Monday, September 16, 2013
Big Fish, Big Budget
www.nytimes.com: Susan Stroman, the director of the new Broadway musical "Big Fish," puts pressure on herself to rein in costs - and keep investors happy - while being imaginative with her staging.
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3 comments:
The opening line of the video says it all: "With a 14 million dollar budget, Big Fish is one of the most costly new musicals." Susan Strowman wants the investors money to support her show by keeping them interested, but she also wants to stay true to herself and make the show fun for all ages. Producing a new musical is a huge risk, but for Strowman she has no doubt that her show is going to be a great success. I'm interested in how the audience is going to react to this show and how long its going to last in such a fast changing theatre world.
A $14 million dollar budget seems like a lot of money. I don't know how that compares to others, but it seems like a lot of money to work with. I guess there is good and bad to working with so much money. As Susan Strowman was talking about, she wants to keep the producers happy because they are the ones investing so much money into the show. So it's one of those cases where you can do the most amazing thing in the world, something you've been dreaming of creating your entire life, because you have the money to do it. But you have to hold back a little because what if the producers don't like it. Ultimately the choice is up to them. You need the producers to truly believe in the show's success but as an artist, you never want to lose who you are for anyone else. I hope the show is everything Strowman and the shows Producers dream it will be! (Especially because Big Fish is an amazing story and the book and movie were both marvelous (though the book was still better than the movie!))
I find it very ironic that the tag line of the video is about Stroman putting "pressure on herself to rein in costs" but the first line in the video is that with a $14 million dollar budget, it's one of the most costly new musicals. Those two ideas seem to be at a juxtaposition. I would be curious to know what the breakdown of the budget is, if the director is so worried about keeping the spending under control. With $14 million dollars to work with, there should be at least a marginal amount of wiggle room in there to get what the director and producers want while still maintaining the budget figures.
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