A leader feature in the New York Times yesterday noted that the ever-spiralling costs of production on Broadway are threatening its very existence. In the words of William Goldstein, a film and theatre composer, “Production costs are out of control. A musical that cost $300,000 to produce 50 years ago costs close to $10 million today. And a play that was produced for $75,000 in 1944 would now cost about $2 million. Even after accounting for inflation, today’s costs are as much as 4.5 times greater than they were half a century ago. While production costs are about 33 times higher than they were in the 1940’s, ticket prices are only about 14.5 times higher. As a result, a show that 50 years ago might have paid off its backers after three months now needs to run for nearly two years to break even.”
This has led to a situation where, understandably, producers have become what is known in the trade as “risk averse”. The risk is also increasingly spread around. “In the 40’s and 50’s, a single person could produce a play; now it takes a half-dozen and corporate backing. Thus, nearly half as many plays are produced.”
Goldstein proposes a set of solutions. First of all, he suggests tax breaks: “New York gives tax breaks to large employers to keep them in the city. Why not offer similar tax breaks to Broadway?” He proposes the setting up of a fund, drawn from property tax revenues, to aid ailing productions, lending at zero percent interest, to cover a show’s operating costs for up to four weeks; if the show recovers, the money would be returned to the fund.
More radically, he also suggests actors and musicians could share the risks – as well as rewards – of production; and that the unions support the hiring of more of their members, so instead of chasing higher salaries and benefits for the fewer and fewer actors working there, they could agree lower rates in return for more of them being employed per production. “When a show is in trouble and royalties are waived, actors and musicians would be required to work at half their salary for up to 60 days or until the show returns to profitability. On a hit show, producers would pay bonuses to all performers and stagehands above current scale. These bonuses could come from a predetermined percentage of the show’s profits.”
These schemes, he suggests, would “keep more shows open and more people working”.
Some of this may be a pipe dream; but some of them are also worth serious consideration. Broadway has long been characterised as “the fabulous invalid”, one that keeps surviving (and indeed, even thriving) against the odds. But the parameters of its successful operation are growing narrower and narrower, and if its unrealistic to expect it to ever return to its heydey in terms of number of productions on the boards, it is at least healthy to examine the business models it operates under from time to time. And we could learn a lesson or two from that in the West End, too.
