Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 1/8/17 — Page 3

QueenAlice said: ". But, since this was Scott Sanders and Oprah's personal dream project to have this on Broadway - perhaps a recoupment schedule that showed a realistic return wasn't important (assuming they put in most of the money themselves).

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Several of you have mentioned this in one way or another. And I don't think it's to be overlooked with this production.

I think if I sat down with Oprah this morning, and asked her if she cared about recouping her investment, she would laugh in my face.

This production has "reclaimed" the luster of a work that many felt was shortchanged in the original production. It's made a star of Cynthia Erivo. It returned Heather Headley to Broadway. It attracted a diverse audience, including many, many African Americans who have not been a core constituency of Broadway audiences, and it is a quite correct point of pride in that community --whether someone saw the show or not. And now it might go out on the road and reach an even larger audience.

For someone like Oprah, it's hard to imagine that she is anything less than ecstatic about the outcome.

I'm sure Oprah doesn't mind. I'm talking about the (presumed) other investors. But if they shared her vision that the art and the opportunity was more important than the money - everybody wins.

@alice people invest in shows all the time to make money, thinking those shows will find an audience and achieve that goal. Most of those shows don't. That is ALL that happened here: no incompetence, no incorrect recoupment schedule; just a show that under-performed. A lot of people went to see the show, but not enough and not paying enough. Who knew that not as many people would pay big money to see JHud play Shug as would to see BMid play Dolly? I have no optimism you will ever see this point, but if you isolate the frames during which JHud was in the show and extrapolate it to the full run, the show still would not have recouped.

"But the main role was already developed and ready and that is Cynthia Erivio who again learned her role for the Menier production, all other roles are secondary, so rehearsals could have been brought down to half the normal time."

If you really think that rehearsal time could be cut by 50% merely because one cast member knew her lines and songs, then I'm going to have to discard anything you have ever said and will ever say about theatre.

Updated On: 1/11/17 at 03:34 PM

You could hit the 50% the main and hardest role has been developed and ready. You need to train the lesser roles to work with Cynthia.

When new principal casts come in they don't shut the show for 8 weeks, to re-develop the roles for the show and start over again.

So if a show goes in rehearsal for 8 weeks + rehearsal whilst in previews ordinarily, then with the main role developed you can half it to 4 weeks + rehearsal time whilst in preview,

So this is what I am merely saying, before you get rude and try and score points off me, to compensate for you own inabilities. But then again I don't come on here and claim to be an expert in theatre. Still though the main question I asked hasn't been answered, where did that $8m get spent?

"You could hit the 50% the main and hardest role has been developed and ready. You need to train the lesser roles to work with Cynthia."

Well, it's certainly clear that you don't have the slightest clue how a show is developed or how rehearsals work. Do you think The Color Purple is merely a series of skits with Celie doing all the work and everyone else just fitting in around her at random?

"When new principal casts come in they don't shut the show for 8 weeks, to re-develop the roles for the show and start over again."

Right - they rehearse the new actors during the day while the former cast does performances. Do you think they wait until after an actor has left to replace them?

This is really one of the silliest things I've ever read on this board.

There is certainly an industry standard (if not an Equity rule). Keep in mind too that shows are very often still raising money during the rehearsal process -- legally, they can raise money right up until Opening Night. Having a standard rehearsal period is invaluable not only for the actors and the creatives (who sometimes can't do their work until the show is in rehearsals) but for the publicists to drum up business for the show.

Anyone who wants to know where the money went should read Mitch Weiss's "The Business of Broadway," which is a very nuts-and-bolts look at how a show is produced, budgeted, etc. To give the short version: typically about 40% of the budget is physical production costs (not just sets, but lighting, sound, costumes, wigs, etc), 6-10% on creative and production fees (composer, director, designers, music supervisors, GM, tech supervisor), 12-15% on advertising (TV, radio, print, social media) and advertising agency/press agent fees, 13-15% on production salaries (crew, company manager, crew heads, music contractor, etc), 5% on rehearsal salaries (actor salaries, stage manager salaries, payroll taxes), 8-10% on general admin (producer fees, legal, office rentals, insurance, payroll & accounting, rehearsal rentals, trucking, etc), and 10% for contingency and union bonds. The money goes VERY quickly, even for small shows. With CP, the simpler set may have led to a reduction in production costs, but not creative fees, and smaller sets & production budgets don't necessarily correlate to lower labor costs.

Yeah, sorry gang, $8mm isnt even close to 'routine'. That's pretty low. Plays are $3-5 and musicals id say the average is closer to $12m. The investing paperwork I saw for last season all had budgets in the 12-15 range.

Typically the physical set is high hundred thousands to a million, with another 500k or so for light, sound etc. For simplicity, lets say a show's budget is $10m. A standard breakdown might look like this:

Physical production: $1.5m
creative / production staff: $1m
advertising / PR: $1.5m
rehearsal/shop/load in salaries: $1.5m
Tech expenses: $500k
theater dark time and load in: $1.5m
general legal / finance / administrative: :750k
transportation/lodging: 100k
union bonds/royalty advance: 500k-750k

you'd likely then reserve 500k+ for closing costs and put 500k in the bank as reserves. And if there was a pre-pro try out, add another $1.5-$2m on top of that.



All this to say, you really cant tell much from how a show 'looks'. That set may have been simple conceptually, but it still probably cost a cool 500k to build and light.

A gang of one is way better than some of the alternatives.

qolbinau said: "Can you show that calculation? I'm not sure my quick calculation is consistent with that claim. Though of course such an extrapolation would probably be an overestimation anyway of the revenue as the Jhudd fans may have started drying up over time."

I calculated the net gross for her 26 weeks as about $712k which would be roughly $43,4 mil over 61 weeks. (I said 63 but that was wrong.) That would just recoup at the "implausible" number of $550k, but not at the slightly more realistic $600k or the more likely $650k. (And of course, the weekly nut is not static, and had JHud stayed the whole time, even if there was no dropoff as you suggested, certainly her pay would have increased the nut during that additional period.)

"In any case, I do think this is yet another example showing how unsustainable this business model is (commercial Broadway theatre). The show has clearly underperformed financially but it seems like the only way for a show to be a hit is to sell out at full price for over a year and that is very difficult to achieve."

But it is NOT unsustainable. It is sustaining itself quite nicely, thank you very much. And a show does NOT have to sell out at full price for over a year to succeed. There are plenty of examples of shows that don't do that and still recoup. But no, a show that almost never has an average price over $100 and also doesn't sell out hardly at all is not going to recoup. But realistically it shouldn't. And yes it would be lovely if everything didn't cost so much.

The declarations against the "fabulous invalid" have been going on since before any of us were born. If the invalid survived the darkest days of Broadway, today seems like an odd time to think that will change.With limited exceptions, most people invest in shows because they believe in them, love them and believe others will too (and thus that the show will be a success). Most shows aren't, and never have been. But the downside is low and the upside is astonishingly high so people continue to invest, thinking that their show is the little engine that could. Sometimes that engine turns out to be pulling DEH, while other times it's In Transit. Don't lose sleep worrying about Broadway.