I once asked the following question in my BroadwaySpace.com group discussion for Bookwriters and Songwriters:
If you look at some of the big shows that have succeeded in the recent past, you find many non-traditional shows . . . puppets, spelling bees . . . or big film-based hits the average joe could never get rights to . . . Disney shows, Spamalot, Legally Blonde, The Wedding Singer.
Can the traditional book musical without a snappy hook be a hit?
Perhaps a better phrasing would have been “Can the traditional book musical without a snappy hook get produced?,” but the meaning of the question is still the same—What constitutes a produce-able new work these days?
For some thoughts, we turn to the 2007-2008 season.
In the Heights—The big winner is an original book musical—a rarity these days—but it probably got noticed for its hook, a contemporary hip-hop infused pop score accompanying a traditional book.
It’s also important to note that the show also got some pretty good reviews, if I am remembering correctly.
A Catered Affair—Because the source material is so obscure (at least to the under-50 crowd), A Catered Affair could almost be considered a completely original work. The rumor on the street is that the music wasn’t so great. While I would like to experience the OBCR, I would have to say seeing Tom Wopat and Faith Prince chatting on The View sold the show much better than the drippy song the producers selected to showcase their work on the Tonys telecast, which probably only worked to strengthen any hesitation future audiences may have had.
Kudos to the show for a beautiful advertising campaign, though it may have worked better with the older folks in the matinee crowd that the average New York theatergoer.
Cry-Baby—Best Advertising Campaign of the Year Award goes to Cry-Baby which balanced hip with a retro look. Honestly, other than In the Heights, Cry-Baby was probably the new musical showcased on the Tonys I wish I could have seen. If only those reviews hadn’t done it in (or, perhaps, if only the people creating the show hadn’t done it in by earning the reviews).
If we categorize Cry-Baby, it’d definitely be a movie adaptation, though it is curious to think that Cry-Baby never would have happened had it not been for Hairspray.
Passing Strange—Okay, so I still don’t really get this show, but if you were categorizing it, something unique and eye-catching this would be. This show—or is that concert?—definitely stood out from the crowd.
The Little Mermaid—Disney does kind of get its own category. Yes, The Little Mermaid is a movie adaptation complete with “lift him up on your shoulders like a cheerleader” choreography that, I swear, was lifted right from the Chugwater High School musical last year, but it deserves its own categorization because only a Disney show could be as bad as Tarzan was and actually survive.
Young Frankenstein—This is a movie adaptation. How it remains open after showcasing “Deep Love” on the Tonys telecast, I’ll never know, but I truly wish Beth Leveal the best of everything.
Glory Days—Four people, young show creators—now that’s unique! Closing on opening night? Not as unique but certainly different.
Looking over that list, we have two extremely unique, stand-out they’re so different types of shows—Glory Days and Passing Strange. If you look at what catches people’s eyes, what stands out, these two shows would be it . . . but oddly enough, they didn’t.
The movie adaptations didn’t fare much better—The Little Mermaid will run for years, but A Catered Affair, Cry-Baby, and Young Frankenstein have not been big hits. Young Frankenstein will probably turn a profit and tour successfully, but the other two will probably not. We’ll all be fortunate if we can even buy a Cry-Baby OBCR, which it sounds like will not be released.
As for original works—We have the big winner of In the Heights, which is also pretty unique, though it is traditional at heart. If we consider A Catered Affair original, it didn’t fare so well.
Interestingly enough, what matters most about the shows, what it boils down to most, was—get this shocker—the quality of the storytelling. Name recognition saved Young Frankenstein and The Little Mermaid from their reviews, but the show that cost less to produce and could very well end up grossing the most was an original show with, get this, a great story! Just like Hairspray succeeded based on its storytelling, as did Wicked, Urinetown, and pretty much every other hit has. Some of the successful shows were unique and bold—Rent, Avenue Q, Spring Awakening; some successful shows have had name recognition—Hairspray, Beauty and the Beast, The Color Purple; some just had were original—Urinetown, In the Heights, The Drowsy Chaperone. But the key is that they found their audiences because they were great shows. No gimmicks, no stunts, no super-creative marketing campaigns to cover up flaws. They were great shows.
