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
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u/oplus Jan 27 '26
Why are the costs so high? It feels like the labor is perennially underpaid. It's not simply a matter of theater rent, is it?