Successful producers rarely publicly discuss filing for bankruptcy. Hal Luftig — whose Kinky Boots had a lucrative six-year Broadway run — said last week that personal bankruptcy may be in the cards if a judge doesn’t approve his plan to reorganize one of his companies.
Hal Luftig Company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December, after an arbitrator ruled that Luftig and his company breached an agreement with a longtime investor, Reno, Nevada-based Warren Trepp.Continue Reading
By their own account, the founders of the Broadway Strategic Return Fund turned an overlooked investment niche into a bonanza.
Hunter Arnold, John Joseph and Curt Cronin established their hedge fund in January 2016 to invest in U.S. and U.K. live theater productions, plus tours, cast recordings and other ancillary businesses. With “few professional investors participating through a highly organized and disciplined investment process,” the fund’s Sept. 30, 2021 Due Diligence Questionnaire said, the founders believe “there is an untapped opportunity for outsized profits.”
The year-old marketing document declared, “$100,000 invested at [the] fund opening is currently valued at $416,280.” That’s double the rate of return of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index over the same period — a remarkable result for an industry in which roughly 80 percent of commercial theater productions fail to fully repay their investors, let alone turn a profit.Continue Reading
EXCLUSIVE: With the Broadway production of To Kill a Mockingbird adjourned indefinitely, a real-life court battle between its producer in exile and original advertising agency is heating up.
Scott Rudin, who’s kept a low profile following reports about his volcanic temper and bullying of employees, must answer questions under oath by Aug. 31 about his financial relationship with the theater ad agency SpotCo, according to filings in New York Supreme Court. The video deposition would be made public only if it’s introduced as evidence in SpotCo’s lawsuit against Rudin and entities he controlled.Continue Reading
EXCLUSIVE: Paradise Square has had a bumpy road to Eden.
Nominated for 10 Tony Awards, the second-highest total of the season, it was Broadway’s worst-selling musical in the week ending on May 8, posting just $194,000 in ticket sales. Since its first preview on March 15 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, it hasn’t come close to its weekly breakeven — $599,000, per an estimate in its 2019 operating agreement. (Comparably sized musicals usually cost more to run.)
A new lawsuit against Paradise Square Broadway LP filed in New York Supreme Court, not far from where the Civil War-era musical is set, provides a window into the Garth Drabinsky production. It’s the Canadian producer’s first show on Broadway since he was convicted in 2009 in Ottawa, Ontario, of defrauding Livent Inc. shareholders of nearly half a billion dollars. Publicly-traded Livent, which Drabinsky co-founded, filed for bankruptcy protection in 1998.Continue Reading
Five months after announcing that he would “step back from active participation” on his Broadway shows, producer Scott Rudin is still negotiating the terms of his exit from his biggest hit, The Book of Mormon, a person familiar with the situation told Broadway Journal.
Rudin is battling his former partners, the South Park creative team of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who with their business associate Anne Garefino are the remaining lead producers of The Book of Mormon. (London-based producer Sonia Friedman is also heavily involved in the U.K edition of the musical, which Parker and Stone wrote with composer-lyricist Bobby Lopez.) Continue Reading
Ben Sprecher, who has produced shows and managed theaters in New York since the early 1980s and is best-known for a Broadway musical that collapsed before it could open, was sentenced Thursday afternoon to five years of probation for possessing child pornography. He’ll be required to publicly register as a sex offender in any state in which he resides.
Judge J. Paul Oetken accepted the recommendation of the producer’s court-appointed lawyer, Martin S. Cohen of the Federal Defenders of New York. Citing the seriousness of the crime, the Justice Department had sought a prison term of 78 to 97 months. The U.S. Probation Department recommended a year and a day of incarceration.Continue Reading
EXCLUSIVE: A New York State judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by a dozen investors in Nerds, a musical about the tech titans Bill Gates and Steve Jobs that collapsed weeks before its first scheduled preview on Broadway.Continue Reading
SpotCo, a leading Broadway advertising and marketing agency, filed suit in New York State Supreme Court against producer Scott Rudin, claiming that he left the company on the hook for $6.3 million in unpaid fees.Continue Reading
Ben Sprecher, who spent six years in court trying to restore his reputation following the pre-opening collapse of Rebecca the Musical, was accused in a Federal complaint of possessing and distributing child pornography.Continue Reading
EXCLUSIVE: Broadway’s oddest and most enduring financing-scandal-turned-courtroom-drama has closed.
After six years, 471 legal filings, one trial and another that had been on tap, Rebecca producer Ben Sprecher has ended his effort to hold his former press agent accountable for the collapse of his musical. Last month, Sprecher settled his personal lawsuit against publicist Marc Thibodeau, obviating a second trial concerning the aborted Broadway show.Continue Reading
