"Gypsy" got a reprieve, but four other Broadway shows close this month, making it one of the grimmest months in recent history.
The closings -- of "Anna in the Tropics," "The Retreat From Moscow," "Never Gonna Dance" and "Taboo" -- represent an aggregate loss of $26 million. That's a record for a single month.
Was it the weather? The reviews? The quality of the shows?
Answers depend on whom you ask, but wags proffer a further question: Why did they hold on so long?
"Taboo" is the extreme example of throwing good money after bad. After spending $10 million to open the Boy George tuner, Rosie O'Donnell spent another $2.7 million to keep it running. "Moscow," "Anna" and "Never Gonna Dance" never came close to racking up those post-preem losses, but like "Taboo," tuner, each failed to register the usual Christmas/New Year's Eve bounce.
Broadway's overall B.O. jumped 21% for Christmas week 2003, then rose another 7% for the New Year's Eve session, all of which made for a combined two-week holiday cume of $39.5 million, a Broadway record. But of the February Four, only "Taboo" got a significant holiday bounce.
Why try to weather January when your show is merely breaking even (or worse) during the two most lucrative weeks of the year?
"We had a couple of break-even weeks. It was wait-and-see and try a few things," says "Never Gonna Dance" producer Jay Harris. TV worked no miracles, despite lots of dancing, nor did radio, despite lots of Jerome Kern songs.
"What turned out to be most effective was email-blast discounts," he says.
The producers of "Moscow" actually dropped a perf during the Dec. 22-28 session.
"We thought the play wasn't joyful Christmas fare," says producer Susan Quint Gallin. "We weren't expecting to do well over Christmas, but we thought there was a good chance it would improve."
Contracts for John Lithgow, Eileen Atkins and Ben Chaplin ran through February. Gallin said there was never any question of closing earlier. "We lost a little keeping it open (that long), but not much," she says.
"Anna in the Tropics" actually rose $34,000 Christmas week, but fell $38,000 during the New Year's session, creating a virtual B.O. wash.
Shortly after the show's mid-November preem, cast members and playwright Nilo Cruz accused the producers of not advertising enough. They could hardly level that charge today: A big, new ad push went out in early January.
"We found there was a disconnect between the expectation and the experience," says producer Daryl Roth. Market research showed auds found Cruz's play "sexy and romantic," much to their surprise.
"We had to express that," Roth says.
Post-holidays, the new "Anna" ads had Daphne Rubin-Vega atop a supine Jimmy Smits. Very steamy, but they created no B.O. heat in a "bleak winter," says Roth.
At the moment, Broadway is definitely in one of its drama funks.
"All the new plays on Broadway are doing about the same at the box office," per Gallin. With weekly receipts around $150,000, the ensemble productions "Anna" and "Moscow" are closing, while solo shows "I Am My Own Wife" and "Golda's Balcony" continue. "I think it says something that only the one-person plays are still running," she says.
In such a flop-prone climate, perhaps Broadway can't be seen as the ultimate destination for a new play.
"The playwright ends up subsidizing the producers," says one legit agent. "If a play can have a successful life outside New York, it's often better not to have a Broadway production, which forces you to share your royalties from the regional productions."
In the case of "Anna," Cruz now must give 40% of his royalties to the Broadway producers for a five-year period. He estimates his Pulitzer Prize-winning drama will clock in 10 regional productions in the next year.
However, the scribe has no regrets. "It's expensive to produce on Broadway," he says. "I understand the 40%. The Broadway production took (the play) to a different level."
'Gypsy' goes on
The only good news to emerge from Broadway in recent days concerned one of legit's legendary troupers.
A week after announcing "Gypsy" would close at the end of February, producers of the Broadway revival announced the show will go on, for now.
In making the closing announcement, producers Robert Fox and Ron Kastner left open the possibility that increased ticket sales generated by the notice might induce them to change their minds, and that seems to be the case.
Last week, "Gypsy's" B.O. climbed by $63,290 to $423,325.
The B.O. boost could be ascribed to more than just a rush on tickets following the closing announcement. Grosses were up across Broadway as weather warmed up; New York's exceedingly chilly winter had dampened business across the board. "Gypsy's" increase was about in the middle of the range for musicals.
Also a factor: The producers asked for concessions from "everyone working on the show" to keep it open.
The Arthur Laurents/Jule Styne/Stephen Sondheim musical also won the Grammy for cast album on Sunday, and it got a news-making visit from First Lady Laura Bush, too.
It still seems unlikely the production will turn a profit: The show was expected to be about $4 million in the red if it closed at the end of the month, and it will need to see a sustained increase at the B.O. to stay open through the spring.
Although it is considered by many to be the greatest of Broadway musicals, "Gypsy" has not been the money-spinner that other beloved Rodgers & Hammerstein shows were.
Reporter Diane Judge was an associate publicist on the original 1959 Ethel Merman production, which ran a decent but not spectacular 702 perfs.
"And the last rows of the Broadway Theater were usually empty," Judge recalls.
The last Broadway revival of "Gypsy" opened with Tyne Daly in 1989 and took a long 50 weeks to recoup; it closed 10 weeks after that.
And the previous revival, starring Angela Lansbury in 1974, came 15 years earlier and put in a limited engagement of only 120 performances.
So over the past three decades, "Gypsy" has defied the 20-year rule and clocked in three revivals. Economically, that could be one too many.
Contact Robert Hofler at
bob.hofler@variety.com