SHUCKED On Broadway - Reviews Thread — Page 3

So happy to have Kevin Cahoon back on Broadway. Very much looking forward to this next week, now.

bdn223 said: "Can we talk about that they got someone to dress as an ear of corn and run through the audience last night?"

I hope that happens at every performance.

Yeah, cultivating the air of “what even is this?” is definitely getting people talking. I’ve had more people ask me about it after I posted a pic of the playbill on my IG story than I have for any other show in recent memory.


It’s an extremely effective tactic for an original show with no big names. I’m sure once it opens, the marketing will shift to something more traditional, but for building buzz in previews… it seems like it could be successful.

It's not dissimilar to the campaigns for SOMETHING ROTTEN and URINETOWN –– tho up to now, they haven;t really been telling us what the show is about (beyond the corn element).

It's a tall order to convince people to spend $80+ on a show that they know nothing about, with nobody "famous" involved. Getting people in in early previews is paramount for increasing WOM (as with Something Rotten, which priced the whole house at $16 for the first 3 previews). The issue then becomes that you have to be able to pivot and increase the average ticket price if you want to succeed, and prove to people that it's indeed a luxury good that deserves their money.

bdn223 said: "Can we talk about that they got someone to dress as an ear of corn and run through the audience last night?"

Soooo that was Brian the BA from tiktok and that was 100% all him. That was ALL him. The PR team just gave their blessing for him to do it.

Really, this PR team deserves a raise with how they are handling the marketing on this. They invited some of the most followed theatre *news* influencers (key difference between the news influencers and the performer influencers in my book) on the tiktok platform to come to a rehearsal and they spoke so highly about it that the buzz for the show is now SO high there. And I've seen first hand that it works. Two of my friends that went last night originally didn't have tickets but both bought them because of that good early word of mouth. And a lot of people said in the comments to those videos that they went out and got tickets at once. And it cost the marketing team NOTHING to have these three people come and then organically talk about what they thought about the show.

So many PR teams on shows struggle to capture that lighting in a bottle that is a good social media presence which is growing more and more important. Engaging with the potential patrons and fans more directly than just plastering their webpages with static ads is the way marketing has been trending for awhile and Shucked is mastering that art very fast.

Kad said: "While whether the marketing’s successful is tbd, it certainly is a stark contrast to something like KPop, which just seemed to plop down on Broadway, do the barest minimum and a half-assed social media engagement campaign, and then act shocked and aggrieved that it flopped."

Oh VERY much. And as someone that saw Kpop very early in previews the show as BUILT for a platform like tiktok. One of my first reactions walking out was "this needs to start making dance trend videos like YESTERDAY." Which they eventually DID try but by then, the nail was already in the coffin waiting to be hammered in. Shucked on the other hand got ahead of the game before rehearsals even began and has already started to see fruits of that labor.

This made the final slot for my late April trip based on these reviews as well as those from a couple of friends who saw the tryout (Utah?). Excited for this one and think it’ll make for a good variety along with Some/Hot, NY NY, Thanksgiving Play and Grey House.

^ I love that so much. As I said a month ago don't sleep on Shucked, it's a special show that wants to be on Broadway, unlike many shows as of late that barely tried to get the word out.

Updated On: 3/9/23 at 04:26 PM

Can't wait to see it next week!!!

I saw this in its prior incarnation as Moonshine: The Hee Haw Musical and am very curious to compare the two when I see it in May. It sounds like it kept some elements but revised the story. Even that version was wipe your eyes hilarious.