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.

I respond to my own blog from yesterday.

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This is my response to the article I reposted 03/07/12. Please refer to that article so that this one makes sense.

I realize the title of Mr. Loughlin’s blog, “The BFA Musical Theatre Degree Should Die” is there for shock value.  It got me to read it and repost it, after all. He makes a strong statement that, with the proliferation of BFA Musical Theatre programs there is actually less Broadway-level work available. (We’ll look at some statistics later.)

 

I’m going to reveal my main point now rather than the end by quoting, what I believe, is Mr. Loughlin’s most valid conclusion:

 

“I am opposed to branding and marketing a degree program to students when that market hardly exists. A BFA degree program in musical theatre should exist in only a few schools at best, and as educators we ought to be honest enough to know that we are selling snake oil to most of the students who dream of doing Broadway-style musical theatre.”

 

I believe there are so many BFA-Musical Theatre programs because there is a market for such programs, not because there is a lack of Musical Theatre performers.  When there is a demand, the market responds, and there are a lot of kids and parents who want (and are willing to pay for) these kinds of programs.

 

If the odds are so low that someone will get the type of top-level work they desire through their BFA, does that invalidate the degree?  Is there no value to it? Is it “snake oil?”

 

Let’s look at another Fine Arts degree, for instance; The Oboe.  A young person can get a bachelor’s degree in oboe performance from numerous universities across the country.  Are young people graduating with an Oboe Degree going to make their living playing the oboe?  If they do not play the oboe at Carnegie Hall has the degree been a failure? Has it been “snake oil?”

 

I do agree, the BFA-MT is “high stakes.”  I also believe that the market will correct itself when those types of degrees don’t pan out in the way most of those folks receiving the degrees thought they would.

 

Here’s my “pro” takes:

 

People don’t just walk onto a professional performance stage without extensive preparation. That preparation has to come from somewhere. Why not at the University level?

 

My niece is a professional working TV & movie actress in Los Angeles.  She has spent thousands of dollars on coaching, lessons and classes.  How is that different from a formalized or standardized University Degree?  One difference is that she won’t be able to tack on a MBA degree to it later if she wants to leave acting? (Which you can do with a BFA.)

 

I do feel for those who have a dream to perform and think that if they just get into a BFA program and get the diploma, they’ll just walk to Broadway, show their card, and step onto the stage, ( and, “yes,” there are some folks-including parents-who don’t think too far from that scenario.)  But that doesn’t invalidate the degree or the whole concept of the “Triple-Threat” philosophy. It just means that kids and parents are going to have to be more realistic about what their kids can and can’t do talent-wise.  When there is a whole separate industry dedicated to coaching and preparing students to “get into” BFA-Musical Theatre programs, that tells you something is skewed,

 

So: ONWARD! YE BFA-MT PEOPLE!

 

chris

BFA in Musical Theatre?

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Since this is a blog about whatever I am interested in...I am going to post a 3-part series about the Bachelor's of Fine Arts (BFA) in Musical Theatre degree (since we are paying for one of those kinds of degrees right now for Eric and I have three other sons in Theatre.)


The first article is against the MT-BFA (could you tell by the title?)  It is reposted from this dude's blog and I have included the original link.  Right up front let me say I mostly don't agree with him, however, he makes a valid(ish) point.  If you are a BFA candidate, don't lose heart...more info will come.

chris 

The BFA Musical Theatre Degree Should Die

Posted July 17th, 2011

Tom Loughlin: Distinguished Teaching Professor of Theatre Arts/Acting and Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance at the State University of New York at Fredonia

Dunkirk NY – I have come to believe that data should play an important part in any discussion of the state of theatre and theatre education today. So it comes as a welcome treat that Broadway producer Ken Davenport has posted some really interesting statistics on the state of musical theatre on Broadway, as well on plays. His blog posts detail the decline in how much theatre Broadway actually produces, and by inference how many fewer jobs there actually are. The numbers are here, here, and here. The statistical reality (no surprise here) is that there is far less of anything being produced today. Size of musical casts went from 69% of musicals with casts over 30 in the 1950s to 27% today. In the 1940s, the number of new plays on Broadway averaged 49.4. In the 2000s, it’s now 11.7 (10.9 in the 1990s). New musicals? In the 1940s the number of new musicals each season was 14.9. In the 2000s, 9.3, an uptick from the 1990s (7.5). Broadly speaking (pun intended), Broadway is about half the size it was in the 1940s.

