Back in January you couldn’t watch any entertainment “news” show or read any Arts & Culture section of a newspaper without seeing something about the death of Broadway. There were so many shows closing all at once that the imminent death of our industry was whined about not just from spineless actors, but from producers as well. It was so pervasive that Saturday Night Live utilized Neil Patrick Harris’ musical theatre ability to present a skit starring the characters of popular Broadway shows having a meeting at Sardi’s to try to save the industry.
Somewhere, out in the wilderness, on the pages of Big Hollywood, there was a lone voice of reason. A pragmatic and practical man laying out the facts for you, the ever-interested and conservative reader. That man, one Stage Right, was shrewd enough to label the producers as “panty-waste industry folk” and explained that their propensity to panic and pull the emergency brake is partly attributed to their liberal tendencies.
Your average liberal hears a statistic like “46 million without health insurance” and they pull the panic cord. The next logical step, rather than looking at WHY those people don’t have insurance, is to force a mediocre, government planned health care bureaucracy down everyone’s throat (even the 260 million of us who DO have insurance) because it is a CRISIS!
In my post in January, I calmly showed the schedule of future bookings planned in the run up to the Tony Awards and I pointed out that nearly every house would be occupied by the end of the season. Furthermore, I pointed out that you don’t judge the health of the theatre industry based on the shows that are closing, you judge it based on the planned shows in the future. And based on that criteria, the 2008-2009 season was looking to be one of the best.
Now, Variety has come around to vindicate your favorite commercial theatre blogger:
During the 2008-09 season, productions logged a cumulative sales tally of $943.3 million, breaking the record held by the 2006-07 season — and managing to do so during the most unsettling fiscal downturn in decades. Restaurants may be closing, European vacations are being cancelled, alimony payments may be late, and prestigious private schools are losing students. But for various reasons, folks are still turning out for theater. After a turbulent fall and a particularly worrying winter that saw the shuttering of more than a dozen shows, the season snowballed to 43 new productions, the highest count for a single season since 50 shows launched in 1982-83. (Thirty-six shows opened during the 2007-08 season.)
As I pointed out, Broadway is populated by a bunch of victim-mentality whiners who love to see themselves as the ugly step-cousin of the beautiful and rich Hollywood Industry. Many of the folks who tend to find themselves working in theatre as a career are often the types who wallow in self-pity and who don’t see the glass as half-full… they see the glass as being way too big in the first place!
I have longed for a time when our industry stopped seeing itself as something that required subsidies and our art as something that is entertaining and wonderful rather than some sort of medicine that your are SUPPOSED to like. Theatre remains mysterious and inaccessible because many of the folks who run the show like it that way… it makes them feel intelligent, different and special.
Luckily, there are still some grown-ups in the room. The Variety article ends with a quote from Philip Smith, Chairman of the Shubert Organization. Smith is a pro’s pro who has literally seen it all. The coda from Mr. Smith:
“Things look no different than they have in the past,” says Philip J. Smith, co-topper of Broadway landlord the Shubert Org. “Of course, when winter sets in, it may dry up, but right now I don’t see how it could happen.”
Than you, Mr. Smith. It’s true everyone, the sky is NOT falling. Come to Broadway and see a show!
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