Postponed Indefinitely: ROOM On Broadway - News & Discussion Thread- Page 6

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 3/16/23 at 2:34pm

If you can't finish the capitalization, there's no choice but to shut it down before it opens. Otherwise, the other lead producers would be obligated to make up the difference (which they were probably trying to do for days or weeks after the other lead pulled out) - but someone correct me if I'm misremembering.

Her face was the ad campaign. The closing is obviously not her fault directly, but it was billed as an Adrienne Warren vehicle and it would not look great for ANY above-title actor in this situation, be it Ben Platt in PARADE or Jodie Comer in PRIMA FACIE or Metcalf/Maslany in GREY HOUSE...especially troubling considering the optics of this being a play about a Black woman. It signifies there is not interest in both her and the property from a financial standpoint. This has nothing to do with her talent, it's a simple dollars matter. She won't be ostracized, but it's a reminder of the minuscule bubble of Broadway "notoriety." She and Kate Burton and everyone else will work again, and her agents will be careful to align her with people who have a better track record.

Hopefully we'll get some more thorough reporting on this soon.

[Age_of_Mendacity]

Posted: 3/16/23 at 2:36pm

The Distinctive Baritone said: "I agree that not letting it even open is cruel. And surely the producers knew going into this that they would never make a dime, that this was a “prestige” art house kind of thing. So to pull the plug when ticket sales are low (I’m assuming that’s what happened)? Lame."

If a producer doesn't have the ability to fund their commitment anymore, it doesn't matter how cruel or disappointing it is. It sucks, but people's financial abilities can change dramatically.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 3/16/23 at 2:39pm

TheatreMonkey said: "RippedMan said: "I think a performer winning a Tony for a musical doesn't mean much when they go to do a straight play, as evident by Audra McDonald.

That does seem high, cost wise, but I'm always amazed at how much stuff costs to produce in this day and age."

Except Audra has won Tony awards in ALL categories -- including for straight plays. Point taken, but not a good example."

I mean look at Nathan Lane’s show limping along. That’s my point. Audra is not a draw in a plan. I’m not even sure Porgy and Bess made any money. 

[Hairspray0901]

Posted: 3/16/23 at 4:19pm

I’ve seen the movie a number of times - Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay were absolutely incredible. With that said, I had no interest in seeing this story live on stage due to the heavy nature of the material. It’s about the last thing I’d ever want to see on stage, actually. I’m sad for all involved but as others stated earlier, I do think the material was steering people away from buying tickets, as I know it was keeping me away. 

[RUkiddingme]

Posted: 3/16/23 at 4:40pm

RUkiddingme said: "If the producers don't know if their show is a play or a musical maybe they shouldn't be bothering.

"

Back in January I posted this here.

Too bad the producers didn't listen to me then!

[BCfitasafiddle]

Posted: 3/16/23 at 4:40pm

What a shame. Maybe it'll find its way onto to Broadway someday? 

[Kad]

Posted: 3/16/23 at 4:53pm

There’s a lot of weird takes happening on this thread, but we know next to nothing about the situation. All we know is a major investor pulled out. Considering the state of the economy, including the recent collapse of SVB, and considering the general riskiness of investing in Broadway, one has to wonder what this portends for Broadway investment generally. People with money are not in a place right now where taking a risk is necessarily worth it. 

[A.J.]

Posted: 3/16/23 at 5:06pm

Hairspray0901 said: "I’ve seen the movie a number of times - Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay were absolutely incredible. With that said, I had no interest in seeing this story live on stage due to the heavy nature of the material. It’s about the last thing I’d ever want to see on stage, actually. I’m sad for all involved but as others stated earlier, I do think the material was steering people away from buying tickets, as I know it was keeping me away."

This is exactly what prevented me from seeing this production when it was in Toronto last year.

 

[saxpower]

Posted: 3/16/23 at 5:33pm

There has to be more to this story.  Admittedly I don't know much about the business/logistics side of things, but we are less than one month from the scheduled preview.  I'd assume rehearsals were well underway, and sets were built and possibly already in the theatre.  You'd think there would have been some kind of alarm bells going off about capitalization well before this.  

