Hal Luftig
Appearances
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
There's only so many blocks that make up Broadway, per se, and there's only so much land. Like Will Rogers said, buy land, because they're not making any more of it. My name is Hal Luftig, and I'm a Broadway producer. Some of my credits include Here Lies Love, The Life of Pi, Legally Blonde, The Revival of Evita, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Kinky Boots, and it goes on.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
I've been doing this for 30-something years. To this day, I still get excited like a little butterfly effect in my stomach when I walk into a theater. The smell of it, the dinner of it, being walked to your seat, getting handed a playbill, sitting there knowing the curtain's going to go up, and you...
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
With all the people sitting around you are going to be, you know, watching and laughing or crying at the same thing.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
Gee, I wonder why that is. Maybe you can tell me. I don't know why. Oh. Yes, I will. All right. Tell me. Theater owners now are a very big profit participant. And by profit, I don't mean after the show makes money. First, they get all of their expenses. It's called weekly rental. And that includes everything from payroll to toilet paper.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
On top of that, they get a weekly royalty, which could be 3%, 4%, 5%, 6%. It depends on the theater, the theater owner, the show. If the show is doing well, like a million dollars a week, do the math. So that is a chunk right there. And their costs have gone up, insurance, mortgage payments, interest rates, things like that. So they pass that right on to the show. That has changed over the years.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
How did it used to be? It used to be you paid a rent. There wasn't really a royalty attached to it. It was in the 70s, 80s, where they realized they could make a whole lot more money. They also realized, why don't you bump the tickets up $2 here and then $5 there? This is all before dynamic pricing. This was just... Hey, if the show is successful, why sell a ticket for $25?
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
That's how far back we're going. Liza Minnelli in the act was $25. And people were outraged, Stephen. I remember people thinking, what the hell, $25? When it opened and became sort of a hit, they bumped it up to $27.50. You shared in some of that, sure, as the show, but they got the lion's share because of their royalty. So that's how theater owners kind of work.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
Yes, it totally does. But they would say, and there's part of me that does understand this, that when a theater is dark, they are receiving no income and they do have all of these bills to pay. You know, if a show is in trouble, they'll reduce the rent or they'll waive the fee. So, yeah, they do help.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
Steve, I will tell you this. I understand that every rule that exists in every union is there because at some point somebody tried to screw them over in that specific area. And so next time the contract was negotiated, the union said, OK, we're going to deal with this.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
For example, stage managers. You know, a producer who was not being very careful, not being very forthright, might say, oh, we could do this show with two stage managers. And meanwhile, it's the most complicated set in the world. It's dangerous. to not have enough stage managers who can watch the show and make sure everybody is where they're supposed to be, when they're supposed to be.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
Things like if a trap door opens during the show, a stage manager has to say, it's okay to continue. They're all on headsets, so the audience never hears this. To continue because the trap has been closed and the stage is now safe.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
Shows don't work on Broadway for a whole host of reasons. It doesn't have to be that the show is awful. You come to Broadway, let's just say you have 30 other choices. What people choose can be a byproduct of where they are at that moment. We learned this on Lingley Blonde.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
If you are coming into the city and you have two kids, a boy and a girl, invariably the boy said, oh, I don't want to see that. That's a girl's story. So they choose another show that everyone's happy with. There are people who feel like, I don't need to see that on Broadway. I saw the movie. Not really comprehending that a good adaptation has its own vocabulary. It's not just the movie on stage.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
If a movie is associated with a star, as was Legally Blonde with Reese Witherspoon, well, is Reese in it? No. I'll go see something else.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
It went on the road, a several year U.S. tour, which did recruit and made a profit. It went to London, where it did make a small profit. And that U.K. company then turned into a U.K. tour. That went to Ireland and other countries, and that was very profitable, too. So how can a middling Broadway show do so much better on the road? The houses are bigger.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
There are some tour houses that are over 2,000 seats. When you come to New York, you have a choice of, let's say, 30 shows. When you're in Cleveland, usually you're the only one or you're one of two. So it's more focused and you do pretty well. And tours usually cost a whole lot less.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
That show is done so many times in so many different high schools in so many different languages. The year before the pandemic, and that's the last report I recall seeing, it was 300 or 400 productions in one year.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
Yes, it was done everywhere. And if you think about it, Stephen, the casting is very easy for a school. It has enough males, it has enough females. The songs aren't terribly difficult to sing. And it speaks to high school kids and certainly younger women because the message is you don't ever have to dumb yourself down.
Freakonomics Radio
630. On Broadway, Nobody Knows Nothing
If you're the producer of a show, you're like a parent. And that's like asking you, do you ever stop working with your children? I don't think so. They could be 30 years old. You're still going to be working.