Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. On Sunday, Broadway's top
Speaker 1: build players will gather at Radio City Music Hall in
Speaker 1: New York for the Tony Awards, one night a year
Speaker 1: where everyone can experience the magic of Broadway. For nearly
Speaker 1: eight decades, the Tonys have celebrated the biggest shows of
Speaker 1: the season, and this year the biggest shows are bigger
Speaker 1: than ever, at least when it comes to ticket sales,
Speaker 1: with audiences paying top dollar to see star studded shows
Speaker 1: like Othellow, good Night, and good Luck and The Picture
Speaker 1: of Dorian Gray. An industry trade group called the Broadway
Speaker 1: League reported that this season has brought in nearly one
Speaker 1: point nine billion dollars, making it the highest grossing in
Speaker 1: Broadway recorded history.
Speaker 2: The top end of the ticket prices going like higher
Speaker 2: and hire and hire. I don't know if that's going
Speaker 2: to stop. They have to make money.
Speaker 1: That's Chris Rouser. He's the editor of Bloomberg Pursuits, which
Speaker 1: covers the arts, culture and luxury, and Chris says the
Speaker 1: theater is becoming more of a luxury because now more
Speaker 1: than ever, it costs an arm and a leg to
Speaker 1: break a leg on Broadway. In such a high risk,
Speaker 1: high reward industry, producers have been rethinking what it takes
Speaker 1: to make a hit show, and that business model shift
Speaker 1: is affecting everything from ticket prices to the kind of
Speaker 1: work audiences from all over the world see on stage.
Speaker 3: You have to be not afraid to take a risk.
Speaker 3: I think this business is very risky, and you know,
Speaker 3: when talking to young producers as well as talking to investors,
Speaker 3: I'm very honest about the risks involved.
Speaker 4: Kind of the conventional wisdom on Broadway in particular and
Speaker 4: commercial theater at large is it's very challenging to make
Speaker 4: a living, but you can make a killing.
Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Holder today on the show The Big Take
Speaker 1: Goes to Broadway. I sit down with Bloomberg's Chris Rouser
Speaker 1: and speak with two Tony Award winning producers, Darryl Roth
Speaker 1: and Lucas Catler, about the economic realities changing the theater biz,
Speaker 1: what it means for tourism, for our and for what
Speaker 1: you pay at the box office. The economics of Broadway
Speaker 1: have always been tricky. It's basically the whole plot of
Speaker 1: the Producers, where Matthew brodericks Leo bloom helps cook up
Speaker 1: an unconventional plan to make it in the theater business.
Speaker 4: One of the right circumstances, a producer could make more
Speaker 4: money with a flop than he could with a hit.
Speaker 1: It's expensive and it's maddening, and it takes a lot.
Speaker 2: Of luck, just like in the producer exactly.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to ask you why is it so
Speaker 1: hard to mount a financially successful Broadway show today?
Speaker 2: The problem today is that costs are extraordinarily high. They're
Speaker 2: higher than they have ever been before. So the carrying
Speaker 2: costs from week to week are really just very hard
Speaker 2: to get over. Union labor. Almost everyone that works on
Speaker 2: a show is union, and they have a lot of protections,
Speaker 2: especially after the pandemic, so those costs are high. The
Speaker 2: theater rent for the limited number of Broadway theaters there
Speaker 2: are is a single digit percentage of ticket sales, so
Speaker 2: that's a big chunk. You've got sets, you've got marketing,
Speaker 2: you've got all that stuff, So that actually adds up
Speaker 2: to an almost prohibitive base level that you have to
Speaker 2: clear in order to recoup your investment, which means it
Speaker 2: gets back to net zero.
Speaker 1: Labor costs rent for a theater, materials to build sets
Speaker 1: and hang lights, promos and advertisements.
Speaker 3: It adds up now to produce a play on Broadway.
Speaker 3: You know, the budgets can be anywhere between. I would
Speaker 3: say six and ten million dollars. On the high side,
Speaker 3: a musical is now twenty twenty five million.
Speaker 1: Daryl Roth has produced more than one hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: shows on and off Broadway since the eighties, including Tony
Speaker 1: Award winning plays like august Osah County Warhorse and Paula Vogels.
Speaker 3: In decent thirty years ago, you could produce a play
Speaker 3: for under four million dollars and have all the soups
Speaker 3: and nuts and desserts that you need to make it work.
