Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 9/22/24 — Page 2

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "There have been rumors of Notebook being kept open for McCollum tax writeoff purposes, but I'm always deeeeeeeeeply skeptical of such things for a Broadway show."

Not only am I skeptical of it, I am not aware of any tax break for business losses that are greater than the losses themselves, so this explanation never makes any sense to me (for Broadway or any other industry). I'm open to being educated about this, but I've asked here before and have never gotten an explanation of how that might work.

Your other suggestions for why The Notebook stays open make much more sense to me.

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "Getting national companiesout is always a battle for shows, hits or otherwise.

If you surveyed most producers, I bet they'd advocate for getting a show out on BTTF's schedule, even if it meant sacrificing a bit of the Broadway revenue.A lot of shows can't get a tour out for 1.5-2 years and sometimes buzz/interest has died by then. The BTTF schedule is easier said than done and only doable because it's a big branded property and started in London first.

THE PRODUCERS producers lamented that maybe opening 2 tours was too ambitious, but the show was hot and they wanted to capitalize on buzz. Both companies lasted about 2 years and made money. MORMON, on the other hand, was smart to open two companies 2012; they ran 4 and 8 years respectively.

HAMILTON opening in Chicago a mere 13months after opening on Broadway took a massiveeffort. Opening 3 other companies in 2017, 2018, and 2019 was a gamble and were it not for the pandemic might have proved to be a poor decision."

It used to be fairly common for hit Broadway shows to open tours / subsequent U.S. productions pretty quickly after opening on Broadway. Some opened as soon as six months after opening on Broadway. This was true well into the 1980s.

QueenAlice said: "It used to be fairly common for hit Broadway shows to open tours / subsequent U.S. productions prettyquickly after opening on Broadway.Some opened as soon as six months after opening on Broadway. This was true well into the 1980s."

Subscriptions for touring houses weren't really a thing back then, right? I recall PHANTOM and some of the other CamMac shows being the shows that turned the road into what it is today: you could use a hot title to anchor a show within a season and fill up other shows within the package.

Call_me_jorge said: "Shows normally don’t launch a tour until one of two things happens; a) the broadway company recoups its initial investment, or b) the broadway company has closed."

Option A and Option B both tend to be coincidental things, by nature of it taking 16-24 months to get a tour out.

Most presenters' subscription seasons are set a year or more in advance, which is the primary reason why a show can't open in March and launch a tour that October.

Producers start courting tour bookers and presenters before the Broadway opening. Entities that control touring houses like BAA, IPN, and Nederlander often invest in exchange for preferential treatment when it comes time to book a tour route. Sometimes tour producers/GMs like NETworks and Troika also invest in shows.

The actual planning of the tour usually doesn't begin until after opening night because if something seems like it will be hot on Broadway and then it tanks (Tootsie, for example), then what was once planned as an Equity tour could go non-Equity, or authors want to rewrite before a tour, or there are now hotter properties that the presenters would prefer. And unless something has the brand level of BTTF (famous movie AND did well in London), nobody's going to program a show until they actually see it.

Yeesh and we aren't even in the worst weeks of October. I'm still keeping an eye on Moulin Rouge because they are not making money at $1.1M with that music catalogue and cast. They have deeper pockets than others though. I'm curious what will go into the Winter Garden. I can't imagine BTTF lasting past the New Year and take the hit of Winter. Suffs and Water For Elephants have got to be packing it up soon too.

It's interesting that BTTF's grosses are rather abruptly tanking so badly. They decreased this time last year as well, but not nearly as steeply.