“Broadway’s pandering to tourists has backfired big-time”

Thoughts? I think what I’ve noticed is that more and more audiences are caring about the quality of shows over the substance. Just last season proved that. Dear Evan Hansen and Come From Away beat out the well known brand that was Groundhog Day. Sure, maybe a smart and in depth musical that really changed your entire philosophy on life wouldn't really work for the target audience of Jimmy Buffet(or with his music), but at least it would be a better written show.

https://nypost.com/2018/04/21/broadways-box-office-is-wasting-away-in-margaritaville/amp/

It's amazing that a writer in the New York Post is actually blaming Trump for something! I'll take it.

RippedMan said: "I am surprised given the success of Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, Come from Away, Fun Home, that we haven’t seen a bunch of new original works popping up! Instead it’s just juxebox and movie musicals."

I think they are actually the problem.

The shows have outpriced themselves for the average person and it's the New Yorkers who have stopped going to the theatre not the tourists.

People who used to to go all the time now go to one show instead of 3 because tickets prices are so astronomical for the 'hyped' shows.

Updated On: 4/21/18 at 03:06 PM

Elfuhbuh said: "Impossible2 said: "RippedMan said: "I am surprised given the success of Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, Come from Away, Fun Home, that we haven’t seen a bunch of new original works popping up! Instead it’s just juxebox and movie musicals."

I think they are actually the problem.

The shows have outpriced themselves for the average person and it's the New Yorkers who have stopped going to the theatre not the tourists.

People who used to to go all the time now go to one show instead of 3 because tickets prices are so astronomical for the 'hyped' shows."

Yes, I think this is a fundamental issue that's affecting things. It's hard to keep the masses going to the theatre if only the richest of the rich can afford to attend regularly in the first place. It's not like we're in the old days where going to a Broadway show was like a live version of going to the movie theatre."

Even the most ardent of theatre lovers on here spend most of their time trying to find the cheapest ticket they can get via rush, lottery, TDF, Tkts etc

When you have Netflix etc offering 1,000's of hours of entertainment for an entire family for $10 a month, things are bound to suffer.

Updated On: 4/21/18 at 03:18 PM

Hindsight's always 20-20. ''Next to Normal'' opened April 15, 2009, obviously to make the Tony deadline and felt it was competitive. For Brantley to suggest it should've opened in, say, June, is short-sighted. I'll bet that its 11 2009 Tony nominations and 4 wins helped ''Next to Normal'' establish itself. If it had opened in June, could it have lasted nearly a year until the next Tonys? By the way, it's not as if the next season (2009-2010) was that skimpy. There were about 12 new musicals. And at the time ''Memphis'' opened in the fall, it got many wonderful reviews (outside the N.Y.Times pan), but no one picked it to win the Tony then. In fact, I remember a number of people on this board predicting ''Memphis'' would fold quickly and be forgotten by Tony time. But as one new show after another, opened and fell short, ''Memphis'' got the last laugh, winning Best Musical from the Tonys, Drama Desk and OCC.

As for tourists, I know most everyone loves to knock them, but the League says tourists make up 61% of Broadway audiences.

Without them, there would be no Broadway.

Updated On: 4/21/18 at 03:40 PM

I've had great health for 40 years but I woke up yesterday with a sore throat and a runny nose and still feel like crap today so i guess my glory days of great health are far behind me.

The conclusions this article reaches on a sample size of 3 or 4 shows during one single season are so stupid on it's face, hard to believe someone thought it was worth a discussion.

No mention of The Band's Visit? Sure it's not a sell-out megahit like CFA or DEH, but it's still a musical from this season not based on a "mainstream brand."

The writer seemed to scoff at Frozen's 93% weekly gross. I don't think trying to appeal to Middle America is a realistic approach. Shows come and go. Each show has to provide "something" that audiences find appealing. Also, the marketing of the show helps in developing a show's durability. Aside from that, a show will have a longer shelf life if it is able to appeal to not only a domestic audience , but is attractive to foreign tourists. "Chicago" is an example of that. It has a lot to offer to its audiences: name recognition, a feature film with its name and a business model of having non-traditional performers amongst its cast. There are people who like sitting in an audience of a show that appeals to an adult crowd (instead of being in the midst of sea of rugrats). It remains to be seen that "The Cher Show" and the Donna Summer musical will have "legs" over the long run. (I grew up listening to both fabulous performers.)

HogansHero: I've never been shy about sticking up for ''Memphis'' because I don't think it gets all the credit it deserves. Thanks, but there's no need to applaud my tenacity; that recognition should go to the Tony-winning team of producers of ''Memphis,'' led by Randy Adams and Sue Frost, and THEIR tenacity. They believed enough in the show to hold FOUR out-of-town tryouts before bringing it to Broadway. I first saw it in 2004 at TheatreWorks in Mountain View, Calif., and even though they had just added a new song called ''Memphis Lives in Me'' and its Act II was problematic, the audience still ate it up. By the time it landed at the Shubert, they really had reworked Act II, dumping old songs and writing new ones. (How often do we hear about out-of-town tryouts of shows where the Broadway version has been barely changed?)

I agree with you that seasons are cyclical. And some are more competitive than others. But that shouldn't take away from the hard work that Joe DiPietro and David Bryan invested into ''Memphis.'' At the end of the day, a show rises or falls on its word of mouth, and ''Memphis'' was a real crowdpleaser, racking up about 1,200 performances. As I'm sure you well know, winning the Tony for Best Musical is no guarantee of a long run: ''Passion'' only made it to 280; ''Fun Home,'' 583. So whether you like ''Memphis'' or not, it beat some incredible odds, and is still quite an underdog story.

Updated On: 4/22/18 at 12:35 PM

I'm not certain longevity is a benchmark for quality, or the goal state in what is by design an ephemeral art form. Some of us will have seen Bette Midler in Hello Dolly, others won't even get to see the show at all... but that is what makes it special.

Also, a good tip-off for a bull**** article is when "Broadway" is doing anything, as though it has a collective will, or it is a unified thing.

HogansHero said: "Impossible2 said: "If something as fantastic as The Great Comet can close in what 10 months and the Hello Dolly revival in 18,there is clearlylittle longevity left on Broadway unless you can luck out and create the next zeitgeist soyou can sell overpriced ticketsfor a couple of years."

You start from some faulty premises: that longevity was a feature of Broadway such that it has "left" [it was always reserved for a few of the biggest successes only] and that longevity is a good thing in any event.

Dolly is a success, financially and artistically, and its run has been a good one, allowing it to close on a high note. Rudin is, if nothing else, a student of theatre history, and that history is not paved with revolving doors. Comet failed and closed because of incompetence, and is not a good example of anything else."

Can't disagree with any of that :)

Like it was said, new musicals take several years to develop. It's like a TV development season: copycats of This is Us didn't happen this season because most shows were already in development before This is Us became a hit.

Probably the reason we're seeing so many movie musicals and jukebox musicals is thanks to shows like Aladdin and Beautiful, which were extremely successful on arrival and are still running years later. We'll probably see the fruits of the success of shows like Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, and Come From Away in the next couple years.

I think the point is not that musicals should not be adaptions, or should not have mass appeal, or should not be about things middle america is interested in.

I think what people are really tying to rally against is pandering. The subject matter isn't important, as long as it's good. Everyone wants to see good musicals. Everyone wants to see musicals that have had thought put into them, that have good lyrics and clever stagings and an interesting book.

People tend not to like jukebox musicals because they're often strung together of popular songs, rather than integrated properly as a musical should be. That doesn't mean that jukebox musicals are bad. Just that they tend to not have the work put in to make them good.

If it's good, people will come.