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Thread ID: 11872 | Posts: 4 | Started: 2004-01-13
2004-01-13 03:51 | User Profile
[url]http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-biz-bzcov0112,0,2523587.story?coll=ny-business-headlineshttp://www.newsday.com/business/ny-biz-bzcov0112,0,2523587.story?coll=ny-business-headlines[/url]
A Less Than 'Rosy' Picture for 'Taboo' Promoters hope lower ticket prices, a cast album and a DVD will boost play out of winter doldrums
By James T. Madore Staff Writer
January 11, 2004
Elise Rosen wasn't even born when British pop star Boy George topped the recording charts with "Karma Chameleon," his bestselling song with the band Culture Club. But she's become a big fan after hearing about him.
So, seeing the gender-bending musician perform in "Taboo," the new Broadway show based on his life story and bankrolled by former talk-show host Rosie O'Donnell, was a top priority when Rosen and her family visited New York City from California.
"I'm a huge '80s fan," the 16-year-old said, waiting for the musical to begin on a recent Saturday. "I'm looking for a good night with Boy George, just seeing him will be enough for me."
However, there haven't been enough teenagers like Elise and others purchasing tickets for "Taboo" to make it a success, so far. And the clouds that hung over the production on opening night, Nov. 13, have grown darker in recent weeks as the show continues to lose money and ticket prices are slashed to fill the Plymouth Theatre. "Taboo" also has been panned by many influential theater critics.
While "Taboo" came to Broadway with its own special mix of personalities and problems, the tale of the difficulties afflicting the musical offers a glimpse into the atmosphere for a broad range of shows. In recent years, observers said, Broadway has boosted ticket prices in the face of higher production costs and theater renovations, with the result that audiences increasingly are choosing feel-good blockbusters geared toward families over avant-garde or experimental offerings.
"If you are asking people to plunk down upwards of $100 for a ticket, and in some cases more, then seeing a show becomes an investment," said David Sheward, managing editor of the newspaper Backstage. "People begin to say, 'I spent all this money and I want a really good show.' And you know 'Taboo' isn't at the top of most people's lists because it got mixed to bad reviews," he said, adding that the musical's top ticket price is $101.25.
Some of the marketing techniques now being used to promote O'Donnell's show reveal the difficult economics of staging a Broadway production.
Predictions of "Taboo's" demise were rife even before it opened but are being given more credence this month, the beginning of a 90-day trough where many shows close because winter weather reduces audience sizes. O'Donnell and her production team acknowledged the challenges of Broadway's traditional "slow period" but vowed to keep "Taboo" running.
Beginning last month, tickets have been discounted for students, tourists and promotions involving Fortune 100 companies and nightclubs. By boosting the number of people seeing "Taboo," the producers said, they hope to generate more word-of-mouth recommendations that in turn will lead to future ticket sales. Additional radio and television advertising also is planned.
"Taboo" takes its name from a London nightclub made popular during the 1980s as a hangout for George and the flamboyant performance artist Leigh Bowery, who later died of AIDS. The show traces the men's lives -- which appear to be only marginally connected -- with George cast as Bowery and wearing a string of outlandish costumes.
Sheward and others said some theatergoers may be upset by scenes where male characters dress as women, meet in public toilets for sex and use illegal drugs, such as heroin. The musical also addresses bisexuality and homosexuality.
"The audience for this isn't a traditional Broadway audience: families," Sheward said. "Rosie O'Donnell is trying to get more people to see 'Taboo' ... but I would say the prospects are not too good. It's an uphill battle."
Faced with the winter drought, some shows are throwing in the towel now. "Urinetown," the Tony-winning musical comedy about a water shortage that leads to a ban on private toilets, is to shut down Sunday. It follows the final performances on Jan. 4 of the latest revival of "Cabaret," "The Caretaker" by Harold Pinter and "Take Me Out," the Tony-winning play about a star baseball player who comes out of the closet. In general, earnings on Broadway were up in 2003, although that was mostly because of an increase in ticket prices, not an increase in audience.
In recent weeks, "Urinetown" and "Cabaret," along with most of the 20 or so other musicals on Broadway, have filled a higher percentage of seats in their respective theaters than "Taboo," based on weekly averages calculated by the League of American Theatres and Producers Inc. Shows generally must fill 60 percent to 80 percent of their seats each week to be profitable, experts said. "Taboo" rarely reaches these levels.
Moreover, the show appears to be luring audiences with increasing numbers of discounted tickets. The average price fell $17.73 to $66.64 in the eight weeks ended Jan. 4. This has meant that weekly box-office receipts have dropped from a high of $386,189 recorded early last month despite more people going to the show.
Rival producers speculated that "Taboo" must bring in between $350,000 and $400,000 a week to meet its payroll and other expenses; most don't think the show has ever been in the black.
