Anatomy Of A Broadway Flop: What Sank These Four Shows?

[Patti LuPone FANatic]

This is an interesting article from the NY Times.  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/theater/anatomy-of-a-broadway-flop-why-these-4-shows-failed.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

[Wick3]

Interesting article. I saw all the musicals in the article with the exception of Disaster. Personally I think Broadway prices, especially during previews, are too $$$. Imagine a family of 5 spending at least $60 each for a balcony or rear mezz seat --- that's $300 already! If people are going to spend their hard earned dollars, they want to make sure they'll be entertained and won't fall asleep. 

I'm surprised the article didn't mention anything about marketing in social media. Most of my friends never heard of Bright Star until the Tony nominations (my friends and I don't work in theater industry so we're no experts.) Even on YouTube, I don't really see that many interviews or clips from the show. Hamilton, on the other hand, has hundreds ranging from Ham4Ham to cast interviews to behind the scenes stuff, etc.

I wish the article also analyzed Allegiance, which was a musical that opened this past fall yet was a flop.

[broadwayguy91]

gotta love the photo that the NY times chose for Seth Rudetsky.

[rosscoe(au)]

Guess the producers of AP wished they went the off Broadway road now,. 

[Wick3]

rosscoe(au) said: "Guess the producers of AP wished they went the off Broadway road now,. "

I don't know how long it takes to plan and produce a show on Broadway but the folks of American Psycho must have known all the buzz on Hamilton last summer. The fact that they still didn't go the off-Broadway route is mind-boggling but hey, if they got money to burn, then so be it. 

 

[After Eight]

No great insights in this article.

Wick3's post raised more interesting points.

[Broadway Forever2]

I don't know how much money producers have to market but American Psycho and Bright Star could have benefited from more effective marketing and utilizing social media more as well. Like i didn't even know Steve Martin was involved in Bright Star for a while and I like to follow Broadway.

American Psycho would have benefited opening Off Broadway first however don't know if it would have ever been a hit because the reactions to the videos on YouTube that they posted were mixed. but i think it definitely would have helped to open off broadway first with building word of mouth. 

[WhizzerMarvin]

After Eight said: "No great insights in this article.

Wick3's post raised more interesting points.

 

Not even any small insights were raised by this article. It read like it was written by someone who hadn't even seen any of these shows. 

 

As others have mentioned, there was no discussion of marketing, or lack thereof. Why do these producers/marketing teams think they only need to start advertising halfway through the preview period? Josh Groban was on Live With Kelly this week promoting Natasha, Pierre and the Hello, Dolly revival already feels like the event of the season and it's 9 months away! I remember a Billy Elliot billboard up in Times Square something like 8-9 months before the first preview began. If you don't have a decent advance you might as well not even bother opening because unless you have genius producer at the helm you're sunk.

 

What about Bright Star's generic title and artwork that didn't help explain what the show was about?

 

What about the desperation announced by Tuck when they put a seemingly endless number of $20 tickets on sale for the entire preview period? (Psycho did something similar, but only for six early previews, and never on the weekend performances. Although I appreciate and take advantage of these ticket deals they shout to the world that the show isn't selling and there is no reason to purchase a full price ticket to the show- Scottsboro Boys, Bloody, Bloody, Dames at Sea and It Shoulda Been You all offered the same deal and all went down the same road to flopdom.)

 

The article mentions mixed critical reaction to many of the shows, but the author seems to be working under the assumption that all four of these shows were intrinsically good shows and some outside forces worked against them to fail. What if they just sucked?  

[macnyc]

Of course good points raised by Whizzer, who should be writing the Times arts coverage and the reviews too.

Of the four flops, I think I feel worst about Bright Star. I love the fact that the producers stuck with Carmen Cusack, a non-star not really well-known, because of her talent and how well she did with the role. Also, I commend them for coming up with an original story and not rehashing a mediocre movie. I found the ending to be moving, although I did see it coming a mile away, like everyone else.

