Glory Days Closing: Just Ridiculous

Can you please tell me how it happens?
HOW does a Broadway show OPEN and CLOSE on the same day?
How can you even tell what will happen over the next few weeks?
I just think it's ridiculous. Despite critical reviews - you must hope that audiences will spread the word of mouth. MOVIES don't close on Saturday, after opening on Friday, just because they get bad reviews. A lot of money, time and effort has been spent on this play! The actors, writers and director are the ones that are cheated the most! They never even got a chance! I just don't understand it. I mean, I know this is not the first time this has ever happened, but I still think it's absurd. You either feel like you've got something worth doing or you don't. It kind of smells like someone's tax write-off to me. Give it a f**king CHANCE!
I'm betting it aint a bad show (sight unseen, mind you). Too bad nobody showed up (not that they gave anyone much of an opportunity to).

Updated On: 5/10/08 at 12:59 AM

It wasn't just the bad reviews, it didn't sell pre-sale very well. And if you aren't selling tickets already and you get bad reviews, you're not going anywhere.

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It was a bad show, but it was bad because it was nowhere near ready. It needed a ton of work (and yes, I did see it to be able to say that) and like Emcee said, it was a producing issue. It was rushed and not worked on and that is a massive problem.

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Movies don't have to pay their actors / stage hands / orchestra members every night it shows either. I think they decided to cut their losses here.

it didn't help much either with the critics tearing it apart

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I've stated before on this board that I admired this show at the Signature Theatre in DC. I saw it in DC twice. Both times the audience was on their feet at the end and the show left many people in the audience in tears, including me. All that said I did not get a chance to see the show while in previews on Broadway. Perhaps it was never right for Broadway or perhaps it got lost in the much larger venue of Circle. Signature's space is much smaller with somewhere between 200 and 300 seats. Maybe somewhere between DC and NY the show lost it's heart. I was just watching the Broadway.com opening night video and started to tear up. I am so sad for these boys. These boys, writers and actors alike, are some of the most courageous artists on Broadway this season and I once again have to applaud what they dared to do. It's clear from the video and many other videos that Broadway was never the goal. They simply set out to write what they knew. In a season filled with crap like Cry Baby, Mermaid and Frankenstein, all of which got worse reviews than Glory Days, it is sad to know that original shows like this simply can't last in the commercial Broadway monster. Word on the street in the DC theatre community is that the producers made some very bad business decisions and that they knew the show was going to have to close even before the reviews came out.
Broadway.com Video

In a season filled with crap like Cry Baby, Mermaid and Frankenstein, all of which got worse reviews than Glory Days, it is sad to know that original shows like this simply can't last in the commercial Broadway monster.

That's not really the issue here. Glory Days had a lot worse things working against it (i.e. the bad producing decisions we've been discussing) than the forces of commercialism. That alone wouldn't have closed it. And further, several of the shows running now have proven that that's not necessarily true anymore.

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Updated On: 5/10/08 at 01:46 AM

Blah Blah Blah

Certainly the fact that there was no advertisement during previews didn't help. Did anyone else find it odd that it was not listed in the ABCs?

TooDarnHot: Thanks.
It just seems so damn weird to me (but what do I know)? You work and work - you work yourself to the bone, and then it turns out that all you've REALLY done is create a not-so-great re-make of GREASE! Turns out to be a hit, anyway! LOL
Just kidding.
But you know what? It must be awfully hard to get an original show on Broadway. Can I ASK? Why didn't Glory Days have to PROVE it's ambition on tour or Off-Broadway?
I don't know - something about this is just not right.
For curiosity's sake - what was the last Broadway show to open and close the same evening?
I'm truly not familiar with all the Broadway facts. Did the musical of CARRIE only play one night?
Thank you all for your info. I appreciate it.

Chason, the last ORIGINAL musical to do it was in 1983. there was another musical in 1985 but that was a remake or based on a movie/book/developed material.

They didn't have to prove anything because they had the support of the Signature and the Washington Post (wasn't that the paper that gave it a RAVE review??), a group of Producers (with most of the $2.5 mill), and many different investors (the writers were told to gather $500,00 in two days)...

that's enough to get a small musical to Broadway these days. They had the $$ to bring it, NOT keep it. Broadway is a business.

yes. the insurance is minimal but it's better than nothing.

that's why they were smart, GetUp.

They havent posted anything on the door of theater and some of the posters still remain up.
Obsessedjb and I walked by and I felt really bad.
The big display is up in the window and everything.
The reason I think it failed was due to the target audience being teens and college kids who cant afford full price tickets.

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