When you sit down and prepare to budget a show, what's the first thing you do?
Figure out how
much the theater is going to cost? Figure out how much the creative fees
are going to be? Or how much you're going to spend on hair styling bills
for a star that submits a receipt for reimbursement every time she steps
outside? (true story)
It makes sense
to start off with this stuff. But I recommend that before you work on your own
show . . . work on everyone else's first.
For example,
I've got a bee in my you-know-what about reviving a certain Broadway
musical. So I'm looking at all the other revivals of the last 20+ years
first.
And by looking
at their numbers, I can create the beginnings of a budgetary box that I can fit
my show into based on hard empirical data on what the market can bear.
What's the
first thing I looked for in this search? Length of run. Here,
exclusive to you, oh faithful blog reader, are the results of numbers crunched
by me and my assistant Nicole, thanks to raw data provided by the
The following
is the average length of runs of productions on Broadway since 1984
(note: some of the productions included in these calculations may still be
running)
New Musical
52.67
weeks
Revival of a Musical 51.59
weeks
New Play
24.40
weeks
Revival of a Play 15.65
weeks
Interesting
stuff, huh? Now, if I know that an average revival only runs 51.59 weeks,
I know I better figure out how to recoup the investment in that short period of
time.
But Nicole and
I are not done yet. The next figure that will help me build my budgetary
box? Average price of a ticket. For a revival. Of a
musical.
Stay tuned.
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