"There's a giant sucking sound coming from 'Taboo' as it gobbles up more of Rosie's money," said the producer of a current musical who requested anonymity. "With numbers as bad as her show is getting, I would pull the plug. The writing is on the wall, she should swallow her pride and give 'Taboo' a decent burial."
O'Donnell appears to have no such plans for her first Broadway production.
"I'm proud of the show. I love it because of its heart and soul," she said in a statement. "I hope it has a long run. I have no regrets."
The Commack native, whose net worth Fortune magazine estimated to be $115 million in 2001, spent $10 million to $12 million to reinvent "Taboo," which originated in London, for U.S. audiences and then to launch an advertising blitz aimed at boosting ticket sales. She is the sole financial backer.
"Rosie and I want the show to run for a very long time," said associate producer Dan MacDonald. "We would have never stepped up to the plate with a six-figure television campaign if we weren't confident that 'Taboo' would run through Tonys and beyond." Tony nominations are announced in May followed by a televised awards ceremony in June.
"Do we take a blind eye to the numbers?," MacDonald asked in an interview. "No, but I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that Rosie and I will do what we can to have the show run for a very long time."
MacDonald, a former executive at the Walt Disney Co., outlined an aggressive marketing strategy designed to sustain "Taboo" through the winter doldrums. It includes two-for-one tickets for college students, free admission to trendy Manhattan clubs on Sunday evenings for ticket-holders through February, and a limited number of $35 balcony seats for tourists.
He also said a cast album, featuring the 22 new songs Boy George wrote for the U.S. show, is due out next month. A DVD about the making of "Taboo" will follow in the spring.
"We are kind of battening down the hatches for what is going to be a very difficult January and February for everyone on Broadway," said MacDonald, who plans to help O'Donnell produce a second musical later this year based on "Find Me," her autobiography.
"I tell people 'Taboo' is the little engine that could. Unfortunately, the critics did us a great disservice for whatever reason, but we are building a base out there," he said.
MacDonald said every performance ends with a standing ovation from the audience, which was the case on a recent Saturday evening. He also said 60 percent to 80 percent of the Plymouth Theatre's 1,093 seats are filled Thursday through Saturday, though the numbers are smaller on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and are likely to remain so through March, he predicted.
The examples of "Aida" and "Beauty and the Beast" offer some encouragement, said Richard C. Norton, author of "A Chronology of American Musical Theater" (Oxford University Press, $466.50). Like "Taboo," these shows were trashed by the critics but garnered audiences over time using cheap tickets and lots of commercials. They rank among the longest running of the current musicals on the Great White Way with ticket receipts for each totaling more than $500,000 per week and sometimes approaching $1 million.
"The cards are on the table for 'Taboo' and it's really now up to the producer, as with any show, to see what entrepreneurial genius they have to find an audience," said Norton, who produced shows during the 1980s and 1990s. "The problems are not unique. It's a matter of matching the venue, the audience and the pricing that audience can afford," he said, suggesting that "Taboo" would improve its financial performance by transferring to a smaller, Off-Broadway theater. "The show isn't in the right-sized house."
O'Donnell wouldn't be the first producer to sustain losses over many weeks out of a mixture of pride and conviction. In the early 1990s, Lord Andrew Lloyd Weber kept his "Aspects of Love" running for nearly 400 performances. The troubled musical was based on the life of a nephew of writer Virginia Woolf.
"This may turn into a matter of Rosie O'Donnell's pride costing her a great deal of money through a forced run of 'Taboo,'" Norton said, "There's many a show where that's been done." Copyright é 2004, Newsday, Inc. | Article licensing and reprint options
2004-01-14 16:49 | User Profile
I happy to report that Taboo has been cancelled, with disgusting pig Rosie O'Donell losing Millions.
[url]http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040114/ap_on_en_ot/theater_taboo_closing[/url]
Boy George Musical 'Taboo' to Close
1 hour, 22 minutes ago
By MICHAEL KUCHWARA, AP Drama Writer
NEW YORK - "Taboo," the Boy George musical brought to Broadway by Rosie O'Donnell (news), will close Feb. 8, losing all of its well-known producer's $10 million investment.
The show, which opened Nov. 13 to largely negative reviews and publicity, has struggled since then to reach its weekly break-even point, reportedly more than $400,000. Last week, according to the League of American Theatres and Producers, it grossed $281,333, filling only half the seats at the Plymouth Theatre.
P.S. Rosie O'Donell is a BITCH!
2004-01-15 20:35 | User Profile
It looks like the media has decided to give Rosie and Georgie some free publicity to save the show.
2004-01-15 20:46 | User Profile
Boy George? I would have figured A.I.D.S. or a drug overdose would have done him in by now.