Flops of the season. — Page 2

sing_dance_love said: "LOL, “Gettin’ the Head Over Margaritaville” is brilliant."

Thank you, that title might have sold some tix. (Or maybe that's the Forbidden Broadway parody of this season?)

BritCrit said: "One theatre in one city should not be the sole indicator of success or failure. High schools and drama clubs all over America will really take an interest in "Be More Chill" and "The Prom"."


Well........sort of.

The Broadway production of Be More Chill had a capitalization of $9million, so there's a lot of pressure on the line. But if a Broadway production doesn't return a substantial percentage of money to its investors, it's unlikely that it recoups 100% through subsidiary licensing. Footloose and Seussical tanked on Broadway; despite every theatre/high school in America producing them, they still haven't 100% recouped. Now, when a show like Millie only returns 80% to investors on Broadway, has touring/international productions, and then gets licensed: that's a much rosier financial situation. (I wish I had figures for other shows, but this is what's publicly available.)

So while licensing can be a huge source of income, it's being divided between a LOT of people who worked to make the show happen. (The author's 60% share gets divided between ~3 people; the producer/investors' 40% share gets divided between ~100 people.) They say "don't invest it if you can't afford to lose it," and only 1/4 of shows fully recoup. Let's see what happens!!

Be More Chill has been available to license for quite a while. I feel like Samuel French had it after the Two Rivers' run and now it's on RNH, though it might just be that Samuel French has other Joe Iconis titles and was selling vocal selections and a libretto separate from licensing. Either way, productions popped up a few times before the off-Broadway run in my area.

It's usually only local productions that get impacted when a show is available to license before bowing on Broadway. I still remember working for a school that lost the rights to Cinderella the day before they announced the new Broadway production. Other schools further away maintained the rights; we were just too close to NYC for an amateur production.

qolbinau said: "I mean, we'll find out in a couple of days, but I suspect that your predictions are wrong. Be More Chill is not going to immediately stagger like any of the truly devastating flops that might have been better off closing in previews (e.g., The Visit, The Scottsboro Boys, Bridges of Madison County etc.). It may not be a hit, but the way you are describing this show makes it sound like it is about to be a complete fiasco financially."

I am hoping that you were in some state of inebriation when you wrote that or had a lot of typos that auto-correct seriously erroneously altered. While those shows may not have been financially successful, they were the work of major theatre artists, and the small audiences that saw them were well rewarded. I still find it hard to believe that The Scottsboro Boys could not achieve a longer run; but, does that mean that Kander and Ebb should not have bothered to start it or The Visit in the first place, or that Susan Stroman should have worked on something mindless instead of Scottsboro?