how much should an off broadway show cost?
Jared and I met with a possible general management client yesterday, a producer bringing in a show that was a hit on the West Coast.
The show was initially budgeted at $1.5m with a weekly running cost over $100G; the producer came to us to rethink that strategy. This raises a couple of questions:
* What is a realistic Off Broadway budget?
We got their budget down to about $60G, and the production budget down to a million. Is that low enough? That’s still a lot of tickets to sell, especially without a star, Broadway’s marketing machine, or some other hook.
* What size venue is right?
We’ve tried to persuade the producer to go in to a smaller venue, and avoid the 499 seat trap. As the cliche says, better to sell-out a 200 seater, than sell 300 seats in a 400 seater. Scenario 1 = hit; scenario 2 = you’re doing okay.
* What’s the right attitude?
The bureaucracy and formality of New York theatre drives up the budget and general managers run the shows without anything at stake beyond their own fees.
Surely the only way they can work is to cut every possible cost. Scott Morfee succeeds at Barrow Street, but who else actually makes a profit Off Broadway.