ALW Shows Break Records

[jacobsnchz14]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 1:07pm

All three of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Broadway musicals rang in the New Year with record-breaking sales, smashing house records at the Winter Garden (School of Rock - The Musical), Majestic (The Phantom of the Opera) and Neil Simon (CATS) Theatres.

School of Rock - The Musical shattered the house record for the third time at the Winter Garden Theatre by grossing $2,022,136.11 for the week ending December 31, 2016. The prior record was set this week last year by the musical which grossed $1,671,628.18. Additionally, School of Rock set a new record for the highest grossing single performance in the Winter Garden's history at the Wednesday, December 28 matinee, with a gross of $241,819.50. In the U.K., School of Rock broke house records at the New London Theatre (a record previously held by War Horse).

At the Majestic Theatre, Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera smashed its previous show / house record with a final gross of $1,942,351.00 for the week ending December 31, 2016.The record was set previously for the week ending December 29, 2013 when the musical grossed $1,843,295.83.

The first-ever revival of Lloyd Webber's CATS broke house records at the Neil Simon for a 9-performance week, smashing the record previously set by All The Way, with a $1,723,568.70 gross for the week ending December 31, 2016.

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/All-Three-Of-Andrew-Lloyd-Webbers-Broadway-Musicals-Ring-In-The-New-Year-With-Record-Breaking-Sales-20170102

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 1:09pm

Amazing!

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 1:15pm

The problem with house records as a gauge of success is that they only really indicate that another show sold a lot of full price tickets for the week, but the number isn't really relevant as it is only being compared directly to a time when tickets had a lower price point.  

[Ado Annie D'Ysquith]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 1:25pm

How is it that all these commercially-viable shows belong to one composer...it never ceases to amaze me. Some theatre historian should study and coin "the Lloyd Webber effect" ASAP. I would totally read that thesis!

[bwaylyric]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 1:40pm

Is this really a surprise? Didn't all these shows have an extra performance in this holiday week?

[adamgreer]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 2:26pm

This simply means that ticket prices continue to go up every year. 

[bdn223]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 6:07pm

If I had to bed I am sure ALW is likely happiest with School of Rock's numbers. Yes   Phantom breaking records  and Cats rising from the dead of fall is great business wise, but ALW's pride is on the line at School of Rock. Looking at School of Rock's numbers looks like its extremely close to recouping, which would make it his first hit since Phantom in 1988. Yes he may have 2 of the Broadway's biggest hits of all time with Phantom and Cats, but before Spiderman became the butt of throwing good money on an overly extravagant "sure thing" there was Sunset Boulevard, Whistle Down the Wind, Woman in White, LOVE NEVER DIES (couldn't even make money with what was the largest advance in West End History), and Stephen Ward.  

Also many of ALW's shows are from the MegaMusicals era of the 80s and 90s where spectacle trumped substance. This makes it difficult for a lead producer to sell investors on a prestige production, as it is very difficult to do an small scale inventive or minimalist revival, as we have yet to see one. Cats is a recreation of the original production with some updated choreography.  Evita was revived on a grander scale than the original production with star who although actually Argentinean, could't sing the part, which only made the shows flaws more apparent. The 2 Jesus Christ Superstar revivals were both flops, and the 90s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat was called by Ben Brantley and "oversized, glittering symbol of the Age of Hype". The first prestige ALW production  we will see is the Glenn Close concert production of Sunset Boulevard which is still apparently costing an arm and a leg to produce. 

Thus if, but more likely when School of Rock announces its recoupment in the coming weeks/months we are are sure to see Michael Riedel rehashing this entire history as a puff piece to coincide with Sunset Boulevard's  opening in the coming months. 

[nasty_khakis]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 7:14pm

I get it's all marketing. It's a way to get a press release and brag about being a hit without buying an ad, but with prices going up constantly, it's not breaking a box office record. I'd like to see these records adjusted for inflation of ticket prices. Like did Funny Girl (or whatever) have a week that sold more full-price tickets? 

