| re: Weekly nuts of three current musicals reported in Vulture | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 04:03 pm EDT 05/19/24 | |
| In reply to: re: Weekly nuts of three current musicals reported in Vulture - BroadwayPhan 11:43 pm EDT 05/17/24 | |
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| As Singapore/Fling says below, healthcare is one of the major reasons why weekly nuts are so high, and that is because the healthcare system in this country is still so incredibly broken, despite the incalculable good that the ACA has done. I would add that most performers in Broadway and Off-Broadway shows understandably need to live in one of the five boroughs or, if not, certainly have to live at least in the tristate area, where living costs are so high. There really is no alternative. If salaries are too low for people to live within reasonable commuting distance of their jobs, then there aren't people available to do those jobs. One thing that is often overlooked when discussions of high costs on Broadway come up are the expensive complexities on the technical end of modern Broadway. Sets are generally far more complex now and therefore the cost of constructing them has outpaced inflation. If you've got a one-set show, at least that cost does not continue once you start performances. But for shows with set changes, that extra complexity means increased running costs. Almost never mentioned is the huge increase in the number of lighting instruments that shows now use. It used to be that a big musical might use 150 lighting instruments. Last I heard it was generally 450-600 lighting instruments. Lighting instruments are rented, This is ongoing expense. Also, more bulbs have to be replaced when they blow. Each time that happens, it may be a small cost, but all those small costs add up, not to mention the labor costs since someone has to do the work of replacement. I don't know much about this. Perhaps if LED bulbs are now used, they blow less often. Still, those instruments are an ongoing cost for most Broadway shows. (I've been told Lincoln Center owns its own instruments and that's one way in which costs are lower there.) And then there are body mikes, which regularly have to be replaced. This is another ongoing cost that in the distant past did not exist at all or at first when it started to exist was usually limited to one or two performers in some shows but in many shows, including musicals, even into the 1980s, no one wore them. Now it's every performer in every musical and increasingly (or perhaps at this point always) every performer in every play. Amplification has been going on in Broadway shows for far longer than is often said, but it has become far more expensive. And, of course, sound systems, including speakers, are more complex now. I would think speakers are on ongoing rental cost, as lighting instruments are. |
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