chrishuyen said: "Kad said: "The data is clear and I think a lot of people simply are drawing wrong conclusions from it. Hell, you can pull up a line graph of Hadestown's gross history from its first performance. You see a show that has ups and downs but consistently seems to be breaking even with a few exceptions that have yet to be sustained beyond a few weeks. Since it has already recouped, it is in position to weather those periods."
Speaking only for myself, but I had thought the same thing about Phantom, Come From Away, and Dear Evan Hansen when they announced closing (which was shocking to me at the time). It seemed like theater owners were more eager to close shows that were "just" breaking even in favor of the newer shows in the pipeline that wanted to come in, so on the heels of those closings, I don't think it was unreasonable to think that Hadestown could possibly close soon, but it does seem to be holding on fairly well."
I pulled up the gross histories for DEH and CFA because I don't remember their circumstances.
DEH was doing extremely well pre-pandemic, but seemed to have a hard time rebounding following reopening. The summer of 2022 was in particular quite bad for it and I think, rather than gambling on a rebound, the producers just decided to cut their losses. CFA was not dissimilar- the summer of 2022 was really hard for it, and it looks like it had a long run of loss weeks. You have to remember that the 2021-22 winter was super rough for a lot of these shows- many canceled performances and the need to hire a lot more actor coverage, along with the additional cost of Covid safety and likely removed any sort of cushion these productions could've leaned on, and there was no telling whether another Covid surge would be just as bad.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
Updated On: 2/20/24 at 05:19 PM