Is Broadway Musical Theatre becoming oversaturated?

um, no. There have been MANY seasons where there were hardly any new musicals, (especially good ones). you should feel blessed to live in a time when we are getting a large amount of newer works, because it will not always be like this. (and again, not all of these new musicals will be open long/be good in general/will be forgotten within a year).

..

this season has the most new musicals in decades. we have no right to complain in my opinion.

Updated On: 12/10/16 at 12:40 AM

In this case, there is no "too much of a good thing" code.

Really...you can't keep them straight? what's to keep straight ?

It is never a good idea to generalize from a snapshot, and that's all this is. Broadway is largely driven by real estate and the economy. When we have a bad season in which most shows open and close quickly, the supply of theatres is larger. Unless the economy is horrible and there are demand concerns, there will always be shows to fill a void. Not all of those shows (and this is certainly true this year) have legs, and indeed some of those on the list either have had or will have dim prospects.

A positive sign that is more worthy of remark is that we seem to have returned somewhat (obviously not entirely) to a time when talented people are actually writing shows at the expense of brain dead corporate enterprises.

When faced with the possibility of what might happen under the circumstances Jarethan describes, I believe it might go something like this:

Let's say a bunch of the longest running shows closed. Many of these long running shows still have tours going. One possibility is that the city would no longer be as tourist-driven, because all one would have to do to fill the Broadway gap with regard to royalties is to expand the touring market. If the touring market expands, people might be less inclined to go to NY when it's coming to their backyard. With Broadway no longer being about tourist attractions, a good possibility would then exist that new work might obtain a stronger foothold.

It's only one possibility, one of many, and an extremely hopeful one (for those who want new work to gain a foothold and succeed on its own merits) at that.

Updated On: 12/10/16 at 12:15 PM

g.d.e.l.g.i. said: "When faced with the possibility of what might happen under the circumstances Jarethan describes, I believe it might go something like this:

Let's say a bunch of the longest running shows closed. Many of these long running shows still have tours going. One possibility is that the city would no longer be as tourist-driven, because all one would have to do to fill the Broadway gap with regard to royalties is to expand the touring market. If the touring market expands, people might be less inclined to go to NY when it's coming to their backyard. With Broadway no longer being about tourist attractions, a good possibility would then exist that new work might obtain a stronger foothold.

It's only one possibility, one of many, and an extremely hopeful one (for those who want new work to gain a foothold and succeed on its own merits) at that."

This assumes (a) that more touring would be sustainable, (b) that there is not already a healthy amount of new work coming to Broadway and (c) that bringing in more new work would be sustainable.

The tone-deafness of the suggestions you make is manifested in the essence of the list of shows identified above. One of the beauties of markets is that find their own balance more efficiently than one person's attempt to alter them.

shutter.

I'm not sure I agree. What would you give as an example that could be analyzed?

Nothing closed because of Hamilton last season. It's a completely baseless claim. The supply of seats available at the Rodgers did not trounce the rest of the market. A lot of shows not having an audience, not being good, or being terribly marketed had more to.do with early closings.

This theory seems to require every person interested in seeing Hamilton to have bought premium seats the day they went on sale (not sure why they passed up the $200 seats if they were that on their game, though).

I actually thought the opposite to be true, which is that people who came to town to see Hamilton... had to pick something else, since there were no seats available aside from the secondary market (all of which were typically above your $800 amount).

Also, is there some show that was that amazing that is no longer with us? Nothing comes to mind.

So they will usually get to see 8 shows for $800, but instead they had to spend that on Hamilton, and if they couldn't see Hamilton, they didn't see any shows even though they usually like to see 8?!

I think the point is, if tourists eschewed other shows, it was because those shows weren't good. Of course producers blame it on the gorilla. Do you expect them to say their show sucked? I asked for a specific example, which you did not offer. Others did to the contrary. If you have one, toss it into the discussion. You could do the same with an example of a show that was ready to come in but didn't.

By the way, are those people who didn't want other house seats last year still not wanting them? Because Hamilton is still sold out and Comet and DEH et al don't seem to be lacking for business.