[ethan231h]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 7:16pm

PThespian said: ""There's no way you can stop the School of Rock." (to quote from the show)

 

"

I honestly don't know how you will handle the closing of School of Rock when that time comes.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 7:19pm

there was Sunset Boulevard, Whistle Down the Wind, Woman in White, LOVE NEVER DIES (couldn't even make money with what was the largest advance in West End History), and Stephen Ward. 

You forgot By Jeeves and The Beautiful Game.

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 7:27pm

But then who didn't?

[AHLiebross]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 10:45pm

AdoAnnieD'Asquith writes: How is it that all these commercially-viable shows belong to one composer...it never ceases to amaze me.

AAD'A, I have a theory about why Andrew Lloyd Webber has managed to write so many commercially viable shows. Specifically, although his music within a show, often repeats or riffs on the same themes (MOTN and AAIOY, for example, in POTO), the music from each show usually differs significantly from his other shows.

If I am unfamiliar with a particular ALW song, I can rarely find anything in it to identify as his. In contrast, I listened to Miss Saigon's soundtrack without knowing who wrote it. I quickly realized it was by Boublil and Schoenberg (I never remember which one is the composer) because the patterns and rhythms closely resemble those in Les Miserables. I suspect it's hard to have as many hits when everything sounds the same to audiences.

Of course, I could be way off with this supposition....

[A Director]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 10:55pm

AdoAnnieD'Asquith writes: How is it that all these commercially-viable shows belong to one composer...it never ceases to amaze me.
 

Have you ever heard of the composer who wrote many commercially-viable shows, Richard Rodgers?

[RippedMan]

Posted: 1/2/17 at 11:56pm

I mean that's a great amount of money but it's also 9 performances which is crazy rare. 

[¿Macavity?]

Posted: 1/3/17 at 3:14am

Very impressive!

[trpguyy]

Posted: 1/3/17 at 7:23am

RippedMan said: "I mean that's a great amount of money but it's also 9 performances which is crazy rare. "

It's as rare as Christmas. Happens every year, the article even says "breaking records for a 9-show week."

[newintown]

Posted: 1/3/17 at 8:13am

What adamgreer said needs to be repeated every other post; "This simply means that ticket prices continue to go up every year. "

When you live in an economic system in which inflation is treated as inevitable, "records" like this are meaningless.

[Ado Annie D'Ysquith]

Posted: 1/3/17 at 8:14am

Hahaha, Director. Yes I know of Richard Rodgers. Quite well. But with all due respect, I'm not sure you can compare him to Webber in terms of pure commercial recognizability. For instance, my family (no members of which are theatre-savvy) easily know about Phantom, Cats, and Jesus Christ Superstar. They can even sing a line or two of a song from those shows. If I asked them to name a song from Carousel or Oklahoma, they'd be stumped.

Unless that has more to do with the fact that Rodgers shows are significantly older.

[adamgreer]

Posted: 1/3/17 at 10:03am

They may not jump to $849 like Hamilton, but just about every show exercises holiday pricing that week, and any existing discounts are blacked out that week.  The shows are only selling marked up full-price tickets, which accounts for the jump.  But yes, as long as ticket prices continue to go up, which they do, these "records" will continue to be broken.  I don't begrudge ALW or RUTG for advertising this- I know how marketing and spin work, I have no problem with it, but let's just call it what it is.  Next week there will be oodles of tickets available to all three of these shows. 

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/3/17 at 10:48am

For instance, my family (no members of which are theatre-savvy) easily know about Phantom, Cats, and Jesus Christ Superstar. They can even sing a line or two of a song from those shows. If I asked them to name a song from Carousel or Oklahoma, they'd be stumped.

Unless that has more to do with the fact that Rodgers shows are significantly older.