Speaker 1: Daryl is one of the producers behind one of this
Speaker 1: season's buzziest tickets, The Picture of Dorian Gray. It's a
Speaker 1: play based on the Oscar Wild novel and stars Sarah Snook,
Speaker 1: who you might know from Succession on HBO. How much
Speaker 1: did The Picture of Dorian Gray cost to mount.
Speaker 3: It was a round eight million.
Speaker 1: The goal for a producer is to recoup that investment,
Speaker 1: something that's easier said than done. Lucas Catler, who's produced
Speaker 1: Broadway musicals like Merrily We Roll Along and Hear Lies
Speaker 1: Love says that's what makes bringing a show to Broadway
Speaker 1: such a financial high wire act. When we spoke with him,
Speaker 1: he was inside a theater in London in the middle
Speaker 1: of rehearsals for a new musical. He's producing.
Speaker 4: Even the best shows, the ones that win Best Musical
Speaker 4: and like really break through and find an audience, a
Speaker 4: lot of times those shows don't even make money, and
Speaker 4: so like a strange loop is actually a great example
Speaker 4: of a show that I didn't work on them Badway.
Speaker 4: I worked on off Broadway. But it's by all accounts
Speaker 4: extreme critical success and a really well regarded piece of art.
Speaker 4: But they haven't recouped on Broadway, for example, I mean
Speaker 4: they closed early.
Speaker 1: When you got your start in the industry, what was
Speaker 1: the conventional wisdom that other producers shared with you about
Speaker 1: the path to success on Broadway?
Speaker 4: I would say, writ large that it's very challenging. One
Speaker 4: in five shows will make their money back on Broadway,
Speaker 4: meaning a lot of producers will hopefully produce shows on
Speaker 4: Broadway that will Like you know, limited run plays will
Speaker 4: in the best case of success, return ten twenty percent
Speaker 4: to investors. Whereas musicals, you really want to get a
Speaker 4: long running musical that will then be a big hit
Speaker 4: and be able to sustain your ability to create other
Speaker 4: work as well. So it's a high risk, high reward
Speaker 4: business and that's been the mo for Feeder since its
Speaker 4: inception in America, but also really really specifically on Broadway today,
Speaker 4: particularly because the margins are really tight between how much
Speaker 4: a cost to run a show and how much money
Speaker 4: you can make in the box office. I'm still a
Speaker 4: young career producer, but like still developing musicals with the
Speaker 4: hope to ultimately make a killing one day. But for now,
Speaker 4: it's like there's no real avenue to make a steady
Speaker 4: income without having a show that's long running.
Speaker 2: People are always swinging for those big runaway hits, those Hamilton's,
Speaker 2: those wickeds, which make the eighty percent of shows that
Speaker 2: don't recoup kind of worth the gamble.
Speaker 1: But Chris says it is a gamble. The New York
Speaker 1: Times reported that four of the fourteen new musicals that
Speaker 1: open the season have already closed or set closing dates.
Speaker 3: It's gotten harder to find investors because you know, statistically
Speaker 3: most things don't recoup.
Speaker 1: And Daryl Ross says that's led to a big shift
Speaker 1: on Broadway.
Speaker 3: I think the trend now which we didn't see as
Speaker 3: much when I began my career is the star vehicle.
Speaker 1: The star vehicle like Dorian Gray starring Sarah Snook or
Speaker 1: Othello featuring Denzel Washington and Jake Jillenhall, or good Night
Speaker 1: and good Luck, directed by George Clooney, who also plays
Speaker 1: the lead. These plays tend to run for a limited
Speaker 1: amount of time based on the actors availability, and Darryl
Speaker 1: says it's a model that can help bring in early funding.
Speaker 3: Both investors and producers can feel that there's less risk
Speaker 3: based on the appeal of the star we're talking about,
Speaker 3: and so it's easier to get investors to come along
Speaker 3: on the journey.
Speaker 1: It can also be easier to get audiences into theaters.
Speaker 1: Othello gross three point five million dollars last week. Glengarry
Speaker 1: Glenn Ross featuring Kieran Culkin, Bob Odenkirk and Bill Burr
Speaker 1: made around two million dollars, around the same amount as
Speaker 1: The Lion King, which has been running for more than
Speaker 1: twenty five years. Dorian Gray brought in nearly one and
Speaker 1: a half million.
