MR. SATURDAY NIGHT will close September 4 — Page 2

bk said: "So, you think the producer of the show went out and raised the millions of dollars to put it up knowing it would only get six months and that they'd lose every cent of their investment?" Think that's how it works?"

Your premise is faulty. Producers raise money (in this case they did not have to go out very far) because they think they have the right formula, but most often they are wrong. In this case, they were wrong for several reasons that are pretty obvious. First, they thought Crystal would sell tickets for months on his good name. Second, they thought everyone would love this material as much as they did. Third, they thought their "team" was solid even though it was basically assembled via the schmooze model of producing when in fact most of those involved have no track record of success (or in the case of Rando, none in 20+ years). But Broadway is paved with shows that fail that have far less going for them than Billy Crystal. Maybe next time you might consider condescending less.

If Crystal wanted to do 6 weeks at the Ahmanson or even his old stomping grounds the Dolby, they could probably make it work financially and it might fare better there than in NYC.

I do wonder how the show would have been perceived as a larger production. 20 in the cast, 12 in the band. Which is how they workshopped it. As someone commented (a critic or poster here), it seems like the type of show that should have had a dozen leggy showgirls — and would have added much more variety to the show. But still could have had the same fate as Tootsie.

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "it seems like the type of show that should have had a dozen leggy showgirls — and would have added much more variety to the show. But still could have had the same fate as Tootsie."

My instinct is that the audience that never came would not come for leggy showgirls. I think they got as much of that audience as was willing to come. It's also worth footnoting this show as one where a a decent chunk of the potential audience has not returned to the theatre at all. I saw an article the other day that something like a quarter of classical music subscribers are saying they will never return to concert halls.

It was already filmed for the TOFT archive, so this must be for something else.