“Paramour” — the first outing from the Cirque du Soleil Theatrical division, and incorporating the troupe’s nouveau-circus spectacle into the structure of a more traditional musical-theater project — raked in $190,774 at the Broadway box office for the single show it played last week. Multiply that by an eight-show performance schedule, and that’s a weekly gross of $1.5 million.
6 comments:
I'm excited also worried about what Paramour will do for Cirque's image. I'm sure that it's an immense challenge attempting to create crossover appeal to an avant-garde circus based theatre piece in front of audiences that are not used to seeing that style of theatre on Broadway stages. It's an interesting dilemma, because while Broadway is normally full of a little bit of glitz and glam on it's stages, Cirque tends to take things to a whole new level. However, they could be getting too far ahead of themselves and put "flash and trash" on stage rather than actually creating something new, innovative, and interesting for the Broadway audiences. Currently, most Broadway shows have a large amount of story behind them that helps bring their audiences in. However, Cirque shows in general are very loosely story based, so I'm wondering what their doing to make sure that their story in Paramour hits home.
I think Paramour will be successful, well at least I hope it will. It is a mix of Broadway and Cirque du Soleil, which is a very powerful combination. It will attract the usual Broadway fans as well as the Cirque du Soleil fans. There are only a few Broadway shows that are true spectacles and Paramour is one of them with all of the circus tricks and crazy stunts. It is not like anything that has ever been on Broadway before. This show could change theatre and broaden the spectrum to include different types of shows. I really hope I get a chance to see Paramour because I have heard a lot about it from people who are involved in it. I know it has been a big change for the stage managers who are used to normal theatre because there are so many more safety concerns and things to worry about besides the script.
My primary concern with Paramour is that based on what I have been reading, there isn’t enough Cirque in it. Cirque sells tickets because of extreme spectacle and danger. I just don’t know how well those two elements translate into a Broadway musical. I’m also mildly concerned that they are assessing the potential success of this show based on the sales of the first preview. Of course this preview was going to sell well, there are a lot of factors that it has going for them, primarily the name. Also, I didn’t realize until doing further research that Cirque seems pretty serious about this theatrical division they have developed. The head of the division has worked on numerous theatrical projects including the Phantom specular and the Jersey Boys shows. Both adaptions of the Broadway show sell extremely well in Vegas so my question now is can he bring the Vegas to Broadway?
This is exactly what my last comment is talking about. Why perform Shakespeare at your regional theatre when what is brining in the money are shows like Paramour, Waitress, and Hamilton? I know I don’t fully understand the reliance a theatre has on its subscribers, because I just don’t really know the finances behind of all of that, but even with my ignorance I feel it is absurd to cater to the money, when no one BUT them goes to see your old boring crap, and meanwhile these new inventive pieces are sweeping the world off their feet. Wake up and realize that the reason the only people coming to your shows are your subscribers are because you only put on shows for your subscribers. If you want different audiences, do different types of theatre. You have to put your company out there if you ever want to get out of the old people bubble.
When I first herd about Cirque Du Soleil's Paramour, I was excited to hear what would become of this production and the reaction people would have. To me, this show sounds so innovative and creative, something like no one has really done before. I wondered how the acrobatic element would mix with the theatrical storytelling and how people would react to that combination. It is nice to hear in this article that Paramour certainly started off great and I think it will continue to do so. Even if the show its self doesn't turn out to be very ground breaking, I think that the curiosity of the audience members in both the theatre world and the Cirque Du Soleil following will lead to many tickets being sold. I think this article does a good job of relaying the realities of what these preview results mean for the show, But overall this article doesn't really stay true to its title. It was mostly about the revenue of all of the shows on Broadway and while that is interesting to hear, it really doesn't do much to analyze the results and the future if Paramour.
Reading this article showed that Paramour had a lot of hope and hype around it to become a huge success. Cut to March of 2017 and the show has a closing date less than a year after opening. I knew that the show would not do as well as other Cirque du Soleil for many reasons. One reason is that when someone wants to see a Broadway show there immediate thought would not be to see a Cirque show. If you are in Vegas and want to see a show of course you would see a Cirque show. Another issue is that it did not have enough of both sides to make it good. What makes Cirque so special was not there. Also being in one of the biggest houses in Broadway is so hard to sell tickets. The house I think was to be big for the audience they had. I think in the future they should stick to Vegas cause none of the New York shows have worked out for them.
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