Speaker 2: Goodnight in good Luck, which is on Broadway right now
Speaker 2: starring George Clooney has a big cast and is an
Speaker 2: expensive show, but it broke four million a week in
Speaker 2: ticket sales, which is a record, and that's a crazy
Speaker 2: amount of money.
Speaker 1: Part of the reason it's making that much money is
Speaker 1: because a seat at good Night and good Luck can
Speaker 1: run you between about two hundred dollars and nine hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: How the new economics of Broadway are landing with audiences.
Speaker 1: That's after the break. It's harder than ever to succeed
Speaker 1: on Broadway without really trying or even trying a lot.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Chris Rouser says that's pushed Broadway producers towards a
Speaker 1: few different categories of material, the kinds of shows that
Speaker 1: are considered an easier sell for audiences and investors. We
Speaker 1: talked about the limited engagement run starring a celebrity. Then
Speaker 1: there's the jukebox music.
Speaker 2: Musicals are the hardest thing to produce and make succeed,
Speaker 2: and so if you can build a musical based on
Speaker 2: an artist's catalog like Share or Bobby Darren is one
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 4: Tony Award winner Jonathan Groff is Bobby Darren in justin Time.
Speaker 2: That has a built in audience. So that's sort of
Speaker 2: viewed as safe. And then there's like existing ip so
Speaker 2: like The Notebook, Back to the Future, Harry Potter, It's
Speaker 2: the Wizarding World on the Great White Way. These things
Speaker 2: that also have big audiences built in and feel less
Speaker 2: risky to audiences and producers. Those are kind of the
Speaker 2: three things that we feel like all the news shows
Speaker 2: are like that, and honestly, that can be tiring.
Speaker 1: Whiches aren't getting picked up in this formula, Like which
Speaker 1: kind of productions does this shut out?
Speaker 2: I mean it shuts out a lot of original musicals.
Speaker 2: It's very expensive to put on an original musical or
Speaker 2: any musical, and it's very risky. You know, it's can
Speaker 2: be twice as expensive as a play. So there's only
Speaker 2: a couple new like sort of really new musicals that
Speaker 2: are on Broadway this season. And then people are very
Speaker 2: familiar with Shakespeare Tennessee Williams. You see a lot of
Speaker 2: that sort of like Western canon stuff come back and
Speaker 2: back and back. Lately, it doesn't feel like you see
Speaker 2: a ton of new artists or artists of color, or
Speaker 2: artists from a different background international, So yeah, I can
Speaker 2: feel like that stuff is being squeezed out it's.
Speaker 1: Also driving ticket prices up.
Speaker 2: So you'll generally see a show we'll start with some
Speaker 2: rush tickets or lottery tickets can be quite cheap, and
Speaker 2: then they'll start at fifty nine to seventy nine ninety
Speaker 2: nine dollars and go up into the three hundreds, maybe
Speaker 2: four hundred for premium seats right in the front, and
Speaker 2: that's very expensive. Some of the shows this spring ticket
Speaker 2: costs were eight hundred and nine hundred dollars, and that's
Speaker 2: a result of dynamic ticket pricing, which is the same
Speaker 2: as what airlines use and hotels use to book rooms.
Speaker 2: So it's not a person deciding that this show is
Speaker 2: worth eight hundred dollars, it is ai deciding that people
Speaker 2: will pay eight hundred dollars to see a show. So
Speaker 2: we are breaking records in terms of what some shows
Speaker 2: are making.
Speaker 1: What does it mean for the economy of a city
Speaker 1: like New York, which is built around tourists coming to
Speaker 1: see shows if the average tourists can no longer afford
Speaker 1: a ticket to an average show. I don't know if
Speaker 1: we're there yet, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so New York views Broadway is an important part
Speaker 2: of its tourism infrastructure, and when we were coming out
Speaker 2: of the pandemic. The city took a lot of steps
Speaker 2: to try to help Broadway get back on its feet,
Speaker 2: because it's not just people going to Times Square, it's
Speaker 2: not just people who want to come to your show.
Speaker 2: Broadway is part of the appeal of New York and
Speaker 2: when things that get too too expensive and you can't come,
Speaker 2: that makes New York feel expensive, That makes you feel
Speaker 2: like that city is not for me. But nobody wants
Speaker 2: Broadway to be inaccessible for everybody.
Speaker 3: H bristle at the fact that some of the ticket
Speaker 3: prices for premium seats, when you know eight nine hundred
Speaker 3: dollars a ticket, I mean that cannot be the trend.
Speaker 1: Producer Darryl Roth again.
