SUNSET BLVD. Reviews - Page 68
SUNSET BLVD. Reviews
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/30/22
SUNSET BLVD. Revival#1675
Posted: 8/13/25 at 1:47pm
That’s still around $800,000 across the run at your conservative estimate.
There was a producer in the 1970s who used to remove the post mark from mail senders’ stamps using a chemical solution. The stamps were then good to reuse. Every cent counts!
SUNSET BLVD. Revival#1676
Posted: 8/13/25 at 2:39pm
Nothing surprises me in terms of Broadway costs anymore. I mean, I look at how quick Redwood closed for example with a tiny cast, projected set and one name......seems like it's becoming much more commonplace for shows to cost close to a million a week to run nowadays and that's CRAZY. It used to feel like maybe a show like Wicked could get close or Spider-Man went over, but they were exceptional.....seems to be quickly coming the norm.
How can that production of CABARET cost almost as much as Spider-Man the musical per month to run? That's wildddddd.
SUNSET BLVD. Revival#1677
Posted: 8/13/25 at 2:47pm
binau said: "Nothing surprises me in terms of Broadway costs anymore. I mean, I look at how quick Redwood closed for example with a tiny cast, projected set and one name......seems like it's becoming much more commonplace for shows to cost close to a million a week to run nowadays and that's CRAZY. It used to feel like maybe a show like Wicked could get close or Spider-Man went over, but they were exceptional.....seems to be quickly coming the norm.
How can that production of CABARET cost almost as much as Spider-Man the musical per month to run? That's wildddddd."
15 years of inflation.
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Rachel Zegler currently doesn't have a weekly alternate--Bella Brown is just doing select performances, so if that pattern continues on Broadway then theoretically Evita wouldn't have the one performance a week where it loses money like Sunset did (though I'm very curious who her understudy would be).
If this is an extended run she will absolutely need an alternate, every other production of Evita has needed one.
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/20/18
SUNSET BLVD. Revival#1678
Posted: 8/13/25 at 3:00pm
They’d be wise to have a dedicated alternate (whether it’s the mistress or a standby or someone else) and a 7x/week schedule for Rachel. It’s tougher to do what GYPSY did and reduce the star’s perfs later on.
It goes without saying that it’s a beast of a role, and this London run is Rachel’s first professional musical theatre part on stage.
SUNSET BLVD. Revival#1679
Posted: 8/13/25 at 3:07pm
I'm pretty sure that the weekly running costs for Sunset was publicly disclosed at $950,000 a week. The reddit/new writer for BWW (whose name escapes me right now) had speculated that plus fees, etc. that it was about $1.3- 1.4 million a week total and the rest would've gone to paying the investment back. When I was doing the math, I was on the lower end, imagining it was 1.2/1.3 and with the final grossses got to them returning $11 million/$12 million (and thought especially those last weeks when they were doing blockbuster business and extended to July 20th that they saw an opportunity to close the gap or get much closer). I guess it remains to be seen, as some have pointed out, the full accounting isn't complete so it's possible it didn't lose $6 million.
But it does reinforce ALW's argument when Phantom closed that the economics on Broadway are way out of control... and eventually will be its undoing if there's not some major changes. I mean that Gypsy cost even more than Sunset to mount and would lose most if not all its investment is shocking too
SUNSET BLVD. Revival#1680
Posted: 8/13/25 at 4:37pm
As much as I love Andrew Lloyd Webber as a composer, he gave me the love of musical theatre. He has said it himself that he is a dreadful producer. A big mistake is to open a star driven musical in the fall, the fall is more suited to open runs not star driven, where star driven shows are best in the spring near to the Tony Awards.
Maybe Happy Ending that could've posted early closing notices, winning the Tony Award certainly improved their box office.
SUNSET BLVD. Revival#1681
Posted: 8/13/25 at 5:39pm
Timon3 said: "As much as I love Andrew Lloyd Webber as a composer, he gave me the love of musical theatre. He has said it himself that he is a dreadful producer. A big mistake is to open a star driven musical in the fall, the fall is more suited to open runs not star driven, where star driven shows are best in the spring near to the Tony Awards.
