The Producer's Perspective: One of my favorite questions to ask my writer podcast guests is where they get their ideas for their musicals. Because whether we like it or not, the Broadway Musical is not an original business. Absolutely original ideas are rare, as you’ll see below, partly because they are so risky. What makes them so? Is it because audiences need some pre-existing brand to help them plunk down their credit card? Or is it because original ideas are harder to execute and therefore just don’t turn out as good?
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I'm actually surprised at how these statistics turned out. People are constantly complaining that no original musicals are produced anymore, but this data shows that the percentage of original material has only slightly decreased since 1965. There was a large drop from 1995 to 2004, however it seems as if they're now on the rise again. I'm curious as to why this huge drop happened when it did. One thing I find really interesting is the gradual increase in the prevalence of jukebox musicals. Creating a musical with popular music in it definitely increases the public appeal of a show, but it doesn't seem to do well with critics as only 1 jukebox musical has won best musical. Balancing public and critical appeal in a show is crucial to becoming a success, and I don't think that Broadway will ever be completely saturated with jukebox musicals for this reason. We might not be aware of it, but it seems to me that there is still a great amount of diversity in the type of musicals that get produced.
I am always interested in Broadway facts and statistics over the years. I like to see how the shows have changed and how the technology world has changed what kind of shows have been brought to New York. People complain all the time that there are not original musicals happening on Broadway but looking at these facts it seems that there are quite a few. I think the problem is that the shows that are based on books, movies or are sequels get the bigger publicity because people are familiar with the title so the original shows are getting left behind in some cases. So what can we do about that? It’s hard to say because I too enjoy seeing Broadway shows that are based on things that I know. Maybe there can be funding specifically for people to write originals so that there is a bigger push to get audiences to see them. Festivals are also an interesting choice to show new talent and get people intrigued with new work. The question of what to do to bring audiences in will always be asked. All we can do is encourage other theatre artists to go see new works and to talk about it. Word of mouth is always a great way to spread the word about original work.
Even though I have mixed opinions about infographics, I especially liked this one for a few reasons. First, it gave an outline and successfully got more specific as it went down and down so if you just wanted to understand the basic subject of the infographic, you got it right away, yet if you were someone like me who wanted to read the whole thing, information did not repeat itself as it went down. Secondly, the colors were consistent throughout which helped me understand the statistics. Now, in terms of the actual statistics, I think that this was a very interesting study to do, specifically as someone who feels like we need more original musicals, which based on this study, there has been a decrease in original musicals. I think before we can change what is being produced, an infographic like this can help us understand our current trends and know what we need more or less of.
This was the infographic I didn't realize I needed until I saw it. I've always thought about where musicals come from, but never really realized that all that information was compiled somewhere. It's interesting that jukebox musicals have gained so much popularity (I've personally never cared for them), but more interestingly that so many musicals are based on books-- especially when you look at how many of these literature-based musicals have won Tonys. What is it about books that translate so well to musicals, and perhaps better than films would (if you follow the numbers)? I've always felt that books are more nuanced than movies, and can pull off subtle themes and intricate subplots much easier than their film counterparts. I'm not sure if that means they would translate better or worse to musicals: some people would argue that music can convey more layers of emotion than just dialogue, while some would say that musicals aren't subtle enough to have the same finesse as a book.
I found this info graphic so interesting because it showed what has and has not changed dramatically over the years. It is interesting that the percentage over original musicals has not changed significantly over time; this means that all of the public’s complaints are unfounded. The number of film-based musicals has increased significantly, but this might be attributed to the general increasing interest in movies, and the desire to bring larger audiences into theatres by appealing to moviegoers. I also think that there is a greater awareness of musicals based on films because they already have a name to back their popularity; they already have an audience to draw from whereas original musicals do not (for the most part).
I do think that the growing number of jukebox musicals is indicative of a change in the general number of shows onstage because percentage-wise, there are a much greater number of jukebox musicals now than there have ever been before.
This infographic is really interesting. What I think is even more interesting than the drop in original source material is the pretty drastic drop in musicals based on literature within the past ten years. I wonder if it's because books tend to take longer to reach a wide enough sector of society to pull a big enough potential audience, so most of the books that lend to musicals have already been written about? Or could it also be that literature tends to use film as its default performing-arts adaptation these days, and so musicals that were originally written based on books are really based on film now? I know the article says that they based it on the original material, but in certain cases, I can see a musical written that is heavily based off of the film adaptation of a piece of literature, rather than the literature itself (ie The Little Mermaid, which I think is a clearer example of this than The Lion King).
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