I came upon these statistics almost at the same time I had a typical visit from a young high school senior-to-be who was out shopping for colleges and musical theatre programs. I took her and her parents on my usual tour and then we spent time chatting in my office and they asked the usual questions. Of course, the topic of future employment came up, as it always does, and I always try to be honest with parents and students on this issue – future employment in the theatre is a slim proposition if you think of trying to make your living full-time in musical theatre. But I went a little beyond that this day, in that I began to mention that, when you really stop to think about it, there is not much work in musical theatre beyond NYC or tours. Regional theatres do not regularly do musicals because of the costs involved, and outside of Florida and a few other isolated regions like Boston or perhaps Chicago there is not much musical theatre being done in this country, especially at levels where one can reasonably make a living doing it. So why spend four years of your young life, as well as the dollars involved, to study musical theatre exclusively as a specialty, when the market is so bad and has been in decline for years?

It’s interesting to note that the rise of the BFA Musical Theatre and interest in the degree came at exactly the same time as size of casts and number of musicals was decreasing (if you charted this on a graph I believe you’d get a big “X”). It is a perfect example of McLuhan’s so-called “rear view mirror” effect, where society tends to see in its media not its future or its present, but its past. In other words, the very thing you’re watching on TV is probably in cultural decline at that very moment (which may account for the fact that TV shows generally have less than a three-year life span). The popularity of the “high school musical” rose as a reflection of the popularity of musicals in general, but even as high school musicals grew in popularity, musicals on Broadway were declining.

The musical theatre degree gained popularity as kids wanted to continually re-create the thrill of being in their high school musical. When you’re 16 or 17 and get a lot of attention and notariety because you are the local HS musical star, it’s a heady thing, and the encouragement you receive to continue your “career” in college can be overwhelming. But nobody at the high school level points out the actual reality of the business to these budding stars, and of course nobody really knows the statistics. So when they show up in my office or any other theatre program wanting a BFA in musical theatre, they no doubt believe they are good enough to succeed and there is opportunity out there.

There isn’t really, beyond a chosen and lucky few. The “failure rate” of students with BFA degrees in Musical Theatre is extraordinarily high if you define “success” as being in musicals a majority of the time. Musical theatre students who survive in theatre generally end up doing a lot more non-musical than musical theatre in their careers. They end up being “actors who can sing and dance” as opposed to bona fide musical theatre actors. And PS – how many musicals these days require high-level dancing? Most dancers on Broadway today are probably exclusively dancers, not actors or singers. A student who has trained himself or herself with the intent of being a “triple threat” does not have a grasp on the realities of the business these days. No one is writing material for “triple threat” actors, scores on the whole do not contain “musical breaks” allowing for big dance numbers (viz. Oklahoma or West Side Story), and if you can’t truly Dance, it’s probably a sure bet you won’t make the cut, because the people out there who can Dance can really Dance.

Any rationally-based corporation spends a lot of time trying to analyze their market and adjust their practices accordingly. But theatre, it appears, is not a rationally-based enterprise, and the same and more can be said for educational theatre. It is an enterprise based on nostalgia and past practice, not data. The fact is that employment opportunities in musical theatre, not to mention other theatrical trends, seems to escape the notice of theatre departments altogether, or they willfully ignore the data because they fear the time, effort and work it would take to change their curricula (not to mention the loss they’d suffer in enrollments). It’s time for theatre departments to begin to cut their BFA Musical Degree programs from their curricular offers, because given the realities of the business today these degrees are disingenuous at the very least and outright lies at the worst.