 
Maybe Steve Martin's fame got a show produced that ordinarily would not have made it past workshops? I don't know. Just thinking out loud. I liked his music but the lyrics were really subpar.

 

[thommg]

This is a nothing article to me. It adds no insight and doesn't fully examine why any of these shows didn't last. Wasn't worth the reading time I put into it.

[iamnoone]

 Tuck was sweet and average but I've seen shows that were worse that lasted longer. Disaster! was one of the best shows I have ever seen.  Saw it twice and hope they bring it back again. It was probably the most fun I ever had at a show. Jennifer Simard was a scream but everyone else in the cast was wonderful too.  I saw Hamilton a month ago and loved it but I have to be honest and say for pure enjoyment, I loved Disaster! just as much. I'm hoping with three principal cast members leaving Hamilton next month, some other shows will have a chance to shine. 

[darquegk]

My question has always been about endgame. Are any of these flops redeemable/recoupable with recording, tour or licensing? "Tuck Everlasting" always seemed to me like a show that was almost set up to flop, just so it could get the Broadway credit and cast recording that will make it more marketable as a regional and community licensing regular.

I'm a little more curious about "Disaster," which seems like a show built around the group of colleagues who put it on, and "American Psycho," which might be popular with regionals but might be scrapped as a "too complex to license" piece.

[backwoodsbarbie]

I find it strange that the article didn't mention the strength of the other shows this season. Hamilton aside, these shows may have been more successful without School of Rock, Shuffle Along, Waitress, or the strong revivals. I realize that this logic would apply to every season, but this one was particularly strong.

[macnyc]

^^^ The article does mention those shows as a possibly contributing factor.

 

For musicals that opened this spring, it was an especially unforgiving season. Broadway is increasingly saturated with long-running hits, and four musicals that opened last fall — “School of Rock,” “On Your Feet!,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and “The Color Purple” — reached the new year still running strong.

“People don’t have to go to their ‘I don’t know, maybe I’ll like it’ show when there are so many ‘You’re going to love it’ shows to see,” said Jordan Roth, the president of Jujamcyn Theaters, which owns five of the 40 Broadway houses.

 

[WhizzerMarvin]

The author does mention the fall non-Hamilton "hits", but neglects to mention the strong spring musicals. Waitress and Shuffle Along are doing blockbuster business and She Loves Me sold very well for Roundabout. Amazing Grace, Allegiance, Spring Awakening and Dames at Sea did poorly and flopped in the fall so it wasn't like it was all roses and sunshine for fall shows either. 

 

I've read in print and here on the board several times that Hamilton swallowed up the business and overshadowed all other musicals this season and that just isn't true. Sure, it may have swept the Tonys, but On Your Feet, School of Rock, Waitress and Shuffle Along are all doing very well at the moment. That's FIVE new musicals that are (or recently have been) grossing near one million dollars a week. That's incredible. Most seasons we are lucky to get two new musicals doing this kind of business. Three is unusual and four or five is unheard of these days. 

 

I saw all four of these flop musicals, each more than once. I liked American Psycho a lot and enjoyed Carmen and the sweetness of Bright Star, though am not blind to its faults. Disaster was a disaster and Tuck should be put in a cagematch fight with Amazing Grace for most boring new musical of the season.  

[backwoodsbarbie]

One small comfort to me is that none of these flops were particularly well written aside from Bright Star's score. When a poorly written show flops, it's no serious affront to art. In my opinion, it's much harder to stomach when superb show like The Visit flops because it cannot find an audience. 

[songanddanceman2]

Sorry but I thought the score for American Psycho was brilliant, I enjoyed it far more than Hamiltons and wrapped every sound, instrument, beat, dialogue in to a superb mood setting character defining moment. It pains me to see this show on this list. 

