Dodger Stages is no more

Well...at least the name, anyway.
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/98438.html

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Well, nothing that's played there so far has turned a profit.

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And not made a dime.

According to ALTAR BOYZ's producer it perpetually hovers around break even -- earning a few thousand one week and losing a few thousand the next. It has barely paid anything at all back to its investors so far and likely will never even come close to recouping.

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Off Broadway, as Margo has explained before, is currently a broken formula. I'm not sure what the solution is, but it will be a shame if the Dodger Stages folds.

I wish someone could come up with a solution, but even veteran off-Broadway producers who have been doing shows for decades are increasingly throwing up their hands and getting out of the business. Nothing seems to work anymore in the "for-profit" realm, except for the occasional one person show. Costs are astronomical, with even single set nonmusical plays costing upwards of $600,00 to 800,000 and ticket prices reflecting that. But charging $70 for an off-Broadway show at a time when a person can get a seat to a Broadway show for less than that with a discount makes it hard to compete. And if you turn around and discount your off-Broadway play down to $50, there goes your profit margin.

Aside from increased government subsidy (never happen, especially for commercial theatre), new tax incentives (unlikely), major concessions from the unions (unlikely) or the NY Times cutting commercial producers a substantial break with advertising rates (highly unlikely), there don't seem to be any answers.

Not every show belongs in a Broadway house -- in fact 90% of plays have no business going near those enormous theatres. But with such bleak prospects for success in the off-Broadway arena, some producers end up going to Broadway anyway -- it's higher profile, which will help the play in its regional life after New York, and at least you have a shot at a Tony. But what happens to those smaller shows that just can't do the Broadway transfer and have trouble finding an off-Broadway producer in this economic climate? Are they forced out of New York altogether and into regional houses around the country? I mean, what else can they do?

Someone needs to come up with something soon or we're going to lose a lot of quality plays and playwrights from the New York scene.

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Thank heavens for the not-for-profit subscriber base theaters -- LCT, MTC, MCC, The Public, Playwrights, Atlantic etc.... They provide 90+% of the new and interesting theatre in this city year after year, but not every play -- not even every good play -- is meant to go the not-for-profit route. Not to mention that in the institutional theatres, you are limited to an 8 to 10 week run. What if you're a big hit? Extensions are often impossible and/or short-lived and a Broadway move costs a couple of millions at a minimum. A commercial off-Broadway move may cost nearly a million and given the size of the houses, your earning potential is small, as is your chance of ever recouping. What to do?

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Maybe they need to put in a couple of star-driven vehicles into the dodgers stages for a couple months just to gain awareness for the space and whatnot.

Although to me, it seems like Dodgers has put on a lot of like "low-brow" type musicals. Like Trailer Park and Sid: the musical, it seems like they put on nostalgia shows. Besides BARE, there hasn't been a show they've done that I'm really interested in it at all.

I agree, BARE could have been the hit Dodger Stages needed. Sad, very sad.

I really like that space. I remember the first time I went there, I felt like the hippest New Yorker! It's too bad that the prohibitive costs of putting on productions and marketing them makes the success rate for off-Broadway so low.

Of course what seems to happen with the plays that go the regional route is that they do so, are successes are picked up by Broadway producers, then are given expensive "makeovers" put into theatres too large then flop.

What plays are on secondary school (sorry, don't know what you term it over there) reading lists. Surely that ready made audience would make the smaller spaces at Dodger viable, possibly even with some tie-in sponsorship that benefits the sponsor and theatre/student.

No Mr. Roxy-absoltely nothing has changed and nothing is closed. There will just be a new sign outside.

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That could happen any where and any time, Mr. Roxy. I pm'd you.

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