Damn Yankees

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 12/2/05 at 1:42am

I was listening to this song from the musical, and was intrigued by it, so I was looking it up on www.ibdb.com and it says the show went on a hiatus for about a month. I was just wondering if anyone knew why it did that and how the revival was recieved.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 12/2/05 at 1:57am

Most shows do awful business between January 1 and March 1 -- there are few tourists and locals are afraid to buy tickets in advance for fear of snow and inclement weather. Even hit shows have been known to struggle then and shows that have been doing poorly often throw in the towel altogether. That's why many shows close at the beginning of January rather than risk losing a LOT of money during those next couple of months.

Damn Yankees decided it made more sense to just shut down (thus sparing them 8 losing weeks of paying salaries and rents) and re-open when the tourists started coming back.

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/2/05 at 9:47am

Margo --- How does that work? (I'm curious if you know.) Does this count as a "revival" when it opens back up? Technically, it would be, I guess. What does that do to the overall tally of performances?

Also are they paying some kind of "holders fee" so they don't lose the booking of the theatre for those weeks?

This has to be a rare occurrence, right?

Updated On: 12/2/05 at 09:47 AM

[hushpuppy]

Posted: 12/2/05 at 12:49pm

In the days before air conditioning, didn't some shows go on a summer hiatus?

[Carl Magnum]

Posted: 12/2/05 at 1:53pm

Didn't they do the hiatus thing to restructure the show for Jerry Lewis?

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/3/05 at 12:56pm

Bump.

Anybody know?

[Horton]

Posted: 12/3/05 at 3:04pm

I think your rite and they didnt

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 12/3/05 at 4:20pm

In the really old days, Broadway shut down for the summer. I remember reading Harpo Marx's autobiography and he said that every summer he was off to the French Riviera while his shows were on hiatus. Performances resumed in the fall.

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 12/3/05 at 4:26pm

Oh, and Best12bars,

The production that "went on hiatus" was the revival. I remember it coming back with Jerry Lewis. It was an unusual occurrence, but I have a vague memory of other shows doing something "similar" but not often at all. Sometimes they were switching theatres, and there was a lapse during the move, that sort of thing.

I'm sure someone else on the board has a better memoryfor details than I.

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/3/05 at 4:38pm

Fascinating. You don't hear people talk about that too much. At least I don't.

Now I can see why it was such a rare occurrence for shows to run more than one "season" (fall to spring) back in the '20s and '30s... even '40s. I think certainly after "Oklahoma!" and "Life With Father" opened they had to figure out a way to keep on going during the hot summer months.

On the other hand, as much as I love "blockbusters," I kinda wish they'd clear out more often and make room for the "new." I heard Tommy Tune talking about that on TV not long ago. He said something like, "My God, I haven't been in the Winter Garden in 18 years!" (since he first saw Cats there, and it "set up house" for almost two decades) Things weren't like that "back in the day."

Maybe we should get rid of the air conditioning in all the theatres today... close all the shows... have most of them clear out... and start fresh every fall!

Okay, maybe not.

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 12/4/05 at 9:43pm

Best12bars,

I think your idea would work wonderfully...as long as it applied only to the shows that people didn't like and wanted to get rid of. Unfortunately, everyone hates something, so they'd ALL close!

Besides, what we really need is new and creative productions to fill those theatres. If we could just get those, we could find the venues for them, don't you think? (Oh yeah, and let's not forget the financing to put all these new shows on. We'd need that, too.)

[bially082]

Posted: 12/4/05 at 9:50pm

So when Yankess went on Hiatus for those couple months were the actors still obliguated to stay with the production when it opened back up? How could they hold people to contracts when they aren't even paying salaries during those months. If I were an actor in a show on Hiatus, that would kind of piss me off if they just closed, so they didn't have to pay me for 3 months.

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 12/4/05 at 10:23pm

Yeah bially082, I wondered that to. What do the actors do for those 3 months that they aren't getting paid, yet can't find another job to do for 3months. This story just intrigued me, considering that it was pretty recent.

[joeybiltmore1]

Posted: 12/4/05 at 11:27pm

I have always heard that the company was on (unpaid) hiatus for five or six weeks. Accrued vacation and sick pay was paid out and new contracts were signed as if it was a completely different production. Rehearsals to put Jerry Lewis in (which involved several changes to the show) began in February, with previews starting a couple weeks later. The official "re-opening" came a few weeks after previews started.
I think there were a few other cast replacements at that time as well.