Let’s repeat that.
The key is that they found their audiences because they were great shows.
If I had money to invest in Broadway or was looking for a show to produce, that’s what I’d look for.
If I was looking for a project to adapt into a musical or was starting from the ground up, that’s what I’d be most concerned about.
the Broadway Mouth
June 26, 2008
Showing posts with label Young Frankenstein. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Young Frankenstein. Show all posts
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Friday, November 9, 2007
Money, Money, Money for a Mel Brooks Show Must Be Funny in a Rich Man’s World
Mel Brooks to anchor Brian Williams on NBC Nightly News about the $450 seats to Young Frankenstein:
“One thousand eight-hundred-and-thirty seats—over 1000—1600, 1700 seats are a normal, whatever the Broadway prices are, and there’s a front row for twenty-five bucks a seat.”
You know, Mel Brooks does have a point. I love close seats to see a show and could never afford $450 for one, but I can understand his thinking. If people are willing to pay that much to see his show, why shouldn’t he charge it? There are plenty of other seats left over for the rest of us.
It is indeed a sad state of affairs in our more enlightened time that wealth buys you things many other people cannot afford—like seats on a plane where you have a statistically better chance of surviving a crash, your freedom after wrongfully being accused of a crime (or even being correctly accused), enrichment experiences for your children such as special camps and tutors, or the luxury of turning your lips into clown lips (a.k.a. lip augmentation). It’s really about time Broadway catches up with the rest of world, and it seems to me like off all these things (with, perhaps, an exception of lip augmentation), the cost of exclusive Broadway tickets should be the least of all things we exert energy worrying about.
But this issue also brings to the spotlight the much-discussed dilemma of the rising costs of tickets.
Let’s review a few facts. Broadway shows need to make money, but a majority of them close without turning a profit. See Exhibits A: The Pirate Queen; High Fidelity; The Wedding Singer; Caroline, or Change; Taboo; Chitty Chitty Bang Bang; Tarzan; and many others. The butts in seats need to create these profits.
Cost of living is very high in New York City and all those people involved in the daily grind of Broadway need to have a home, have clothing, and pay taxes, often all while only being employed for two months until their show closes. These people include lead actors, chorus members, standbys, swings, instrument players, backstage workers, dressers, wig assistants, ticket window people, and so on. You can’t just cut people out of the process to save money, unless you have a small show with a small cast, that is. The butts in seats need to pay these expenses.
The actors need to be wearing great costumes and they need to be acting against stunning set pieces. This isn’t Dandelion Village Community Players presenting You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown after all. Large sets and great costumes cost money. The butts in seats need to pay these expenses.
So . . . When the world rights itself and the producers lower prices to $35 a seat for orchestra, then how do all these things get financed?
We have to face that fact that putting on a Broadway show is an immensely expensive proposition. If the tickets are lower—even, say, to $75 for orchestra seats, I’m not sure how this stuff would ever get paid for. After all, even when a show sells many discounted tickets, some people do pay the full price, which goes toward keeping the show running and keeping the blue collar Broadway workers employed.
Yes, we also have to face the fact that many shows don’t sell tickets at full price. Of course $125 for a seat is prohibitive and way too expensive, and at that price, shows have priced themselves out of the reach of many theatregoers, but so many tickets sell daily at TKTS, and there are a myriad of ways to access discount codes. If you don’t have $125 to spend on a show, there’s a very good chance you will find a ticket to a show you will enjoy for $55.
Even for the big hits—The Lion King, Wicked, The Little Mermaid, Young Frankenstein—that won’t sell discounted tickets for a number of years, the truth is that it’s only a matter of waiting. Yes, without paying full-price tickets (some at $450), no one ever got to see Nathan Lane or Matthew Broderick in The Producers, but they did get to see other very fine actors like Hunter Foster and Roger Bart.
