum, etc--they hold small shows, but you want big shows set in an immersive environment.

I understand your disappointment re HLL, but I don't think a new Broadway theatre is, or ever would be, the solution. If we see it again, I think it'll be out of the theatre district. I do think there will be new spaces, and I also think that a non profit could well build a convertible/flexible space. There are, of course, several of those around town, but not in the commercial world.

There is a lot of kudos in being a hit show off Broadway, not as much as Broadway, where you have the glamour of being able to compete for a Tony and if you are a hit show the potential to make loads of money is fantastic, but shows do get ruined by moving uptown, think Scottsboro Boys, think Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, think Lysistrata Jones that could of had respectable runs off Broadway.

Broadway theatre can do things off Broadway theatre can't, mainly due to their superior budgets, but this also works the other way, where off Broadway can do fantastic things Broadway never can and enviromental/immersive theatre, is such a genre of theatre, that works better as a off Broadway venture.

Temms, I understand the temptation to bristle at the inherently conservative impulses of Broadway, but it is important to remember that the whole of Broadway is a complicated and (to steal from EA) delicate balance and most folks who show up thinking they can build a better mousetrap end up failing. I think it is good to have these discussions, because from all of them perhaps a kernel of an idea can emerge. But in many cases there are reasons for things, though they are not always obvious. First, Broadway is not an open ended thing-it needs to be finite to function. Second, everything has to be filtered through the real estate market. It's fine to say you could remodel the Foxwoods into a black box, but you can't do that without ripping out the upper tiers and costing yourself a large number of seats. The Beaumont has a thrust stage-it is also a non-profit sitting on essentially free land. You could not afford to build that theatre commercially in the theatre district. Likewise, the Armory-yes it is a cool space, but replicating that in the theatre district would cost more than a billion dollars. (It only exists on the upper east side because it is landmarked (and nonprofit).

I am a very strong proponent of artistic experimentation, and I love many things that are presented in novel ways, whether it is Natasha, Here Lies Love or whatever else. But I am not a strong proponent of trying to fit square pegs in round holes, and sometimes you have to recognize that's what you are doing. There are quite a few places in New York where shows can be mounted in flexible spaces-in addition to the armory, we have/had/will have St Ann's as a major if smaller venue, and the original Black Watch in the original space still stands as one of the most thrilling things I've ever seen anywhere. But it would be a joke on Broadway. Similarly, War Horse had but one option for Broadway, and that was at the Beaumont. Could another non-profit come along and build something more flexible on Broadway? Yes, and I wish that one of the Broadway non-profits had done so. But if you look at the subscriber base of MTC and RTC, creating a black box to do edgy shows is not logical. And it would require a billionaire (literally) to donate the money for it. I agree with you that the Broadway brand is valuable, but that's the reason it is so carefully guarded.

I just meant that it is a show with a non-theatrical demographic, with a juggernaut of different productions feeding it, a fairly shoestring budget (in context) and so on. For whatever combination of reasons, it has been able to sustain itself in the Hayes. I still believe there is a disconnect between the demand you seem to think exists, the prohibitive cost of testing that demand in an actual broadway theatre designed as you would like to see it and any real chance of actualizing this idea. But were it to materialize, I'd happily be in the audience.