Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Making Broadway bucks a crapshoot; ‘Jersey Boys’ investors hit right notes
Theater Cues: “You could make a killing, but not a living, in the theater,” said playwright Robert Anderson in a 1966 Christian Science Monitor interview about “Tea and Sympathy,” his successful first Broadway play that was turned into a movie. Anderson couldn’t recreate that same success on stage and turned to teaching and writing Hollywood screenplays.
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Its a really interesting thing to see that people who invested in 125,000 did not even make that much money. I always assumed that a hit show like jersey boys all the producers would be having a lot of money coming into there bank accounts weekly. This was not the case. Reading this article made me wonder where all of the 2 billion dollars go. I know that number is from over 12 years of multiple productions in different countries but how much money are the top producers making? Another question I have is since such few shows end up making there money back why would one person put in over a million dollars? Maybe more shows will be able to recoup with the current seasons of hit shows!
Producers have always been an enigma in my mind, because at the high school level I have never dealt with a direct producer besides maybe the little funding coming from my school. However, reading this article has clarified not only a lot about what producers do, but also how they function in the theatre community today in 2017. Producing reminds me of economics class and an analysis of risk and reward, which I think is so important because risk is such a large part of theatre. As theatre artists we risk not only our careers but also our time and energy and emotions every time that curtain goes up. Will the audience like my work? Will the message get across? What if something goes wrong? And even though the producers of Jersey Boys may not have recouped all the money they put in, I can almost surely say they received reward more than dollar bills by having an amazingly successful Broadway show.
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