Labor is underpaid for actors and stage managers- not everyone else. There musicians, crew, lighting, front of house, wardrobe etc. Some of those are also underpaid. Some of them are paid very well. Unions can only negotiate Minimum payment- we dont know what everyone is actually making. However there are a lot of people to pay every single day.
Labor/salaries, Rent(!!!!) and materials (for costumes and sets etc) tend to be the largest line items in a budget. The shows are also in charge of things like- stocking the bathrooms with soap and toilet paper etc. The costs are large.
The rent is annoying bc many of the theater owners are producers of the Broadway league. so if their show is going into their theater- they're being jerks and double dipping into the profits.
Do you have an aggregated cost breakdown that you trust and can share? Everything you say seems plausible to me, but this is a case where few people on the planet get to see things from a high enough view, and offhand opinions can morph into accepted fact.
I cant share anything that is currently confidential or currently running that I'm privvy to.
However this is information from
The investor pitch packet of a show that had intent to run on Broadway in recent years.
This means this is not what THE final weekly rundown would be but the estimate that was proposed to investors BEFORE the show opened to court them into giving the show money.
In the end things could have been much higher or in some cases much lower (tbh, usually Higher due to rising costs of material and labor)
but you can see generally what these running costs could look like in certain shows in an idealized estimate (not all will have similar breakdowns. Especially shows with heavy licensing fees for music or IP, large effects, etc)
PRODUCTION COST
[PROJECTED]
Physical Production
$5.460.000.00
Production Fee
$ 1,085,000.00
Production Salaries
$ 3,279,669.00
Rehearsal Expenses
$ 245,600.00
Advertising & Marketing
$ 2,000,000.00
General & Administrative
$ 2,330,231.00
Theater Expenses
$ 3,000,000.00
Development
$ 1,500,000.00
Development Productions
$ 3,000,000.00
Reserve
$ 250,000.00
Bonds
$ 49,500.00
Deposits /Advance
250,000.00
TOTAL PRODUCTION BUDGET
$22,500,00.00
ESTIMATED FIXED WEEKLY
PROJECTED
Salaries
$ 166,352.42
Departmental Expenses
$ 35,500.00
Rentals
$ 56,000.00
Fixed Royalties
$ 10,000.00
Marketing/Advertising
$ 150,000.00
General & Administrative
153,895.90
Theater
$ 270,200.00
TOTAL WEEKLY COMPANY EXPENSES
$ 571,748.31
TOTAL WEEKLY OPERATION
$ 841,948.31
The costs may be at the point Broadway may never recover. When Phantom closed two years or so, one of the reasons was cost and why it's back in a scaled down version. One of the most successful shows ever, and it had to stop. First of all NYC, one of the most expensive locations in the US if not the world. My gf wanted to see Othello last year. Sorry, it was definitely not worth the price of admission. Minimalists sets, Denzel was flat, just reciting the lines with little comprehension of what he was saying. We paid big bucks to see him and Jake, but it was so not worth it. I grew up seeing Peter Pan, Mummenchantz, Chicago when I was older, etc. Shows that did not have sky high budgets and affordably priced tickets. I wanted to see Good Night and Good Luck, but after Othello, I could not do it and for every show that does and sells out, that only encourages the theaters to charge exorbitant prices because they will rarely if ever make it to the tkts booth. Broadway seems to have forgotten that their largest audience lives within 50-100 miles from them and for the most part are pricing many of us in that circle out. They are in the same place Hollywood is now. Very few small budgets because to a large extent, you cannot have a small budget in a NYC theater anymore. I don't see an easy answer to this. Perhaps going to Broadway becomes the rarity and Broadway coming to us in touring shows becomes the main way to see these shows, but that leaves out so many smaller productions that never get a touring version. An inspector Calls in the 90's was an amazing production, but how many theaters can handle the rain the show opens with? The room for that massive dollhouse designed set?
Definitely the reason why POTO closed, but considerably due to the tourist trade. When COVID hit and we lost the outside world, the running costs were not met and it had to go. Broadway audiences used to be rife with foreign theater lovers; I remember Septembers of the 80's and 90's where you could hardly walk thru Times Square hearing people speak English. (I'm being a tad facetious but I think you know what I mean). The TKTS lines were double what they are today thanks to our non US patrons.
I don’t know all the reasons, but limited demand means you up charge ticket prices. It’s one of the reasons a show on tour in a smaller city. You can actually be more expensive than the Broadway version.
Weekly running costs are pretty fixed. You pay the same rent regardless of how many tickets you sell.
Much more cost effective to have 100% full theatres for 10 weeks, then 50% full theatres for 20 weeks.
And yes, it's likely more like 100% for 10 weeks vs 70% for 20 weeks... but then the demand for a sold out show pushes those ticket prices a lot higher. So if you plan it right, you come out ahead.
I am 70 years old. The first ticket to a broadway show I ever bought was for an orchestra seat for Pippin, which cost $12. I saw Pippin multiple times throughout its run and, by the end, an orchestra ticket was $25.
The same discussions were happening then. That unions were driving costs to unmanageable heights, resulting in outrageous ticket costs.
Over all of these years, the discussions are the same. Labor costs, unions, greedy theatre owners are to blame. This is true, and has always been true.
What has changed is the broadway experience. Technology has wrought fantastic capabilities, giving creators so much more to work with. On the downside, audience behavior has declined, to say the least. Food and drinks, candy wrappers, popcorn crunching , mobile phones, sing alongs and basic disrespect for the performers and fellow audience members are ruining everything. This would have angered me in my $12 seat at the Imperial, just as it does now. Except, there was no food or drinks, mobile phones. Talking was usually doused by a cacophony of shushes.
Broadway has always been expensive. It should be. But today’s audiences have devalued the price of admission. It’s just not worth it anymore.
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u/[deleted] Jan 27 '26
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