Friday, September 07, 2007
‘Young Frankenstein’ Will Not Disclose Its Weekly Grosses
New York Times: "Every Monday afternoon there is a moment when the conversation among Broadway insiders turns to one topic: the report of weekly grosses for the Broadway shows. These figures include attendance and average ticket prices, among other statistics, and are still the most reliable way to gauge what is selling and what is not. Their disclosure is a tradition that started in the pages of Variety and goes back at least to the 1930s."
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6 comments:
I find it intersting, the amount of press that Mel Brooks and his producing buddies are getting for this show. Aside from the record setting ticket prices, breaking with the weekly gross report tradition gave me a gut feeling that they do not want to add to their the clear profit motives that the press seems to intimate. As I intimated in an earlier comment, this musical screams 'cold money' to me, and this choice against profit reporting seems like this show is taking a the traditions of theatre and turning their show it in to a corporate profit race.
Theatre is all about traditions. It always peeves me a bit when people think they're too cool to partake in one of them and that seems to me exactly what these producers are doing. To me it seems they're saying that they care more about the money they're making than the contribution to Broadway that they're making.
Also, they must have known that not disclosing their grosses would increase publicity. This move just seems entirely selfish to me.
I agree with Eliza that theatre traditions should not be broken however I do feel that this tradition is a bit silly. I'm sure people would like to know how much shows make but are people really going to get mad because they can;t satisfy their curiosity? This sounds to me like they didn't do to well but I do agree that its just about bragging rights there is no real reason why people should know how much shows make.
It seems to me that it really is up to the production whether or not they want to disclose their earnings. I agree with Rico that it is just something of a cash cow but at the end of the day it is theirs.
It's not about breaking tradition, it's about blatant overconfidence. Mike Riedel has been reporting about Mel Brooks strutting about Broadway since since Young Frankenstein began. I'm not sure how many of you recall the rumors of the entire Young Frankenstein creative team entering the Hilton Theatre during a Pirate Queen rehearsal, and Susan Stroman saying "I like this space". It almost brought a smile to my face when the Producers closed, just knowing that the "hitmakers" had been brought down. I think that this is partially to frighten competition, but also as a precaution. They don't want the gossip columnists and theatre insiders to predict failure. And if the numbers are unknown, no one can really know if the show is failing.
"If a tree falls in an uninhabited forest, does it still make a sound"
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