Why This Fall's Biggest Musicals Are Opening Off Broadway

Tony Marion had to raise $5 million to mount his off-Broadway musical this fall — a sum he estimates would have run $18 to $22 million, or more, if the show had opened on 45th Street. That gap explains why this season's most talked-about musicals are premiering in small New York theaters rather than on Broadway itself.

The trend, reported by Jeff Lunden for NPR, spans three high-profile productions:

• "The Heart" — a thumping electronic musical about a heart transplant, running in a small theater near Times Square.
• "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" — a British folk-inflected adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story, playing an even smaller Greenwich Village house that introduced the world to "Hamilton" and "A Chorus Line."
• "Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen" — an adaptation of Japanese manga, staged in a purpose-built theater inside an old industrial building on Manhattan's far west side.

All three opened in what Lunden calls "an omnivorous fall for off-Broadway musicals."

Why are producers going downtown?

The short answer: Broadway is too expensive. The longer answer involves how a show's capitalization (the total money raised to mount and run a production) scales with venue size and ticket prices.

Philip Boroff, who covers theater finances for Broadway Journal, said: "What it costs to mount a show off-Broadway may be a fraction of what it costs to do it on Broadway, but it is extremely difficult to make the numbers work off-Broadway, as well."

The mechanics are straightforward. Off-Broadway theaters are smaller and tickets are cheaper, but fixed costs barely shrink. "You still often have big casts. You have to pay the musicians," Boroff said. "And you may not have to make a million dollars to make your nut, but maybe you have to make half a million or 400 grand. That's still a lot of money."

"Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen" illustrates the model. Marion, one of its producers, raised $5 million for the show, which features the last score by the late pop star Duncan Sheik. Tickets run $49 to $129 — significantly below Broadway prices.

What does this change for a show's future?

Marion frames the off-Broadway run as a development step, not a consolation prize. "I do see a lot of my colleagues taking advantage of this model, you know, and starting something downtown and seeing, you know, where it can go," he said. "And if you don't go to Broadway, you still have a New York brand, and that New York brand can be really, really helpful as you look at international productions, you know, following the New York run."

In other words: a Manhattan premiere is an exportable asset, whether or not the show ever reaches Broadway.

The paths diverge from there. "Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen" is running as a standalone commercial production. The other two musicals are being presented at nonprofit theaters, with enhancement money (commercial producers' cash injected into a nonprofit production) backing them in hopes of a Broadway transfer.

What's the risk?

Boroff points to the exposure that comes with a New York debut. "Off-Broadway is a little bit of a perilous place to open a musical because then you run the risk that a local critic, The New York Times, may not like your show, and then it stigmatizes the show," he said.

The upside is proven, though. Boroff cites "Rent," "Avenue Q," "Dear Evan Hansen" and "Hamilton" as shows that had successful off-Broadway runs followed by "incredibly successful Broadway runs."

Whether any of this fall's three musicals take their shot on Broadway in the spring or next season, as Lunden puts it, is still to be determined.