Capitalization on Broadway

[nydirector2]

Posted: 6/20/17 at 9:58am

Hello all,

I was wondering if anyone knows of a way to track down the capital costs for Broadway musicals.  IBDB nor the League has this, and from what I hear, it takes months to get the information from the Attorney General's Office.  I've also done the Variety/Playbill/NY Times route of just looking for mentions of costs in the closing or recoup notices, but this is extremely tedious and seems not be accurate(For example, Spider-Man has been reported to cost $50 MM, $65 MM, and $75 MM by three different publications)

The reason I am looking for this is for the purpose of my dissertation which looks at the Musical Adaptations of film.  If you'd like to hear more about the dissertation itself, I'd be happy to share.

Thanks! 

 

[SueBee06]

Posted: 6/20/17 at 11:31am

As far as I know, unless you know an investor that has the offering papers or receives the financials (or a GM/Producer office willing to share them), the AG is the only way to go. Spiderman was a bizarre case. I think they probably capitalized separately for the theatre renovation (I don't know that for sure) plus with the revisions, it easily could have added capitalization on top of what was originally raised. The NY Times did publish an early version of their AG report, so you should be able to google and find it. The company was called something like Eight Legged Productions (I could be really wrong).

[vampire musical]

Posted: 6/20/17 at 11:43am

You could reach out to the producer's office for each show and ask very nicely if they'd be willing to share the information for research purposes.  The answer will probably be no for currently running shows, but for closed shows they might be willing to share the info.  It's worth a try.  

[RaisedOnMusicals]

Posted: 6/20/17 at 12:46pm

PM me.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 6/20/17 at 12:57pm

it does not take months, and if you are working on a dissertation presumably you have months anyway.

[GreenGables]

Posted: 6/20/17 at 1:09pm

Its not impossible, though does take a bit of work.  You can start with the SEC database at https://searchwww.sec.gov

The forms that producers have to file are called form D's (you can filter in the advanced search), and search for things like 'broadway', 'tour', etc.  You can also search by management companies or producers.  You'll quickly realize that most producers try to hide these by coming up with clever titles (the Pippen tour, for example, was called Magic to do Tour, LLC). 

The other thing you can do is submit a FOIL request (once you know the LLC name) to NY State, which will eventually send the investment paperwork to you. 

Or you can ask people who you think might be holding on to them :)

[hi127]

Posted: 6/20/17 at 1:43pm

The easiest would be to use the SEC website. It is sometimes easier to find certain shows by looking under NYC for location, as well as the lead producer's name.