Speaker 3: But interestingly, the average ticket price this year was about
Speaker 3: one hundred and thirty dollars.
Speaker 1: That means those eyebrow raising outliers are actually being and
Speaker 1: out by tickets to shows that have stayed more affordable.
Speaker 1: But whatever the price, audiences keep coming. So far this
Speaker 1: Broadway season, over fourteen point six million people have seen
Speaker 1: a show. It's the first year that's gotten close to
Speaker 1: the industry's pre pandemic attendance levels.
Speaker 3: We've had ninety one percent capacity on Broadway, which is
Speaker 3: really wonderful. So things are looking up, and certainly everybody
Speaker 3: feels excited post pandemic to see Broadway coming back. You know,
Speaker 3: it's it means so much to the city economically, let
Speaker 3: alone those of us that just love the art form.
Speaker 1: It's part of the reason why Daryl says taking all
Speaker 1: those risks we've been talking about can be worth it,
Speaker 1: including supporting shows that don't fit the money making molds
Speaker 1: producers have been leaning on more and more.
Speaker 3: It's hard to say what's commercial and what's not commercial
Speaker 3: before it happens. You know, we've often been really surprised
Speaker 3: by things that we think aren't going to be commercial
Speaker 3: and they are and vice gers. So I say it
Speaker 3: to people, just do what you love and be driven
Speaker 3: by what you respond to in the hope that other
Speaker 3: people will respond to that same story.
Speaker 2: The big example this season is Maybe Happy Ending. Did
Speaker 2: you see it?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Julia Press, our producer, and I actually saw it together.
Speaker 1: Oh loved it.
Speaker 2: Yes, wonderful show. It's very original but actually debuted in
Speaker 2: Korea and then came here and it's a little magical
Speaker 2: show about two robots and a robot retirement home, and
Speaker 2: that alone sort of doesn't necessarily feel like the great
Speaker 2: raw material for a music hall Shakespeare Shakespeare. And it's
Speaker 2: also it's just two people on a stage. It's kind
Speaker 2: of actually, at the root of it, a small story.
Speaker 2: But the music is wonderful, and the set is incredible,
Speaker 2: and the story is lovely, and it just feels so
Speaker 2: fresh and original. I remember, actually I'm getting goosebumps talking
Speaker 2: about it. When I saw it in previews, the set
Speaker 2: broke three times, and even so everybody's sitting there was like,
Speaker 2: we're seeing something. This theater is half full. We don't
Speaker 2: know if anyone's going to come see this show. And
Speaker 2: then had such incredible word of mouth that it just
Speaker 2: built and built and built and built, and now it's
Speaker 2: selling incredibly well you can't get tickets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's such a magic to that. Yes, we'll
Speaker 1: see whether the Tony voters agree. Daryl, of course, is
Speaker 1: rooting for Dorian Gray.
Speaker 3: Certainly, I believe Sarah Snook should win the Best Actress
Speaker 3: in a Play. I have obviously a personal belief in that,
Speaker 3: but I do believe she deserves that honor.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, the producer Lucas Catler is pulling for Oh Mary.
Speaker 4: I'm seethingly jealous of everyone involved in this show because
Speaker 4: it's like it's doing everything that I love, is such
Speaker 4: a joy and a romp while still showcasing the highest
Speaker 4: level of artistry that theater makers have to offer.
Speaker 1: But whatever happens on Sunday, Darryl says, next Broadway season
Speaker 1: is sure to bring its own surprises. What's next for
Speaker 1: the industry.
Speaker 3: I think that this year has shown producers and audiences
Speaker 3: that you can take a chance on something that might
Speaker 3: be a little unique and out of the norm that
Speaker 3: I hope continues. I'm sure the star vehicles will continue,
Speaker 3: There's no question about that. I think we'll see more
Speaker 3: smaller musicals being mounted, what I like to call chamber musicals.
Speaker 3: And I also think we'll see a trend to plays
Speaker 3: that appeal to a younger audience. Now that this year
Speaker 3: has shown that there is excitement and enthusiasm from you know,
Speaker 3: the younger theater going audience, I think we'll all be
Speaker 3: happy to offer more good fare and keep that audience growing.
Speaker 3: I mean we must, otherwise you know, we'll be out
Speaker 3: of business.
Speaker 1: This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
Speaker 1: The show is hosted by Me, David gera Wanja and
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Speaker 1: for listening. We'll be back on Monday.