Define "flop" — Page 3

If a show does not recoup its investment on Broadway it is considered a flop. It's not that complicated.

Oye DAME, como estas marica?!

Miles2Go2 said: "I woke up thinking about the most recent revival of On The Town. It was my favorite show of my 2014 trip and that's saying something as I saw eight great shows that trip. Does anyone know if that revival recouped? I seem to recall that it did not, which is a shame. What about the original or the revival previous to the most recent?

It was a critical success and a financial failure. I seem to remember reading that it did not return any of its investment; that may be overstated, but not by much.

The Oxford English Dictionary ("the definitive record of the English language" gives these definitions related to theater:

Flop: "A person or enterprise (esp. a play, etc.) that is a failure."

Hit: "A successful stroke made in action or performance of any kind; esp. any popular success (a person, a play, a song, etc.) in public entertainment."

Obviously, folks have different opinions about whether profitability, awards, critical acclaim, or popularity are the most salient criteria of failure or success. Among the options, winning a Tony and triggering recoupment clauses by reaching profit are objective, so probably easiest to agree upon. Critical acclaim and popularity may be more subjective, but arguably valid options. When the criterion is in doubt, a speaker can always clarify which one he or she is using.

Nothing has been added to this thread since the first few posts. Anyone can apply any meaning they want to any word. The only issue here is whether you want to sound intelligent or ignorant in this industry. Words have specific connotations within any field of endeavor, and one does not repair to a dictionary to find out what they are. In commercial theatre in the United States, it is not open to debate that a flop is a show that closed on Broadway without recouping. And the mother company nonsense is just that: if a show closes on Broadway without recouping, where pray tell is the money needed to tour supposed to come from?

chuckydisc said: It can come from secondary investors who give additional money for a tour but with certain tour revenue/profit siphoned off to the primary investors as written in the contracts.

Whether the secondary investors and primary ones have any or complete overlap ... who knows?"

You are describing a new entity not the "mother" production.

Sometimes words can be a problem.

There's no real debate that the industry term for a 'financial failure' is a 'flop.' They could call it a Sydney if they wanted. That's the word. You are a 'flop' if you don't recoup on Broadway. You are a "hit" if you do. It's really just one dollar either way, in theory.

I think the problem people are having is that 'flop' carries other baggage from other ways people use the word. But that's not really the point. (Sydney has other uses too -- no body confuses my daughter with a city in Australia).

Here's a good example. Loser, which seems to be a word in high demand these days. If I go out and play tennis and get fewer points than my opponent then I am THE loser. But that doesn't mean that I am A loser.

But don't blame the language.

"See, this is why the non-economic definition is silly: what does it mean?"

I just think there is a bit of a difference between a "flop" like "Bonny & Clyde" that played under 100 performances and "Jekyll & Hyde" which played 1543 performances. They both did not recoup but one of them was good enough to stay open almost 4 years.

I don't think dramamama611 was speaking strictly within the confines of this thread. Yes, there are those on BWW who get into a huff when their favorite show is referred to as a "flop" and they get really defensive about it. I've seen it numerous times.

Follies was a flop. Two Gentlemen of Verona was a hit.

GO!

The Pirate Queen. Not only was the girl I dream of in it but there was an incredible cast. From the music of Boubil and Schoneberg, and the creators of Riverdance. How could this eff up? It did.

Prince of Broadway

"To believe a show ran for 4 years, and didn't make it's money back is hard for me to think is true."

I never understood how a show like Jekyll & Hyde had 1543 performances and did not recoup. I do not know much (lol) about the Broadway business so I can only guess it did well enough not to lose money every week but not enough to make a substantial profit to repay investors.

@KKeller6 that's a lovely theory but alas (with rare exceptions like Livent, for which people went to the pokey) untrue. All shows have CPAs who are not going to jeopardize their firms for any producer (again, with rare exceptions) and on balance investors as a group are wealthier and more sophisticated financially than most producers. Yes there are questionable practices related to services rendered to the production from affiliated entities of the producer, but in the scheme of things they are never enough to change a show's fortunes. There are simply too many people with their eyes on the till for anything shady in a major way.

As to the question of why (and how) a show would run for years and not recoup, the answer is that it mostly ran at the margin. Why keep it running? Because if it continues to contribute even minimally toward recoupment, investors find getting 80% of their money back a lot better than the alternative. And remember that both the producer and creatives have positive cash flow even when the production loses money, and everybody else is getting a weekly check as well.

To put things in perspective, if a show is capitalized at $15mil, and has an average weekly net profit of $50k, after 5 years it will have returned $13mil. If it then starts to run at a loss each week consistently, it closes at a loss.

Updated On: 8/26/17 at 04:38 PM

Whether you like the show or not, if the show fails to recoup, it's a flop. I know lots of people on this board loved American Psycho. It failed miserably at the box office, so it was a flop. On the other hand, Wicked received poor reviews and many on this board disliked it. Yet it is a huge hit.