[RippedMan]

I think American Psycho just had the wrong word-of-mouth going for it. They marketed it as this sexy musical, and honestly, it wasn't. What it was was a crazy, inventive new musical. And that somehow got swallowed up by the weird reviews - Brantley's read like soft core porn. 

Bright Star might have just been a little too small and a little too earnest for Broadway these days. They want glitz and glamour and production value, etc. But I think of all the musicals it will live on regionally.

[Mister Matt]

Hamilton, on the other hand, has hundreds ranging from Ham4Ham to cast interviews to behind the scenes stuff, etc.

Hamilton benefited from a HUGE advance mostly due to reviews and buzz from the run at the Public.  And the marketing deployed by the production team (and others) didn't always have to be expensive.  It needed to be smart and effective.

[Wick3]

agreed about the rave reviews from its run at the Public.

the Ham4Ham shows was something new and quite effective. Not sure if the members of the cast or if their guests get paid for it but still it is ingenius!

 

i think Bright Star definitely has potential. Heck my friend and I even asked ourselves if we saw a bright star in the musical during the performance.

[aaaaaa15]

backwoodsbarbie said: "One small comfort to me is that none of these flops were particularly well written aside from Bright Star's score. When a poorly written show flops, it's no serious affront to art. In my opinion, it's much harder to stomach when superb show like The Visit flops because it cannot find an audience. 

"

Agreed.

[everythingtaboo]

I never believed in the fiction that the the popularity of "that show" would turn into a boom for everyone else...but really, now with th shuttering of Shuffle Along,  streets are running with red ink.

 

i think the marketing for a lot of these shows were terrible, and no matter how much they spent, they could never get out of the way of the loads of free publicity the media gage Hamilton. Between Vulture and Playbill, you could see over a dozen articles a day in free publicity. I always called Hamilton the Donald Trump of Broadway, seeing the millions of free dollars of publicity it got. Who could compete?

[aaaaaa15]

Blaming Hamilton for Shuffle Along closing is so uninformed. The show has been doing brilliantly with Hamilton alongside it. From what the producers are saying, that closing has to do with one thing alone and that is Audra's departure.

[veronicamae]

The topic of marketing keeps coming up here.

It'd be interesting to pull up the info to see who the agencies/execs are on these four shows + other recent flops and see if there's any common thread there.

Also, Hamilton doesn't do [all of] their marketing through an agency - they have independent social media, which frees them up to do whatever they want, whenever, because they have a social team on staff to do it.

[After Eight]

"I never believed in the fiction that the the popularity of "that show" would turn into a boom for everyone else"

 

Fiction is indeed the word. Just one more line among many that were fed to us. Good to see some people refusing to swallow the guff.



"i think the marketing for a lot of these shows were terrible, and no matter how much they spent, they could never get out of the way of the loads of free publicity the media gage Hamilton. Between Vulture and Playbill, you could see over a dozen articles a day in free publicity. I always called Hamilton the Donald Trump of Broadway, seeing the millions of free dollars of publicity it got. Who could compete?"

 

Yep, the media strikes again, as always, but here, they've raised their game to new level. You can always count on them to make a bad situation worse!

[TFMH18]

The media circus surrounding Hamilton is absolutely unprecedented and marketing teams of other shows were frankly ill-equipped to handle it. Is it Hamilton's fault alone that these shows did not succeed? Of course not, but it is woefully ignorant not to acknowledge how much it hurt many other shows-- particularly the four mentioned here, as well as Shuffle Along. Teams were simply unable to infiltrate the media buzz that had been completely absorbed by Hamilton for the full year preceding the Tonys. 

Some shows, such as Waitress, School of Rock, and On Your Feet were able to grab their piece of the pie (heh) due to their well known properties and/or major names attached. But it is basically inarguable that in a different season, these "failed" shows would have received more press. Would it have saved them? That I cannot say, however, when we look back on this season, Hamilton's utter domination of the media will certainly be more than a footnote.