NYTimes.com: More Thanksgiving theater-goers attended big-budget Broadway musicals like “Wicked” and “The Lion King” last week instead of Broadway plays starring such Hollywood celebrities as Jessica Chastain (“The Heiress”), Katie Holmes (“Dead Accounts”) and Paul Rudd (“Grace”), according to box-office data released on Monday.
2 comments:
This to me seems incredibly obvious. Yes, musicals are more popular for big family event. Yes, Thanksgiving and Christmas people take their families to see shows. Its when all the kids are back from school and uncles and aunts come back from out of town, so why not do something fun? But the problem is Mom doesn't want anything too racy, Dad hates anything to new, Suzy is gonna get bored etc. So yeah, a Broadway hit is a logical step.
However, it also makes sense that the plays with the 'famous' actors didn't do as well. But the one with Al Pacino held its own. I love that. The famous actors that are in some of the shows yes, they're famous but they are not Al Pacino.
I was going to say, is there anything remotely surprising about this? The plays starring big names are nowhere near family friendly. Many of the increased audiences for Broadway are families - are they going to take the 10 year olds to David Mamet? Not likely. Also consider that many of those people are tourists who have been hearing about Lion King for 15 years and Wicked for 10, with many many people who have made their way through the theatres during that time. That's where the Christmas Story and Elf seasonal shows didn't make the top of this list - even specifically as shows made for children to come, they won't be able to unseat the incumbent productions.
On the famous actors point:
1. Plays do worse than musicals.
2. The plays all had adult themes, language or sexuality. Again, no Mamet for the children.
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