Broadway Investment Fund

Hi BWW! I've invested in a few shows in the past and have been lucky enough to have made some money over the past few years. Seeing as this might appeal to people outside the traditional theatre community, I wonder why there aren't any genuine funds out there that cater to small investors who view theatre as an alternative asset class.


I know some producers run their production companies as 'funds' - but I have not seen any would invest in an unbiased manner (not aligned with just one producer/company), and accepted contributions as small as $1-$2000. Does anyone know if this has been tried before in the US? What's stopping anyone from setting one up?

I think this is similar to what Ken Davenport did with his revival of Godspell a few years ago.

I suppose that, as a way to part fools and their money, it would make a change from the usual Nigerian Prince scam...

Since the great majority of Broadway shows close at a loss, this "fund" doesn't sound like a likely vehicle to choose if any investors are hoping for a profit. And it seems to me that if someone is willing to throw some money away, they're going to want to choose the show upon which they'll lose that money.

In other words, how many people do you think there are who would happily give $2,000 to someone and say "invest this in any show you like?"

Also, if this "fund" aims to invest in 5-6 Broadway shows, and hopes to be a significant investor in all of them, it would need at least 2,500 participants, I imagine. That's a lot of chickens to pluck.

newintown said: "Since the great majority of Broadway shows close at a loss, this "fund" doesn't sound like a likely vehicle to choose if any investors are hoping for a profit."

While it's obviously true that most Broadway shows lose money, there are a handful that are incredible cash-generators for their investors. I wonder, if you added everything up, would it really be true that investors' losses are greater than their profits, industry-wide? I don't know the answer to that, but I suspect that the few shows that have paid off their investors many times over make up for a whole lot of flops. That's no solace for the flop investors, of course. :)

There is another factor in this-producers don't want micro-investors; they don't even want small ones. That's why every good producer laughed hysterically at the Godspell fiasco.