Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 12/17/23 — Page 2

Exactly. I mean it is limping along, but it's also in a very tiny theater and a hard show to market, so by all accounts it's not doing that badly.

RippedMan said: "Exactly. I mean it is limping along, but it's also in a very tiny theater and a hard show to market, so by all accounts it's not doing that badly."

And I heard the original cast members are staying thru March

Cory Schimmoelelr said: "The producers for Ohio keep talking about going on so maybe they think they can find their audience."

The show that I saw seems to have no idea what their audience is. It's stuck in this weird valley of wanting to be daring and different, but also somehow pandering to the general commercial theatregoer and trying to make ASD musically palatable and the aggressively generic sum of its parts does not a hit make.

If Hal Prince was still alive, this would probably be his 21st Century "Merrily We Roll Along"...

Ohio's current strategy doesn't make sense to me. They're losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a week and doing so with 30% of the house empty. Barring a miracle, they're not getting to profitability, so they will close sooner rather than later. They've really got three paths at this point: two hard but sensible and one easy but awful.

Close in two weeks, juice the numbers from the last opportunity to see the show (and holidays), and return whatever reserve they have left to their investors. This is terrible, but it's not spending good money after bad.

Announce closing for a couple of months out. Do everything they can to get butts in seats regardless of price ($50 rush ain't this). Do a vast amount of outreach to appropriate charities/student groups, etc., essentially giving swathes of tickets away for free to get this show seen. Just accept they'll lose the rest of their reserve/any loans they've taken out but get an audience to remember the show in the process. Good for the mission of inclusivity as well as potential licensing down the road. But expensive...

Or they just do what they're currently doing, which appears to be hoping for a miracle but doing nothing to achieve it. Spend the rest of their reserves playing to half-empty theaters and close in a few months anyway. This path is easy, but it achieves no meaningful goals beyond not closing embarrassingly quickly.

Bobster159 said: "Or they just do what they're currently doing, which appears to be hoping for a miracle"



It may not be logical, but this has been the strategy of many Broadway shows in recent years. Unclear whether it stems from denial, or whether they think of it as "donating" the money to keep a passion project open longer (for the sake of the company, and whoever DOES want to see it).

But when productions like this come along, it becomes pointless to try to predict when they'll close, or ask "how is it still open?" Because they're not operating from a place of fiscal logic.

In a post-COVID world, the general public just doesn’t seem to be interested in new musicals that don’t have at least one A-list celeb and don’t already have a rabid fanbase from its source material (if any). And it doesn’t matter if the musicals are good or bad.

Hadestown should be thanking their lucky stars they opened in early 2019 and built up enough buzz to keep it going after the shutdown. It probably would’ve flopped hard if it had opened post-shutdown and received the same Tony love.

Updated On: 12/20/23 at 12:32 PM

Ohio grosses make me sad.

Is it possible to open a new musical that isn't based on a hit movie anymore....

Gutenberg is making a million dollars a week and thats not based on a movie

OMG U Guyz said: "quizking101 said: "hearthemsing22 said: "Is it possible the Kerr could be too, even though Hadestown just released a new block of tickets? Maybe they have someone big coming in?"

Ani DiFranco is joining the cast on February 9th. They were also going to have Chris Sullivan joining as Hermes at the same time but filming commitments nixed that.

—————

As for the rest - HARMONY remains in big trouble and unless Barry & Co. want to dump some more money into the show, it’s gonna be over.

Also, DANCE is being HEAVILY papered after the polite but otherwise tepid reviews. Expect that to fold after the holidays as well. It really should’ve gone to a smaller off-Broadway house"


I was hoping Chris was going to take over for a bit. It would’ve been fun to see him and Ani together. Bummer."



I researched Ani DeFranco, since I had never heard of her. The article I read said that she has released 20 'albums; with total sales of around 400,000 copies. Sounds pretty niche to me, so I will be very surprised if she has any noticeable impact on the box office. Chris Sullivan -- absolutely no way.

I have to admit that I never liked Hadestown, but I can't help thinking that the producers and investors should be pretty proud of the run it has had, regardless of when it ultimately closes. I never expected it to run this long; I felt that it was in the same niche category as Fun Home, The Band's Visit and, more recently, KA.

I'd say Ohio's problem isn't that audiences don't want to see more original work, it's that the audiences that have seen it aren't particularly enthusiastic about it.

Updated On: 12/20/23 at 04:39 PM

Agreed. I almost paid like $180 for Here We Are and then saw on TodayTix on my way into the city that they had a rush seat for $40 and I ended up dead center, best view. So def. keep checking and don't full price if you don't want to.

DiFranco played Persephone on Anais Mitchell’s 2010 Hadestown concept album.

I don't really agree on Hadestown. It may not have had major name ot brand recognition, but the Greek gods / myths angle is some what of a hook. A lot of people are interested in that. It's enough to get peoples attention. It's also a subject that isn't done a whole lot on broadway.

A musical about a dance is a fairly common musical story.