Theatre students are better off if they spend their time studying how to create and devise theatre, and if they have the interest and the talent, take vocal lessons and/or dancing lessons as a supplement to the primary study of how to create quality theatre. Having those skills are an asset in any situation. It’s not that I am against learning to sing and dance, but I am opposed to branding and marketing a degree program to students when that market hardly exists. A BFA degree program in musical theatre should exist in only a few schools at best, and as educators we ought to be honest enough to know that we are selling snake oil to most of the students who dream of doing Broadway-style musical theatre. -twl

Laura Ingram's Response

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Laura Ingraham Blasts The View: When I Was Called A Slut, Barbara Walters Laughed It Off

In the spirit of fairness, here is Laura Ingram talking about the media response when a media personality called her the same insult.

However, I still don't like Rush and I think he makes it harder for Conservatives by his pompousness!

Thanks for the link Jesse Wiese.

chris

Rush Limbaugh

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Basically, Rush Limbaugh sucks as a person.  He is right on some of his positions, but he seems to be a bad person...and he says stupid stuff...and he is an arrogant a-hole and I'm not sorry he is losing sponsors for calling a girl an awful name on his radio show.

Out of the mouth comes the overflow of the heart.  His mind has some good and true ideas, but his heart is corrupt. Can fresh & bitter water flow from the same well?

When asked about his calm demeanor on the basketball court, Akeem Olajuwan, said, "I am the same person inside whether I am on the court or not.  I cannot be one person here and than another person there.  If I am a good person on the court, than I am a good person off the court."

Rush Limbaugh is a blowhard on the air and a blowhard off the air.

And, "Yes," I am a conservative.

chris

The Dark Tower

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I just finished "The Dark Tower" series.  It was seven looooonnnnnnggggg books by Stephen King (and if you've read Stephen King, you know how long-winded he can be.)

It is the story of Roland and his quest to find, see, and climb "The Dark Tower."  That's essentially it.  He doesn't care who he has to shoot, who he has to abandon, who he has to lie to, or what he has to do...he's gonna see that dern Tower!. (and it takes him seven books to do it.)

Stephen King describes this as his "keystone" series.  He interweaves stories from his other books (particularly "Salem's Lot" and "The Stand") into this story. He even writes himself in as a character.  He borrows heavily from "Lord of the Rings" (which he readily admits was his primary inspiration.) The books are: Lord of the Rings meets The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly meets The Road Warrior meets Salem's Lot. It's also a very self-indulgent book for Mr. King.  This was a story he wanted to write.  It was slow to take off commercially (I don't even know if it actually has "taken off.")  But the series has a faithful (and fairly rabid) following.

It is heavily pan-theistic.  There is the creator "Gan" who has seemed to make everything and then retreated to some unknown and noninterfereing location. There is the "Prim" which is the ocean of "magic" that has receded, yet there are puddles of the Prim where magic still resides in the world.  There is the concept of "ka" which a type of active destiny that worls in the worlds.  There are multiple worlds that are connected by these beams that are held up by The Tower, or perhaps The Tower holds the beams up...in any case, it is all quite convoluted.

Throughout the book "ka" is generally cruel, but not with malicious intent. Ka just needs particular things to happen and it doesn't "care" who it has to use of what the personal consequences are to the individual doing it.  I can think of only one time in the series where "ka" does something that is just, flat out, kind...and the person receiving it is shocked.

That tends to be the world's view of God.  That he is uncaring, distant, and has stuff He wants done without regard to those doing it.

But ultimately, God's very nature is that He IS love.  He is a kind Father who loves and blesses, and when He had every opportunity and right to wipe us out because of our mutiny and rebellion, He sent his own son to be executed and punished in our place.  It is an everlasting mystery that the world refuses to believe, yet when individuals latch onto the fact that God IS love and all it implies, they are changed forever.

Roland was obsessed in climbing an empty Tower.

We should be obsessed with an internal embrace from the one we love in the heavily populated Celestial City.

chris

To learn more about The Dark Tower: The DarkTower and Discordia

Fermat's Last Theorem Explained.

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An orchestra was plagued by absences in all of their rehearsals. In fact, each member had missed at least one rehearsal except for one loyal oboe player. At the last dress rehearsal, the conductor took a moment from rehearsal to express his appreciation in the oboe player’s dedication towards attendance. The oboe player just smiled and said, “Well it’s the least I could do since I won’t be attending the performance.”

That is my blog (and I'm not proud of it.)

chris