Paulson expose On Great Comet controversy — Page 3

Rainah said: "

I have no horse in this race but I was under the impression that it was 700,000 currently - ie, without Ingrid's salary as well (No idea what that would be though) though I doubt that would make a difference, they only dipped below 900k... what? once?



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They did 974K this week without Ingrid.

Hogan is right, the nut for this show was in the low 900K range and even then it would take over 1.5 years to recoup at full capacity. The show never really had a hope at succeeding due to the way Kagan financed it.

It has also been confirmed to me by multiple independent sources (directly associated with the show) that what Riedel wrote was right- Oak agreed to leave the show for Mandy and even promised to make media appearances with him as well as agreeing to sign a joint press release saying he was happy to leave and potentially come back. Once the tweet storm started Oak saw an opportunity and quickly changed his tune. I'm not sure how he didn't realize much of this would get back to him, but I agree with most of you saying it will be tough for him to find jobs in the future.

So...was Rainn Wilson the "TV star training with the music team in L.A."? Because although he was great as Dwight on The Office and is also an accomplished stage actor, he is not really a celebrity - maybe he was like five years ago, but...

The Distinctive Baritone said: "So...was Rainn Wilson the "TV star training with the music team in L.A."? Because although he was great as Dwight on The Office and is also an accomplished stage actor, he is not really a celebrity - maybe he was like five years ago, but...



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Again, do we even have a source on this? I remember one person said it once on a message board, and that's about it. Hardly the most reliable source of info

@broadwayrox, you absolutely did not say anything out of line, and the reference to the name calling referred to other posts. Sorry if that was not clear.

wading through the name calling and block-threatening etc etc (all of which is fine by me), let me explain a bit, not from any inside info but simply by culling the numbers that have been reported and what we can reasonably project based on the experience of other shows. If the gross is $900k (that's high for a week with nothing and no one selling tickets but let's just assume that Dave Malloy is wrong and the show was not about to fall off a cliff), then the net gross would be about $810k available to pay expenses (let's assume the $700k is right which if true at all only applies with no star). So now let's pay the percentage rent and the royalties. Not knowing the precise royalty pool arrangement, let's err to the investors' side and say they end up with $65k for the week. Finally, let's assume the unrecouped amount is $12mil (I suspect it is more but again, benefit of the doubt). At that rate it would take 185 weeks (>3.5 years from now) to recoup, assuming you could sustain that level of business (and no one in their right mind would think that). So there you have it. If you think someone is delusional, check your mirror.

Oh and btw re "I'm sure the investors are concerned about their loss of money, but what the Bway community at large is concerned with is the loss of jobs in the building." Sorry to burst your bubble but the broadway community doesn't keep shows running, investors do. Nobody walks in the building at all without them. Check that mirror again for me, ok?

@hmph what I am saying (and I realize nuance sometimes gets lost on here) is that no star capable of bringing the numbers to sustainable levels was available to the production. And the reason I say that is that there are very few of those people out there who (a) are capable of doing the job, (b) big enough to sell enough tickets and (c) plausibly interested in the slightest. Patinkin may have been such a person and even he was only making himself available to the production for 3 weeks. Even if there were Mandy clones lined up to do this (a pipedream), audiences would soon become exhausted, bearing in mind (another Kagan error) that Comet is not Chicago.

Updated On: 8/30/17 at 12:46 AM

HogansHero, again, I really couldn't care less about the finances/recoupment. I care about the show continuing to run. Investors may put shows on Bway, but they do not buy the tickets. Ticket buyers couldn't care less about whether investors are getting a speedy return on their investment. The question is- could the show have continued running at, let's say, 900K a week? If the running costs are 700K, as stated in the article, the answer is yes. The controversy that led to the show closing prematurely did largely involve the Broadway community. So yes, that is why I care about the community, and the people that were prematurely unemployed.

@PaulWom, I give up. You're hopeless. You are just not prepared to consider this within any non-fairy tale reality so enjoy the trip.

