Mike in Seattle
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- Renton (Seattle), WA
The big problem is the high cost of mounting a 30's-60's type of musical these days. Theatre lost audience to movies and more to T.V. and these days, video and DVD's. That started to drain away audiences and has continued to do so. For most, it's far more appealing to stay at home and pop something in a player to watch on TV, or see what's on cable.
About the only venues able to afford to put on the classic full orchestra, large cast musicals anymore are colleges and universities, where you have unpaid cast and unpaid musicians. When you calculate what the union wages are for a cast of 20-30 and 30-50 piece orchestra, script & score royalties & fees, crew, costumes, rehearsal & performance space costs, then divide that by the number who are going to buy tickets, you get an idea. As audience decreases, ticket prices have to increase and every time you raise ticket prices, you lose more audience. I've got friends "in the biz" who have to deal with it on an almost daily basis, and say Broadway, Vegas & London are about the only places that can draw the required audience numbers willing to pay high ticket prices in order to run in the black. Most local theatres are having to go to shows with 5-7 in the cast and a 3 piece combo for music. Remmber, too, that when you're seeing a show one night, there were weeks & weeks of rehearsals that musicians, cast & crew have to be paid for before the show opens.
And as others have mentioned, a lot of audiences today wants rock 'em, sock 'em special effects and shoot-em-up situations and loud music like they see in the movies because they've got short attention spans and need all the glitz & action & so forth to keep them involved with the show. They can't be bothered with simply enjoying the performances, and God forbid they have to think about the meaning of the shows.
About the only venues able to afford to put on the classic full orchestra, large cast musicals anymore are colleges and universities, where you have unpaid cast and unpaid musicians. When you calculate what the union wages are for a cast of 20-30 and 30-50 piece orchestra, script & score royalties & fees, crew, costumes, rehearsal & performance space costs, then divide that by the number who are going to buy tickets, you get an idea. As audience decreases, ticket prices have to increase and every time you raise ticket prices, you lose more audience. I've got friends "in the biz" who have to deal with it on an almost daily basis, and say Broadway, Vegas & London are about the only places that can draw the required audience numbers willing to pay high ticket prices in order to run in the black. Most local theatres are having to go to shows with 5-7 in the cast and a 3 piece combo for music. Remmber, too, that when you're seeing a show one night, there were weeks & weeks of rehearsals that musicians, cast & crew have to be paid for before the show opens.
And as others have mentioned, a lot of audiences today wants rock 'em, sock 'em special effects and shoot-em-up situations and loud music like they see in the movies because they've got short attention spans and need all the glitz & action & so forth to keep them involved with the show. They can't be bothered with simply enjoying the performances, and God forbid they have to think about the meaning of the shows.