What has been the worst January for Broadway closures?- Page 2
What has been the worst January for Broadway closures?
Phantom4ever
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/17/07
#25What has been the worst January for Broadway closures?
Posted: 1/2/17 at 12:08am
Do you guys remember the SNL sketch entitled "Let's Save Broadway" that aired on January 10, 2009? It was about the large number of January closings that year and how the 2008-2009 season in general was suffering due to the recession.
If featured Taylor Swift as Annie and Neil Patrick Harris as Mark from Rent.
In the sketch, the Phantom led a meeting of Broadway characters trying to figure out how to save Broadway, but all of their ideas were useless. Pretty funny and still very accurate: Let's Save Broadway!
#26What has been the worst January for Broadway closures?
Posted: 1/2/17 at 12:10am
Jan 2009 was awful!
IIRC didn't every play on Broadway close in Jan, and there were only a few musicals running for a like a month or so?
#27What has been the worst January for Broadway closures?
Posted: 1/2/17 at 5:08am
Avenue Q closed in September 2009..
perfectliar
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/1/04
#28What has been the worst January for Broadway closures?
Posted: 1/2/17 at 12:34pm
Famebroadway2 said: "Jan 2009 was awful!
IIRC didn't every play on Broadway close in Jan, and there were only a few musicals running for a like a month or so? "
No. There were several plays running in January and beyond in 2009 (33 Variations, Hedda Gabler, Speed-the-Plow, Equus, and others).
#29What has been the worst January for Broadway closures?
Posted: 1/2/17 at 12:42pm
ukpuppetboy said: "Avenue Q closed in September 2009..
"
It seems that you are correct. Whoever wrote that article was wrong on many shows.
My father (AIDS)
My sister (AIDS)
My uncle and my cousin and her best friend (AIDS, AIDS, AIDS)
The gays and the straights
And the white and the spades
#30What has been the worst January for Broadway closures?
Posted: 1/2/17 at 5:25pm
The run up to the January 2009 closing was also filled with articles on the examining the bear market that was Broadway. I. Terms oflong run ing shows Rent closed in September, Hairspray, Spring Awakening, and Grease had announced their January closings. Then 2007-2008 season contained 2 supposed"critc-proof hits" (Young Frankenstein and The Little Mermaid) that many thought were catalyst putting the older long runners out to pasture, were struggling to find audiences themselves.
Add to that a pre-Marvel and Lucasfilm Disney's hadn't had a non pixar animated hit in almost a decade, its only hit films were Pirates of the Caribean and National Treasure. Between 2006 and 2008 they had opened Tarzan, Mary Poppins, and The Little Mermaid and was also riding high off the success of the High School Musical franchise. Yet they couldn't recapture the magic of Beauty and The Beast or The Lion King with any of the 3 productions.
The final straws to the what many say was the financial meltdown of Broadway during the fall of 2008, were Billy Elliot and Shrek. The former was supposed to be the next Wicked opened to glowing reviews and solid business, but wasn't the zeitgeist show many thought it would be as it was in the West End. Then Shrek which opened to positive reviews was playing to houses that were a third empty.
It wasn't just the massive number of closings that made January 2009 on of the worst financial months in Broadway history, its that it was as if nothing was making money.
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