Broadway Stats, Facts, and Figures

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Ken Davenport is a Broadway/Off-Broadway Producer (and blogger)

Read his Bio here: The Producer's Perspective

This past summer Ken Davenport had a series of three blogs that looked at some interesting statistics and trends about Broadway productions.

I have included them in this post as well at the links to the original articles.

(I like stats, facts, and figures!)

chris

 

Are we producing more new musicals each decade or less?

Posted July 7, 2011

I'm on a statistics kick lately.  Don't know why.  It's like that time I ate sushi every day for lunch for a week.  It just satisfied a craving.

And right now all that I can crave is numbers.  Raw numbers.  Mmm, mmm good.  So expect a few number-soaked posts in the coming week or so. 

And here's the first one:

We got into a fight debate in my office after hours last week about the quantity and quality of new musicals over the last several decades.  So we went to the books to see exactly how many NEW musicals were produced season over season, and if we could spot a trend.

Unfortunately, we did.

• In the 1940s, the average number of new musicals produced each season was 14.9.
• In the 1950s, it was 11.6.
• In the 1960s, it was 14.6
• In the 1970s, it was 13.6
• In the 1980s, it was 10.1
• In the 1990s, it was 7.5

Yikes, right?  For the past five decades, the new musical average has been dropping like a stone in a bowl of miso soup.  

Well, wouldn't you know it, check this out.

• In the 2000s, the average number of new musicals was 9.3.

A bit of a bounce this last decade.

Will it continue?  Let's hope so, because dropping lower than the paltry 7.5 of the '90s will make Broadway look more and more like a museum; a place for tourists to visit like The Met.

We need to figure out a way to get back into the teens by coming up with ways to encourage Producers to take the risks associated with these big budget shows because frankly, that's one of the big reasons tourists come to New York in the first place.

Tomorrow, we look at the average number of new plays per decade.

Can you guess what kind of trend we're going to see?

 

Are we producing more new plays each decade or less?

 

Posted  July 8^th, 2011

 

Yesterday we talked about musicals, and today we're talking plays.

What has been the trend for new plays throughout the decades?  

Let's go to the stat board and see what we've got.

• In the 1940s, the average number of new plays produced each season was 49.4
• In the 1950s, it was 41.4
• In the 1960s, it was 35.7
• In the 1970s, it was 25.1
• In the 1980s, it was 17.4
• In the 1990s, it was 10.9

Down, down, down like a submarine filled with sumo wrestlers . . . holding bricks.

But wouldn't you know it, the average crept up a bit this last decade, just like musicals.

• In the 2000s, the average number of new plays was 11.7

But still, a 77% decline from the 1940s?  Wowza.

Now yes, some of the decline from the days of old is from the additional theaters that were around/available . . . but 77%?  

There is without a doubt a direct correlation to both the play and the musical decreases over the decades and the increase in risk as costs have escalated.  

Let me be absolutely clear.  We must find ways of stabilizing this risk.  If we don't, the disturbing trend above will continue, and as you can see, it's very hard to reverse it. The best we can hope for over the next decade is that it doesn't drop again.

So there's our challenge readers.  Operation "Don't-Let-The-Averages-Drop-This-

Decade" is on.  

Let's get to it.

 

The incredible shrinking cast size

 

Posted July 14, 2011

A few of you may be in a statistic induced coma by now ever since I started my numbers craze last week.

But I've got a-number one.  (Get it?  Ok, ok, I'll take that off the set list for my Last Comic Standing audition.)

Today we're talking about cast size.  Just how many pairs of chorus girl legs were kicking in the old days, and just how many are kicking now?  

In this analysis, I looked at the percentage of new musicals in each decade with casts over 30 (seemed like a good line between average and BIG).

• In the 1950s, 69% of all new musicals opening on Broadway had cast sizes greater than 30.
• In the 1960s, 67% had cast sizes greater than 30.
• In the 1970s, 31% (!)
• In the 1980s, 24%
• In the 1990s, 38%
• In the 2000s, 27%

Over the last 30 years, we stabilized a bit after that precipitous decline in the 70s (what the heck happened there? - that's a subject for another blog).

Costs have obviously played a big factor in this cast-size shrinkage, but I'd also argue that smaller musicals (Next to Normals) are more likely to be done in modern times than they were in the Golden Age of musicals, which might play a small part in the decline.

But for those of you out there that think that the only way to succeed is to prevent your authors from adding more people to the stage, remember this stat:

36 of the 64 Best Musical Tony Award winners have had casts greater than 30.

That's 56%.

Writers, you can thank me for that stat later.