Broadway producers and investors made the brave decision to present several new plays without stars this past season.
Audiences haven’t followed. Grosses for straight plays (non-musicals) tumbled 15 percent in the 12 months ending on Sunday, after plunging 27 percent the previous season, according to statistics out today from the Broadway League. At $154 million, it was the lowest-grossing season for plays in at least six years.
With a week to go, 2016-17 has already surpassed last season’s record grosses.
After 51 weeks, Broadway has sold $1.415 billion of tickets, vs. $1.373 billion for all of 2015-16. Sales are on track to rise 5 percent, according to figures from the Broadway League.
UPDATED THROUGHOUT: In a court battle over money and reputations, the partnership that sought to bring Rebecca the Musical to Broadway won a token $90,000 damage award against its former press agent — less than 1 percent of what producers were seeking.
Publicist Marc Thibodeau hugged his lawyers and cried after the jury verdict. Five women and one man decided that Thibodeau wrongfully interfered with a contract but didn’t defame Rebecca Broadway LP when he sent rogue emails under the pseudonyms Sarah Finkelstein and Bethany Walsh. The emails warned a prospective investor that Rebecca‘s commercial potential was questionable and there was fraud in its midst .
Rebecca Broadway LP vs. Marc Thibodeau went to the jury Tuesday afternoon after two weeks of testimony. The five women and one man had a range of information requests out of the gate in order to decide the civil suit, which was filed in 2013 after Rebecca the Musical collapsed amid a cash shortfall.
At 2:30 pm, Marc Thibodeau was a courageous truth teller. By 4 pm he was a destructive liar.
Closing statements at the Rebecca civil trial this afternoon painted opposing pictures of its former press agent and the musical he represented — and according to its producers, sabotaged.
EXCLUSIVE: The email was sent at 8:21 am Sunday, Sept. 23, 2012. Subject line: “Confidential.”
“Have you ever Googled Mark Hotton Long Island?” wrote Marc Thibodeau, press agent for Rebecca the Musical, to lead producer Ben Sprecher about the West Islip, Long Island, stock broker Sprecher hired to raise money. Thibodeau wrote that he discovered “several instances of lawsuits against him for fraud.”
The publicist added that the broker hadn’t produced evidence that an investor named Paul Abrams who purportedly died of malaria — one of four mysterious overseas angels Hotton recruited — ever existed.
EXCLUSIVE: On Sept. 27, 2012, four days before Rebecca the Musical was to begin rehearsals, it sold 27 tickets.
The day’s “wrap,” or sales, was $2,952.50, according to an internal production document introduced this week in the Rebecca civil trial.
Its advance sale was $1.035 million, the document said. “That would be a weak advance,” testified Aaron Lustbader, a partner at Foresight Theatrical, the general manager of such shows as Phantom of the Opera. Lustbader wasn’t involved in Rebecca, which was postponed for the third and final time a day before rehearsals were to start. Big musicals typically wrap $50,000 each day before previews, he testified yesterday.
The Tony Award for best musical is commercially valuable, but what about nominations for plays? The next few weeks will test how much theatergoers care, with three of the four best play nominees box office under-performers.
Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, Hello, Dolly! and A Doll’s House, Part 2 got the most Tony Award nominations this morning in their respective categories.
Natasha competes against Dear Evan Hansen, Come From Away and Groundhog Day the Musical in the all-important new musical category. Among the high-profile snubs, the new musicals A Bronx Tale, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Amelie got no nominations. Also bageled was the hit musical revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard, although star Glenn Close, who won for the role in 1995, was out of contention.
Producer Ben Sprecher broke down on the stand today at the Rebecca civil trial in lower Manhattan, while recounting being forced to shutter the $12 million musical on the eve of its first rehearsal.
“The whole thing was a tragedy,” Sprecher testified, speaking with apparent difficulty. “I don’t know what to say.”