To me, a great Broadway show would be worth $500 a ticket if I had that kind of money to spend on it. Nothing will ever compare to sitting down and hearing Marla Schaffel and James Barbour singing “Secret Soul” or laughing uproariously at Bob Martin’s Man in Chair. I do agree that ticket prices rise too fast for the sake of practicality, but let’s temper that reaction with the reality of what ticket prices need to finance and the availability of cheaper tickets.
(For the full Mel Brooks interview with Brian Williams: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/)
the Broadway Mouth
November 9, 2007
“One thousand eight-hundred-and-thirty seats—over 1000—1600, 1700 seats are a normal, whatever the Broadway prices are, and there’s a front row for twenty-five bucks a seat.”
You know, Mel Brooks does have a point. I love close seats to see a show and could never afford $450 for one, but I can understand his thinking. If people are willing to pay that much to see his show, why shouldn’t he charge it? There are plenty of other seats left over for the rest of us.
It is indeed a sad state of affairs in our more enlightened time that wealth buys you things many other people cannot afford—like seats on a plane where you have a statistically better chance of surviving a crash, your freedom after wrongfully being accused of a crime (or even being correctly accused), enrichment experiences for your children such as special camps and tutors, or the luxury of turning your lips into clown lips (a.k.a. lip augmentation). It’s really about time Broadway catches up with the rest of world, and it seems to me like off all these things (with, perhaps, an exception of lip augmentation), the cost of exclusive Broadway tickets should be the least of all things we exert energy worrying about.
But this issue also brings to the spotlight the much-discussed dilemma of the rising costs of tickets.
Let’s review a few facts. Broadway shows need to make money, but a majority of them close without turning a profit. See Exhibits A: The Pirate Queen; High Fidelity; The Wedding Singer; Caroline, or Change; Taboo; Chitty Chitty Bang Bang; Tarzan; and many others. The butts in seats need to create these profits.
Cost of living is very high in New York City and all those people involved in the daily grind of Broadway need to have a home, have clothing, and pay taxes, often all while only being employed for two months until their show closes. These people include lead actors, chorus members, standbys, swings, instrument players, backstage workers, dressers, wig assistants, ticket window people, and so on. You can’t just cut people out of the process to save money, unless you have a small show with a small cast, that is. The butts in seats need to pay these expenses.
The actors need to be wearing great costumes and they need to be acting against stunning set pieces. This isn’t Dandelion Village Community Players presenting You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown after all. Large sets and great costumes cost money. The butts in seats need to pay these expenses.
So . . . When the world rights itself and the producers lower prices to $35 a seat for orchestra, then how do all these things get financed?
We have to face that fact that putting on a Broadway show is an immensely expensive proposition. If the tickets are lower—even, say, to $75 for orchestra seats, I’m not sure how this stuff would ever get paid for. After all, even when a show sells many discounted tickets, some people do pay the full price, which goes toward keeping the show running and keeping the blue collar Broadway workers employed.
Yes, we also have to face the fact that many shows don’t sell tickets at full price. Of course $125 for a seat is prohibitive and way too expensive, and at that price, shows have priced themselves out of the reach of many theatregoers, but so many tickets sell daily at TKTS, and there are a myriad of ways to access discount codes. If you don’t have $125 to spend on a show, there’s a very good chance you will find a ticket to a show you will enjoy for $55.
Even for the big hits—The Lion King, Wicked, The Little Mermaid, Young Frankenstein—that won’t sell discounted tickets for a number of years, the truth is that it’s only a matter of waiting. Yes, without paying full-price tickets (some at $450), no one ever got to see Nathan Lane or Matthew Broderick in The Producers, but they did get to see other very fine actors like Hunter Foster and Roger Bart.
To me, a great Broadway show would be worth $500 a ticket if I had that kind of money to spend on it. Nothing will ever compare to sitting down and hearing Marla Schaffel and James Barbour singing “Secret Soul” or laughing uproariously at Bob Martin’s Man in Chair. I do agree that ticket prices rise too fast for the sake of practicality, but let’s temper that reaction with the reality of what ticket prices need to finance and the availability of cheaper tickets.
(For the full Mel Brooks interview with Brian Williams: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/)
the Broadway Mouth
November 9, 2007
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