I don't like being a voice of gloom, but I have a feeling the "indefinite postponement"  is likely permanent. 

[TotallyEffed]

Posted: 3/16/23 at 5:36pm

saxpower said: 

I don't like being a voice of gloom, but I have a feeling the "indefinite postponement" is likely permanent."


 

You have a gift.

[Dolly80]

Posted: 3/16/23 at 6:17pm

I don’t believe this. My hunch is they sold 3 tickets and knew it was doomed. 

[ChorusKitty]

Posted: 3/16/23 at 7:51pm

This is extremely unfortunate for the whole "Room" company.  I feel laying blame on any actor who never even had the opportunity to perform their part before a paying audience is astoundingly ugly, however. 

Any producer willing to take the risk on this material would obviously know that making a profit would be extraordinarily difficult.  The movie was made on a (by Hollywood standards) shoestring budget of $13M and even with multiple Oscar nominations and a Best Actress win only made $14M domestically and low $30M-something worldwide.  In other words, at the box office it failed.  With residual rights, it probably made a nominal profit.  

It's not difficult to assume this producer may have been spooked by recent market/banking and interest rate instability, but such a late withdrawal is, in my opinion, simply tragic.  No doubt the investor probably has other plans for their big bucks, like greasing the palms of some politician who will give them tax breaks.  🙃

 

[JasonC3]

Posted: 3/16/23 at 8:17pm

ChorusKitty said: "This is extremely unfortunate for the whole "Room" company. I feel laying blame on any actor who never even had the opportunity to perform their part before a paying audience is astoundingly ugly, however.

No doubt the investor probably has other plans for their big bucks, like greasing the palms of some politician who will give them tax breaks. ?"

Speaking of an astoundingly ugly, stereotypical, and unnecessary comment.

 

[PipingHotPiccolo]

Posted: 3/16/23 at 8:26pm

Its also crazy ignorant. The rich are coddled by our politicians, no doubt, but the idea that any single Bway producer is somehow culpable in that is.... silly, at best. What this post is really saying is "how dare the producer not spend their wealth on this show!"--- an opinion I'll readily take seriously when the poster here provides receipts for what % of their net worth they've invested in risky, unlikely-to-turn-profit productions.

[Kad]

Posted: 3/16/23 at 10:20pm

JasonC3 said: "ChorusKitty said: "This is extremely unfortunate for the whole "Room" company. I feel laying blame on any actor who never even had the opportunity to perform their part before a paying audience is astoundingly ugly, however.

No doubt the investor probably has other plans for their big bucks, like greasing the palms of some politician who will give them tax breaks. ?"

Speaking of an astoundingly ugly, stereotypical, and unnecessary comment.

"

Yes, those poor rich people  

[KJisgroovy]

Posted: 3/16/23 at 11:55pm

"What this post is really saying is "how dare the producer not spend their wealth on this show!""

The post I believe you are referring to calls out the "late withdrawal" and not the fact that the producer doesn't want to spend their money on the show. There's a nearly a limitless amount of people not spending their wealth on broadway shows and no one in this thread is blaming them. They're saying it's tacky that someone has decided to not fulfill their commitment of wealth.,, a commitment they entered into willingly. 

People have relocated and lost other opportunities all on the whim of this person. There's no promise of success in this business, but you do mostly expect the people involved to keep their promises.

[PipingHotPiccolo]

Posted: 3/17/23 at 12:01am

KJisgroovy said: ""What this post is really saying is "how dare the producer not spend their wealth on this show!""

The post I believe you are referring to calls out the "late withdrawal" and not the fact that the producer doesn't want to spend their money on the show. There's a nearly a limitless amount of people not spending their wealth on broadway shows and no one in this thread is blaming them. They're saying it's tacky that someone has decided to not fulfill their commitment of wealth.,, a commitment they entered into willingly.

People have relocated and lost other opportunities all on the whim of this person. There's no promise of success in this business, but you do mostly expect the people involved to keep their promises."

