It takes a brave pundit to argue with the King. November 20 - Inflation: "Andrew Lloyd Webber says Broadway musicals may be an endangered species: ‘The costs of production are just cripplingly high’"
From Observer, November 20:
Rising costs may challenge Broadway, but the art form itself is thriving, diversifying and expanding across stages and screens.
A recent New York Times piece suggested that “the Broadway musical is in trouble.” Much of the context in that reporting is fair: capitalization costs have soared, risk tolerance has shrunk and post-pandemic economics have forced shows to fight harder than ever to find their audience. But from my perspective as president and CEO of the American Theatre Wing, the suggestion that the Broadway musical faces an existential crisis misses the point. Broadway isn’t dying. It is evolving.
This is hardly the first time someone has sounded the alarm. Broadway’s doom has been predicted for more than half a century. In 1969, The Times asked, “Has Broadway Had It?” In 1995, New York Magazine devoted a cover story to the ominous question, “Can Broadway Be Saved?” In 2005, The New Yorker chronicled Michael John Lachiusa declaring that “the Broadway musical is dead.” And for decades, Michael Riedel made a sport of declaring the art form on life support. The headlines keep coming. Broadway keeps going.
There is truth to the argument that rising costs are squeezing the commercial musical. When a new production can cost $25 million to mount and hundreds of thousands a week to run, even a critically embraced musical can close before it finds its audience. But the deeper issue is not the musical itself. It is the financial framework built around one narrow barometer of success: recoupment.
Recoupment was never a perfect metric. Today, it is a deeply incomplete one. It does not account for the multiple lives a show now leads, nor does it reflect who gets paid and when. Many shows deemed “financial disappointments” still employ hundreds at union wages, pay out royalties, seed tours, sustain licensing income, launch international productions and enjoy long afterlives in cast recordings, classrooms and regional productions. Lead producers generate income from their productions even when investors do not. None of this is nefarious. Measuring the health of the American musical solely by first-run Broadway recoupment is like judging a river only by its narrowest point. By more nuanced measures, it’s fair to argue the musical is thriving. It’s easy to find the green shoots if you know where to look....
....MUCH MORE
That's all well and good but I doubt we will ever return to the glory days of "Piketty, The Musical" or "Enron, the Musical". 2016's "Martin Shkreli, The Musical Set To Debut June 19?"
2017 - "Anna and the Apocalypse is everything the words 'Scottish Christmas zombie musical' imply"
2019 - Today In Holograms: Whitney Houston To Go On Tour, Possible Broadway Musical In The Works
Of course, if you insist on going old-school, this Neil Patrick Harris fellow appears to have potential. Perhaps with training and practice he could make it to London or New York
And for some insight into my interest: A Few Rare People Hallucinate Musical Scores
