Costs of running a Broadway show

[Gothampc]

Posted: 2/27/05 at 1:35pm

Interesting article on the costs of running a Broadway show. They give examples such as Tonya Pinkins got $2500 per week salary plus $3800 for housing and $750 for childcare.

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2005/02/27/theater/20050227_SPTHEATER_GRAPHIC.html


IT'S just like your regular old grocery bill. That is, of course, if your grocery bill included items like hair care, makeup and Teamsters. These are the expenses, large and small, paid by producers on Broadway, where running a big, splashy musical like "Wicked" can cost up to $600,000 a week. The precise breakdown of spending is usually shrouded in secrecy, especially for a show that's still running. "Caroline, or Change," the civil rights-themed musical by Jeanine Tesori and Tony Kushner, closed Aug. 29, and its weekly budget was significantly lower than most musicals. But a look at its itemized expenses shows some of the ways costs can start to pile up. Between cleaning costumes and paying accountants, housing the star and keeping the lights on, "Caroline" needed more than $350,000 to run every week.
Where did the money go? The production's preliminary operating budget, provided by one of its producers, shows a raft of weekly expenses, from the backstage tutor for the cast's children to the stagehands - more than a dozen - required to man the light and sound equipment and maneuver the props and sets.

While some costs could vary depending on, say, how many advertisements are bought in a given week, many of the expenses listed on the "Caroline" receipt are the same for every Broadway show, including most of the salaries for actors, musicians and stage managers. All of which demonstrates how Broadway productions can sell thousands of tickets a week and still lose money. About 8 in 10 shows on Broadway flop, and "Caroline" was no exception, closing after four months and at a loss of $5 million.

[jim coleman]

Posted: 2/27/05 at 1:47pm

Running a show is a very expensive proposition, to be sure. A musician in the pit makes anywhere from $1500 to 2000 a week. Multiply that by the number of musicians for a big show like LA CAGE or WICKED and you are talking between $33-38,000 per week payroll just for the musicians. Stars make a lot of money, too. Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick were each making $100.000 per week and that is just two people. It is no wonder that the ticket prices are so high. When I first moved to New York in 1973 the top price for a Broadway musical was $15.00!!! That's inflation!!!

Updated On: 2/27/05 at 01:47 PM

[chinkie azn jai]

Posted: 2/27/05 at 1:55pm

cool article.

[Plum]

Posted: 2/27/05 at 2:02pm

The CPI in 1970 was 38.8. The CPI as of January 2005 is 190.7. Do the math- $15 then is $73.72 now.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 2/27/05 at 2:22pm

$3800 to "house" someone whose primary residence is within the point of origin of the production? I would imagine that's not been much - if ever - precedented. Do we all remember Ms. Pinkins's oh so public complaints of her "low" COC salary?

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/27/05 at 3:03pm

Even with the housing allowance and childcare, she was still making significantly less than Donna Murphy ($25,000/week), Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth. She had EVERY RIGHT to complain considering that she's also a Tony-winning Broadway veteran who had the most vocally grueling role of the bunch.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 2/27/05 at 3:17pm

It's the fact that she took it to the public that was my issue. And obviously she was getting some back-door percs that she was not mentioning in her public complaints.

If she wanted to do the role on Broadway, she had to know that it was not going to run if she was receiving those huge paydays. She knew that going in. She also had another significant source of income at the time.

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 2/27/05 at 3:19pm

Pinkin's salary was THAT low.
I would have thought it'd be at least $10,000/week.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 2/27/05 at 3:24pm

No, Priest, there was a special deal between the actors and the Public. The actors (supposedly) wanted to move with the show badly enough to take lower salaries in order to allow the show to have enough of a budget to run on Broadway.

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 2/27/05 at 3:32pm

i cant believe Donna Murphy charges that much.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 2/27/05 at 3:37pm

That is excrutiatingly low. In the beginning of GYPSY's run, Bernadette was making close to $70,000 a week before financial troubles hit.

[Plum]

Posted: 2/27/05 at 3:39pm

I'm assuming that's salary plus a percentage of the weekly take- her actual salary would be closer to $50,000 a week, wouldn't it?