I was reacting to the comment that this person pulled their money so they could pay off politicians who keep them rich. That aint how any of this works, kids. From start to finish, its just hoo boy wrong. And while I have NO Idea what happened here, i find it hard to imagine that someone was investing big money to put on ROOM--not exactly tossing some cash into a surefire hit-- and then suddenly said "Nah."  

[Age_of_Mendacity]

Posted: 3/17/23 at 12:48am

KJisgroovy said: ""What this post is really saying is "how dare the producer not spend their wealth on this show!""

The post I believe you are referring to calls out the "late withdrawal" and not the fact that the producer doesn't want to spend their money on the show. There's a nearly a limitless amount of people not spending their wealth on broadway shows and no one in this thread is blaming them. They're saying it's tacky that someone has decided to not fulfill their commitment of wealth.,, a commitment they entered into willingly.

People have relocated and lost other opportunities all on the whim of this person. There's no promise of success in this business, but you do mostly expect the people involved to keep their promises."

Sure, you can think it's tacky, but you have no idea who the investor is or what their situation is. The only thing we know is that they had "personal reasons" for not being able to fulfill their commitment. The S&P 500 is down more than 10% in the past year, and some specific industries have been hit much worse. There have also been tens of thousands of layoffs year-to-date in some pretty high-wealth sectors.

The investor did willingly enter into the commitment to fund the show, but they also willingly withdrew that commitment. It sucks, and I'm sure there is a penalty for them pulling out, but if they don't have the money anymore, they don't have the money. 

[fbueller]

Posted: 3/17/23 at 1:18am

The investor/investment group should be named for transparency.

[ChorusKitty]

Posted: 3/17/23 at 8:42am

I apologize if my flippant ending comment on my post triggered such strong reactions. I, admittedly, acknowledge I don't know the reason this person decided to pull their funds, surely at a loss already, at this late date.  My full empathy goes out to the cast, crew, and other producers who have been impacted. 

 

 

[itsjustmejonhotmailcom]

Posted: 3/17/23 at 11:33am

A couple of things. 1) The producer who departed wasn't investing his personal money. He was raising it from others. 2) In this situation and others like it, an investor didn't "pull out" - they were never in to begin with. Once an investor signs the agreement and wires funds, there is no getting their money back. What likely happened is that an investor committed verbally or over email, but never actually invested. Most producers don't count that as a done deal for exactly this reason. Until the agreement is signed and money is in the bank, they aren't an investor.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 3/17/23 at 12:04pm

fbueller said: "The investor/investment group should be named for transparency."

We already know it's either Sam Julyan or James Yeoburn. It was specified as a Lead Producer, and those are the other two lead producers in addition to Hunter Arnold. Both are British, relatively young, and have never worked on Broadway prior to this. And as itsjustmejonhotmailcom said, investments are often discussed in a handshake way during the courting stage and nothing is finalized until an investor signs their binding agreement. A lead producer will be courting many investors and in this case was probably responsible for about 1/3 of the capitalization (which would be $2.3M).

There will no doubt be additional reporting, as there was with Nerds and the bts of Funny Girl and other problem shows. If Riedel were still writing, we'd already have the skinny.

Updated On: 3/17/23 at 12:04 PM

[BorisTomashevsky]

Posted: 3/17/23 at 12:13pm

Paging Ben Sprecher, Ben Sprecher to the information desk please. 

[JasonC3]

Posted: 3/17/23 at 12:46pm

ChorusKitty said: "I apologize if my flippant ending comment on my post triggered such strong reactions. I, admittedly, acknowledge I don't know the reason this person decided to pull their funds, surely at a loss already, at this late date. My full empathy goes out to the cast, crew, and other producers who have been impacted."

Thank you for the faux apology in which you don't express regret for what you actually said, but for the reactions you triggered.  Here's what the real apology looks like.

"I apologize for my flippant ending comment in my post. I, admittedly, acknowledge I don't know the reason this person decided to pull their funds, surely at a loss already, at this late date. My full empathy goes out to the cast, crew, and other producers who have been impacted."

 

Updated On: 3/17/23 at 12:46 PM

[JanMaxwellsBag]

Posted: 3/17/23 at 1:21pm

Never mind I truly don’t carep

Updated On: 3/17/23 at 01:21 PM