It could be that or the age of the person you are asking and/or their preferences.  Ask them about a song from Sound of Music and I'm sure they'll come up with more than one.  King & I and South Pacific have major classic hits as well.  All three of those have songs that are probably more commonly known by the general public today (Sound of Music, Do Re Mi, My Favorite Things, So Long Farewell, Edelweiss, Climb Every Mountain, Shall We Dance, Getting to Know You, Wash That Man, Some Enchanted Evening) than Carousel or Oklahoma.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 1/4/17 at 9:50am

Ado Annie D'Ysquith said: "Hahaha, Director. Yes I know of Richard Rodgers. Quite well. But with all due respect, I'm not sure you can compare him to Webber in terms of pure commercial recognizability. For instance, my family (no members of which are theatre-savvy) easily know about Phantom, Cats, and Jesus Christ Superstar. They can even sing a line or two of a song from those shows. If I asked them to name a song from Carousel or Oklahoma, they'd be stumped.

Unless that has more to do with the fact that Rodgers shows are significantly older.

 

"

I think you're young--and no one need apologize for that. My parents and grandparents (who rarely attended the theater unless they were seeing me perform) could have told you ALL the songs of CAROUSEL and OKLAHOMA and SOUTH PACIFIC and THE KING AND I and CINDERELLA and THE SOUND OF MUSIC. And my grandparents and great-grandparents could have told you the hits of Rodgers and Hart back in the 1920s and 1930s; they played those songs on their pianos and heard them on the radio.

As successful as ALW has been, there's really no comparison in terms of the central place in American culture of Richard Rodgers (or Cole Porter or Irving Berlin or George Gershwin or Jerome Kern) during the era when American popular music was synonymous with Broadway musicals. Thanks in part to air conditioning (shows used to go on tour or simply close in the hot summer months) ALW's hits run longer, obviously, but his cast recordings don't sit at #1 on the Billboard charts for years the way OCRs used to do.

[LYLS3637]

Posted: 1/4/17 at 10:27am

I've always had a theory that could be totally wrong, but, to me, ALW's success is mostly timing. If he had begun writing 20 years prior, during the generation of Rodgers, Hammerstein, Styne, Bernstein, Lerner, Lowe, etc., no one would have given him the time of day. His style of spectacle over substance came at the perfect timing, when the Broadway producers were unable to fill the void left by those giants. 

[Phantom4ever]

Posted: 1/4/17 at 10:55am

Did somebody really just say that ALW's shows run longer than R and H's because of air conditioning?  

And somebody else said that R and H's cast albums were #1 on Billboard for years?  Is that supposed to imply that 1. that is true and 2. that R and H cast albums sold more copies that ALW's?  

Best-Selling Cast Albums of all time

I believe that R and H's shows are more a part of the cultural zeitgeist that ALW's shows are........except for Phantom. 

Updated On: 1/4/17 at 10:55 AM

[LYLS3637]

Posted: 1/4/17 at 11:26am

I was referring more to a melodic spectacle; not necessarily the physical staging. Big, overly emotive compositions with huge swells that repeat the same chord progression for 6 minutes at a time. Believe me, while I do love SUPERSTAR, I wish I had a taste for ALW. I just find his writing repetitive and uninteresting. Clearly, I'm in the minority. He's the most commercially successful musical theatre composer of all time. 

And while I think he's clearly talented, for me, his talent is vastly overrated, and his success has more to do with the timing of his career. He's no Leonard Bernstein or Richard Rodgers or Jule Styne or Frederick Loewe. Again, clearly I'm in the minority of the mainstream, and sometimes I kinda wish I wasn't lol. 

Updated On: 1/4/17 at 11:26 AM

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 1/4/17 at 1:26pm

He's no Leonard Bernstein or Richard Rodgers or Jule Styne or Frederick Loewe.

I always hate these sorts of comparisons.  Different styles and eras (not to mention none of them are infallible as composers).  He doesn't have to be any of them just as Bernstein is no Rodgers and Styne is no Loewe.  Finn is no Gershwin, Shire is no Porter, Miranda is no Kern, Kander is no Berlin.  And nobody has to be Sondheim.  Why does it matter?  While I don't like all of his shows, I think ALW has written numerous lovely and memorable songs as well as a few rather ingenious scores.