Maybe Happy Ending that could've posted early closing notices, winning the Tony Award certainly improved their box office."
Definitely agree that ALW as a producer was not a good run for him (as the original production of Sunset Blvd) proved. But this last outing, while he's listed as a producer, the decision making seemed to come from Michael Harrison/Jamie Lloyd and whoever else in that huge crowd of people that swarmed the stage.
SUNSET BLVD. Revival#1682
Posted: 8/24/25 at 7:52am
‘Ready for My Close-Up’ Review: The Trouble With Norma
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/film/ready-for-my-close-up-review-the-trouble-with-norma-4d7af7e8?st=D2MPxS&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/30/22
SUNSET BLVD. Revival#1683
Posted: 8/30/25 at 5:11pm
Aurora has just posted a spliced-together video of the five Jamie Lloyd Normas. For me, Mandy G leaves everyone in the dust.
https://youtu.be/a3rDPzM4GCU?si=_jzxJOg2U4VAaJyb
SUNSET BLVD. Revival#1684
Posted: 8/30/25 at 6:16pm
None of them have a leg to stand on against Glenn Close. By the time I saw this new version, it all just seemed so small. Ben Brantley’s review was a straight up love letter, it reads like he was weeping tears of joy watching Glenn. He was a hell of a lot more enthused about Ms. Close’s performance in sunset than he ever was Bette Midler’s ham and cheese performance in Hello Dolly that same season. Glenn deserved the Tony that year, not Bette
SUNSET BLVD. Revival#1685
Posted: 8/30/25 at 6:31pm
Birdie Boy said: "None of them have a leg to stand on against Glenn Close. By the time I saw this new version, it all just seemed so small. Ben Brantley’s review was a straight up love letter, it reads like he was weeping tears of joy watching Glenn. He was a hell of a lot more enthused about Ms. Close’s performance in sunset than he ever was Bette Midler’s ham and cheese performance in Hello Dolly that same season. Glenn deserved the Tony that year, not Bette"
Glenn already got her Tony for it in 1995.
SUNSET BLVD. Revival#1688
Posted: 8/30/25 at 6:38pm
He won an award for a play he already directed on Broadway
Updated On: 8/30/25 at 06:38 PMSUNSET BLVD. Revival#1689
Posted: 8/30/25 at 8:24pm
Birdie Boy said: "None of them have a leg to stand on against Glenn Close. By the time I saw this new version, it all just seemed so small. Ben Brantley’s review was a straight up love letter, it reads like he was weeping tears of joy watching Glenn. He was a hell of a lot more enthused about Ms. Close’s performance in sunset than he ever was Bette Midler’s ham and cheese performance in Hello Dolly that same season. Glenn deserved the Tony that year, not Bette"
The Tony Awards won't allow nominations for people starring in the same role they've already won.
As for Ben Brantley - he did a tweet/review of this recent revival:
"Well I had a terrific time at "Sunset Blvd." - Jamie Lloyd's production distills a lumbering musical to the impure essence of noir: shadow, fog, betrayal, hunger. Scherzinger is raw narcissism trapped and magnified in a Vaelined lens: say what you will, it's a major performance."
SUNSET BLVD. Revival#1690
Posted: 8/30/25 at 9:04pm
That doesn’t mean he liked it more than Close. But perhaps he’s lost his touch. Looking forward to the new NYT critic. I hope they don’t feel the need to fill some quota. I would like a critic who can give good one liners making fun of the show, that’s the only thing they MUST have
SUNSET BLVD. Revival#1691
Posted: 9/2/25 at 8:23am
Birdie Boy said: "I would like a critic who can give good one liners making fun of the show, that’s the only thing they MUST have"
Why is it important to you that a critic "makes fun of a show"?
"Michael Riedel...The Perez Hilton of the New York Theatre scene"
- Craig Hepworth, What's On Stage
SUNSET BLVD. Revival#1692
Posted: 9/2/25 at 8:27am
How I wish Ben Brantley never left the NYC
SUNSET BLVD. Revival#1693
Posted: 5/16/26 at 7:28pm
Tom Francis among the actors auditioning to be the next James Bond
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