The State of Broadway — Page 3

malcs98 said: As for creatives I’ve been closely following PJ Adzima and his production studio/company Stage Time Studiosand I think they’rereally onto something…a clubhouse, studio, education center and third-space where artists can actually create and collaborate on the next groundbreaking piece of American entertainment. It’s like Warhol’s Factory for the21st century"

Same. And you can tie that legacy even closer to Warhol's ethos when you look at the way Stage Time allies itself to performance art, leftist politics and sexual liberation/active non-monogamy. It's like a genuine counterculture of and for artists is forming again, rather than a series of artists either belonging to or trying to belong to a larger counterculture. We've got freaks again when we need them most.

Fred Mason said: "Landlords don’t owe anybody anything. The only recourse producers have is to stop producing or to build their own theaters. Landlordsusually get a percentage of the box office which means they also have skin in the game, it’s not a rental fee adding to the running cost. Pointing fingers at them is a little bit of a scapegoat for much deeper issues like lack of audience interest."

Actually the landlords owe everyone a lot. They choose which shows are programmed - many of which are specifically appetizing to them. They are the gate keepers of what gets in and when. They don't necessarily always have skin in the game. They get a fee for the usage of their theaters and have stop clauses in place when they want something out. The weekly off the top costs that shows pay to theater owners absolutely adds to the overall running costs. I've heard it takes 2 millions just to load into a theater between union rules and such. If the theater owners skimmed down their greed just a little perhaps some of these shows would be able to run cheaper and longer to have the time to build an audience.

malcs98 said: "And it’s institutions like Stage Time that I believe will signal the start of a new Off-Broadway renaissance because that’s where the real exciting bold nuancedexperimentalwork is happening."

To be completely realistic, smaller venues off and off-off Broadway are the only places where these kind of exciting and experimental shows can really thrive in today's economic and industry environment. Not all of them are going to be a Hamilton where it was a surprise hit and showed that it could appeal to a broad audience. Broadway venues are too big and too expensive for a lot of these shows, and if producers stop worrying about chasing Tonys, some of these shows can have long and potentially profitable lives. I enjoyed The Jellicle Ball when I saw it in its original venue, because they managed to recreate the ballroom scene very effectively and the audience was completely immersed in the experience (something that was lost to a large degree with the Broadway transfer. Weekly overhead in smaller venues is much lower, and if they aren't trying to fill 1,000 seats every show, it makes it a lot easier to fill the theater. Full theaters means that they don't need to sell tickets and a big discount all the time.

To survive on Broadway long-term, a show has to have broad appeal to as wide an audience as possible. And even then, it's an uphill battle. Word of mouth and good critical reception isn't enough anymore. I honestly think that we are going past the age of the mega-shows that run for multiple years (outside of possibly the Disney productions). If producers go into a Broadway transfer with the expectation that they will likely only get a single season for their show, they'll be more selective about what they decide to stage and more mindful of keeping production costs down to give them their best chance of earning a profit,