Can Five New Hit Musicals Survive?

[Up In One]

If you've been watching the grosses Cinderella, Kinky Boots, Matilda, Motown and Pippin (in order of their opening nights)have all done great business right out of the gate from their first preview on. Have we ever had a situation where five hit musicals open in the spring, be they popular hits or critical hits or both,and all five hang in there and run? Is there enough business to sustain them or will some have to fall due to a finite Broadway audience? I did not include Hands On A Hardbody because the show has been anemic at the box office from its first preview and its reviews in my opinion were not strong enough and came too late to build a following amid the competition of the other five to survive.

[SeanMartin]

Summer's coming, and with it, lots of tourists looking for family-friendly Broadway fare.

If the producers have managed their finances right, I dont see any reason why these shouldnt last well into next fall.

[Kelly2]

If you ask me, Cinderella is most likely to fold out of that list. If Matilda gets the reviews it's expected to, I feel like it'll draw the family friendly crowds more than Cinderella. Also, I believe Cinderella's weekly nut is quite high and they have to fill the barn that is the Broadway to keep afloat.

[aasjb4ever]

^They've been filling that barn so much that they expanded potential seating capacity.

[Kelly2]

Yes, and it's been open for less than two months. The problem isn't filling it while they've still got fresh buzz and some of their family-friendly competition has yet to open and scoop up tons of Tonys. The problem is sustaining those numbers during slower months and when they have to compete in advertising with Matilda, which seems inevitable to win Best Musical at this point. Cinderella doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of beating Pippin or Drood for winning Best Revival, which isn't even as marketable of an award.

[Ukdude]

One thing that is telling is if you look at the amount of views on here for messages associated with matilda, you kinda know that matilda is the one out of all if them that is attracting the most interest and buzz, hence the amount of views it had compared to other shows... The easiest way to convey to you guys how good matilda is... Well it's the adele of musical theatre, pure quality!??

[JoeKv99]

Hit musicals expand the market. There isn't a static pool of theater-goers and the grosses don't suffer when there are too many shows splitting the pie. If a show is a hit and has good buzz, people who rarely go see a show will buy tickets.

There is a relatively small group of people who go sees shows because they feel like they have to go see shows and will buy tickets to things they don't particularly want to see if that's all there is.

[Mister Matt]

If you look at gross potential (which is a better indicator of how a show is doing, financially), this is how the new musicals are faring:

Matilda 93.29%
Annie 92.55%
Cinderella 87.65%
Motown 85.92%
Pippin 78.61%
Kinky Boots 62.07%
Hands on a Hard Body 29.95%

Considering it was a holiday week, there may be a sharp decline for a few of those shows, but I would not expect Hands on a Hard Body to hang on much longer and I can't imagine Kinky Boots has enough to offer to compete with the others.

[RaisedOnMusicals]

Kelly2, I completely disagree with you on many fronts.

First of all, why do you think that Cinderell's weekly nut is that high? I would doubt that they are paying their leads percentages of the gross, so what makes the show that expensive. I doubt it's more expensive than Matilda. We know the Cinderella grosses, what do you think the weekly nut is, approximately?

Second, although I think that Pippin will be greated with great reviews and is a lock to win the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical, I doubt if it will run as long as Cinderella, which has a gigantically larger base.

Having seen Matilda in London and instantly becoming a big fan, I think it will hurt Annie more than Cinderella.

[RaisedOnMusicals]

"One thing that is telling is if you look at the amount of views on here for messages associated with matilda, you kinda know that matilda is the one out of all if them that is attracting the most interest and buzz, hence the amount of views it had compared to other shows.."

UKdude, not exactly. By the time Cinderella finsished its first week of previews, I'm pretty sure that it had well over 200,000 views, considerably more than Matilda has now. However, if I recall correctly, Cinderella produced far more controversy than has Matilda, there was more of a love/hate debate going on.

[singtopher]

To answer another question the OP asked, back in (I want to say it was) 2005, all 4 Best Musical Nominees were running a year later: Spamalot, Light in the Piazza, Spelling Bee, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Not sure if all recouped, but a healthy run like that is saying something.

[jnb9872]

Also worth remembering, re: 2005, that with such a great year with four new hit musicals, the Tony's were relatively split evenly among them. SPAMALOT got Best Musical, Director and Featured Actress; PIAZZA got Best Actress, Score and all the Design awards; SPELLING BEE got Book and Featured Actor and SCOUNDRELS got Best Actor. They all came across very impressively at the ceremony, and there wasn't a perception that any one of them "swept" the night. Not that the Tony's alone indicate future success of a show, all four were already successful at that point, but the Tony's reflect the relative equality that season produced.

[RippedMan]

It was 2004-2005. That was my first trip to NYC. I thought that was a pretty remarkable year, and just goes to show that if the material is quality, a show can survive. With the exception of Piazza, they were all sort of pulling from the same audience base - light-hearted comedies - and all survived.

I don't think Kinky Boots is going to run for a year, but I don't see it fizzling out either. They need to get it on some talk shows. It sounds like the score is upbeat and fun.