What really killed Drowsy in London?

I was having a very interesting discussion with a few people attached with the production, now nearly, shockingly, 2 years ago and we all were slightly confused as to why this show really did close so early.

The press release and word from producers was that it was due to bad ticket sales - however, box office and cast were noting from July (as word of mouth start to circulate) the show was getting much heathier and fuller houses. The show wasn't expensive to run and the audience were in fits of laughter most nights.

We all know AKA were disastrous on the advertising and marketing. Its such a shame Dewynters never had it - they would have understood the marketing needs much more. Apparently Cameron was interested in co-producing helpself but the other backers didn't seem interest in having a better marketing company which put Cameron off - but he still wanted to have it one of his houses after seeing it on Broadway, it was him who convinced Elaine to do the part. When it originally launched (only holding a small press launch at the novello, which looked thrown together at the last min and more celebration of EP's birthday!) back in Feb - the show was only set to open 3 months later meaning advance sales were not going to great. The poster and advertising for the inital pre-opening sales were simply awful. It showed nothing about the show and just literally had elaine's name on it - which i think they hoped would sell it alone. Then came the second promotional images this time exactly the same but with EP holding a Martini Glass in not even her costume! It looked cheap cheap cheap.
None of this helped sell the show before it opened.

When it opened in May great new redesigns came, reviews great and good industry word of mouth. But out side of London, aging EP fans and other theatre lovers who live outside of London didnt even know the show was on! No marketing or advertising was done at all... very poor.

Even besides this, sales, although not sold out, still weren't bad and were picking up. Yet 2 months into the show and the closing announcment was said. Everyone was shocked. Everyone thought the show would at least run to the end of Elaine's December contract and given she was enjoying it so much, she probably would have extended. Elaine herself cried when the closing announcement was given alongside many of the cast.

Something discussed yesterday was that a number of the same producers of Drowsy were involved with the up and coming staging of Desperately Seeking Susan, who for a while, were desperately seeking a theatre. Due to 2006's many shows incoming a lot of major theatres were taken so they were reduced to accept The Gielgud to open at the end of 2007. However, when Drowsy opened to not a brilliant advance (really, i think, there own fault) some believe the producers thought to just simply abadon ship and pin all their money into Desperatly Seeking Susan instead of injecting a bit more money to Drowsy's marketing pool to help drum up more word of mouth. So they thought if they could get a bigger advance for Desperatly by opening in a bigger theatre they could re-coup lost money from Drowsy and thats what some believe happened; they simply decided to shut down Drowsy and under write it and pin all hopes of Desperatley Seeking Susan becoming a hit and grab a bigger advance in a bigger theatre. The funny thing is Desperatly lost more money than Drowsy it's believed because they spent more money on it!

Long message i know... but something that confuses me and lot of people in theatre and in the cast.

Anyone have anymore stories or thoughts?

We've been over this one so many times on here but in the end I think it came down to good taste on behalf of the good old English, theatre going public!

As Mama said, this has been discussed before. While I won't pretend to know the precise reason why the show closed, all I can say is that I thought the show itself was dreadful. I saw it in New York and did not find it even remotely funny and the score was bland and boring. Some people have claimed it was "original" but I don't agree. It was very old hat apart from the concept of the Man In Chair but that was a novelty that became stale and even rather annoying after fifteen minutes or so. Sutton Foster was - as always - amazing in the Broadway production but the London show did not have that advantage.

On Broadway I think it was possibly even a kind of "the Emperor's New Clothes" syndrome, where people thought it was fashionable to say they liked it. In London the audiences were not so gullible.

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You're right the marketing/advertising budget was probably not what it should have been - but that artwork was disgraceful and not eyecatching in the slightest.

Also, not sure if its marketing but they seem to play such a part in ticketing for west end shows for some reason, the preview prices were stupidly high. I think they were something like £10 off - really poor and because they thought EP was going to make the show a sell out they refused to do any great group rates or other offers. I think that had a part to play.