I think Cynthia Erivo thinks she can get away with being so obnoxious and dismissive because she never mentioned race in her Twitter nonsense, unlike dillhole Rafael Casal and BroadwayBlack. But her "the assumption that the rest of the cast is to be thrown in and out of rehearsals at a constant also is a disregard for the work they do" tweet has always stuck out to me as being shortsighted and dumb. The cast would vastly prefer to have jobs and to be able to stick together as a GC family, as has been made clear in the majority of their social media. I believe one of the cast members even spoke about the sense of awe they felt watching Mandy Patinkin rehearse. Cynthia Erivo did not speak for them. Ask the cast whether they felt like their work was disregarded (whatever that means) before you try speaking on their behalf! And dirtbag Casal's dismissive tweet to Nick Choksi is even more infuriating after reading this article. Seriously, eff that nobody.

It was an even bigger slap in the face to know that Casal went to the show the day after the sh*tstorm started and Erivo did the same, even posing for a photo with Denée. I wonder if that is when people requested that she stop f*cking around on Twitter about this.

Apparently they can't seem to grasp is that they were not aware of the entire situation, regardless of how many times Cynthia Erivo may say otherwise (and she certainly outright stated she knew what was going on behind the scenes, which would make her tweets even more embarrassingly shortsighted). The idea that the actual cast and crew beyond Oak, people who are directly impacted by the show's survival, should have a say in the conversation never even crossed their minds.

Oak seems like he really threw away a good opportunity here, and his dumb quote about not stopping someone who feels passionately about something is so stupid it hurts. I'm now even more of a mind that he supported what Casal was tweeting, as Casal essentially admitted when he tweeted at someone to think about why he was taking on this fight when Oak was remaining silent.

Also, his comment about "a fundamental issue of representation that's bigger than the show" is confoundingly stupid because this show in particular was actively working on behalf of representation. If there's a show beyond Hamilton that kept that idea in mind, it was this one. The show's work on behalf of representation was bigger than Oak, which Casal and he never stopped to consider.

At the end of the day, this show could have gone on at least a few more months supporting the livelihoods of 100+ people had Mandy been able to take on the role and had their original plan to get names in the show gone through (even if it's not a Groban level name). And the worst part of it is that there was a cloud of drama hanging over such a beautiful show with so much heart. It makes me want to line people up and slap the crap out of them.

Updated On: 8/30/17 at 01:13 AM

The casting controversy was, is, and shall always be the fault of the producers. They chose to deliver the news by saying "hey, Oak is out because Mandy wants in" which was unsatisfactory and questionable. And that is what Cynthia and others did - THEY QUESTIONED BASED ON THEIR OWN EXPERIENCES. To blame them in any way is utterly foolish. That's like saying it's Bill Murray's fault Groundhog Day is closing because he saw it TWICE and didn't tweet about it.

I get that you're disappointed - The Great Comet is truly special. But you sound ridiculous.

JayElle said: "orlikethe...said. "that's some Trumpesque rhetoric, huh? "

no Orlike... she comes from a different world, contributed nothing positive to the show, cast or fans....but managed to spew her race card b/s helping put all out of work. Racist she is, so she's most like Trump. She hails the West End..so go back there."



I don't like you so get out of my country? I stand by my statement.

Also the producers' ineptitude - thinking Oak, whose only claim to fame was a small (the smallest?) role in Hamilton, would be able to successfully follow superstar Josh Groban, who often did not sell to capacity.

orlikethecolorpurple said: "JayElle said: "orlikethe...said. "that's some Trumpesque rhetoric, huh? "

no Orlike... she comes from a different world, contributed nothing positive to the show, cast or fans....but managed to spew her race card b/s helping put all out of work. Racist she is, so she's most like Trump. She hails the West End..so go back there."


I don't like you so get out of my country? I stand by my statement.

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I find that it really cheapens the conversation when you equate someone who wants an English person to go back to the West End so she stops annoying us stateside (likely said out of frustration and disappointment with her individual conduct/comments) with someone ignorantly placating racists and xenophobes by trying to keep entire groups of people out of the country.