NEW YORK — "Grey Gardens," one of the most critically acclaimed musicals to open on Broadway in the last year, will close on July 29 after just nine months, its producers announced Thursday. On track to lose its entire $5 million investment, the show is the latest casualty of a season that was great for art but brutal for investors.
So far, they've lost more than $60 million, and the figure is still climbing, according to estimates from several producers watching the red ink stain the Great White Way.
Leading the flops was the $10 million-plus "The Pirate Queen." "High Fidelity" lost about $9 million and "The Times They Are A-Changin"' lost almost $8 million, people involved with those shows said.
None, however, was greeted as warmly as "Grey Gardens," about Jackie Kennedy's eccentric relatives. After failing to recoup any of their money, producers decided last week to close rather than underwrite the high cost of replacing Tony Award winner Mary Louise Wilson, who was scheduled to leave at the end of the month. They were pessimistic about the quirky, plot-heavy show's ability to attract summer crowds.
"It's not really a tourist show," Edwin Schloss, a money manager and "Grey Gardens" producer, said in an interview Wednesday.
While overall Broadway attendance was up 2.6 percent from a year ago, the season was especially hard on musicals, which account for $4 out of every $5 spent on Broadway. Moreoever, attendance for plays fell 23 percent to 1.48 million, the lowest since at least 1984-85.
Of 35 productions that opened in the 12 months ending on May 27, just four earned back their investors' money: "The Vertical Hour" and revivals of "A Moon for the Misbegotten," "Butley" and "A Chorus Line," the only one still running.
Despite mostly unfavorable reviews, "Moon for the Misbegotten" investors earned a 20 percent profit on their $2.4 million, according to Ben Sprecher, a producer of the Eugene O'Neill drama. "Butley," which cost roughly $2 million, broke even.
The previous season produced bigger hits. "The Color Purple" and "The Drowsy Chaperone," both from 2005-06, long ago made their backers whole and are in profit. "Jersey Boys" has paid out more than 100 percent in profit, said producer Joseph Grano, a former Wall Street executive. "The Odd Couple," "The History Boys," "Three Days of Rain" and "Sweeney Todd" — all from the previous season — closed in the black.
Newcomer "Legally Blonde" has grossed as much as $1 million a week since opening on April 29. But tepid reviews and word-of-mouth make the $13-million musical's future unclear. "Curtains," by John Kander and Fred Ebb, opened on March 22 and has been taking in about $800,000 per week, much of which is being eaten up in heavy advertising costs to offset middling reviews.
"Mary Poppins," a London import based on the 1964 movie, is the busiest new show, regularly grossing $1.2 million per week. Co-producer Walt Disney Co. doesn't disclose when its shows recoup their costs.
The best-reviewed new shows came from nonprofit theaters. "Grey Gardens" premiered at off-Broadway's Playwrights Horizons. "Spring Awakening," which won eight Tony Awards, including the one for best musical, first ran at the Atlantic Theater. It has recouped half of its $6 million capitalization. A sexually explicit coming-of-age tale set in 19th-century Germany, it, like "Grey Gardens," is not an easy sell to the tourist crowds.
It wasn't just musicals that cost plenty and fared poorly.
Bob Boyett and Bill Haber, who made fortunes in Hollywood, backed the epic "Coram Boy," at $6 million the most expensive play ever produced on Broadway. It closed without returning any of its investment. The partners also produced "Journey's End" a bleak World War I drama that won the Tony Award for best play revival—hours after it closed. It played to 22 percent capacity one week and seldom exceeded 40 percent, according to figures reported to the League of American Theaters and Producers.
"Radio Golf" closed Sunday at a $2 million loss. A revival of "Company" also closed on Sunday, recouping some of its $4.1 million.
The flops of 2006-07 initially appeared promising.
"The Pirate Queen" came from the composing team of "Les Miserables" and the producers of the "Riverdance" franchise. Reviewers found it lumbering. It closed after 101 performances. Composers Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg said in a March interview it cost more than $10 million. The New York Times pegged the cost at $16 million.
The $10 million "High Fidelity" was based on Nick Hornby's best-selling novel about a record-store owner who won't grow up. Broadway reviewers were cool to the bland storyline and the score. Producers pulled the plug after 13 performances, returning about $1 million to investors.
"You have to look at it like a mutual fund," said Sonny Everett, an insurance broker and partner in a family real-estate business, who was an associate producer on the long-running hit "Avenue Q" and on "High Fidelity." He's also a backer of "In the Heights," which transfers next season from off-Broadway. "Some shows work out, some don't. You have to love it."
(Philip Boroff is a reporter for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)