I think to say the public didn't want it is unfair as I don't think they were made aware of it.

I think its puzzle that I will dwele on for sometime with a lot of other people.

I'm with Mama - it simply wasn't that great. Not that quality (subjectively speaking) is any kind of indicator of how long it could have run, but this was a word of mouth show in New York and it seemed producers were hoping for the same kind of effect here (as one of the posters on the side of Novello proclaimed). Sadly, it never materialised as the reception at the performance I attended was merely 'polite' to put it kindly...

Well Dirty Dancing's success is not so much down down to advertising so much as the unreasonably high amount of disposable income available to soon-to-be-married chavs and, most importantly, a recognisable title.

Original musicals are not rare because they're hard to write, but because, generally, no-one goes to see them. Whether that's due to ticket prices being so high that people want a 'safe bet', or the widely reported 'dumbing down' of audiences is a moot point - Drowsy just never had anything as an easy hook for advertising; it wasn't based on a film, or written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and didn't feature the songs of whichever pop moppets nostalgia has vomited back into fashion.

Updated On: 4/11/09 at 07:30 PM

My best mates girlfriend works at the Novello in FOH and they were told from day 1 that sales were dreadful and NOT picking up, she kept saying to him everyday 2its only a matter of time now".

She also mentioned how many performances were less than a quarter full (something which then happened to Desperately Seeking Susan)

The reason Drowsy closed was simple, it had zero impact with its marketing and the sales were dire, oh and not all the reviews were raves, i remember a few very average ones for this show

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It wasn't Drowsy that killed Drowsy. Anyone who saw the OBC knew that with the right cast, the show is a knockout. Beth Leavel, Sutton Foster, Danny Burstein, etc were incredible. The material is strong. It was the ad campaign that was weak.

After seeing it in London, I didn't go ape for Paige. I didn't think she had the comic chops that Leavel did, nor did I appreciate her voice for the role. Overall, when the show hopped across the pond, it felt like an insincere imitation of what it once was: A fantastical farce.

I'm sad it didn't have a longer shelf-life. I thought it was brilliant. Then again, I felt the same way about Ragtime... And you know how that ol' chestnut turned out.




BN :)

There was something (many things) about Drowsy that really tickled my funny bone. Maybe I was just in a particularly good mood the first time I saw it in New York or, maybe, it's just a great feel-good, no-nonsense, good-time show. Anyway, after the show had finished, the two women to my left turned to me and said "Boy, you really enjoyed that, didn't you?". They also thought, because I was dressed (coincidentally) in appropriate clothing (striped blazer, wing-tip shoes), that I was going to leap out of my seat at any moment and start singing! (Regular visitors to this site will realise that the outfits I wear to the theatre are very important to my overall enjoyment of any show).

I'm not quite that old! (Although I was very tempted at "Naked Boys Singing").

I have only seen a bootleg DVD of the Broadway production and have to say I loved it.Why did it fail in London? Firstly the less than inspiring casting of Elaine Paige is a starting point. (But what other name is around that could have pulled it off?).

Not being there (London) I don't know about the show's marketing but have often pondered over just who would appreciate this show. Is it too much of an "in joke" for Joe Public? Do the many references to various shows fall on deaf ears? Americans LOVE showbiz, backstage stories etc. Are British audiences (like their Australian counterparts) somewhat reticent to embrace showbusiness stories like the yanks? I think this could be so and quite possibly just why critics and public resisted the many charms of THE DROWSEY CHAPERONE.

I have a bootleg of the Broadway DVD is as well and have to agree that it was dull and self indulgent, the cast were great though

I then got a dvd from the Novello, its pretty much the same show so it didnt get destroyed in translation. The funny thing with the Novello dvd though is how dead the theatre is, it sounds like about 100 people are in the theatre

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Gee, would have thought this topic had run its course.
But who can resist stopping in with the rest of the usual suspects for another bowl of WickedMama69's warmed over vitriol with a songanddanceman2 chaser and a side of bob8rich.
Enjoy those stolen dvds though.