When you sit down and prepare to budget a show, what’s the first thing you do?

Figure out how much the theater is going to cost?  Figure out how much the creative fees are going to be?  Or how much you’re going to spend on hair styling bills for a star that submits a receipt for reimbursement every time she steps outside? (true story)

It makes sense to start off with this stuff. But I recommend that before you work on your own show . . . work on everyone else’s first.

For example, I’ve got a bee in my you-know-what about reviving a certain Broadway musical.  So I’m looking at all the other revivals of the last 20+ years first.

And by looking at their numbers, I can create the beginnings of a budgetary box that I can fit my show into based on hard empirical data on what the market can bear.

What’s the first thing I looked for in this search?  Length of run.  Here, exclusive to you, oh faithful blog reader, are the results of numbers crunched by me and my assistant Nicole, thanks to raw data provided by the 

The following is the average length of runs of productions on Broadway since 1984 (note: some of the productions included in these calculations may still be running)

New Musical                         52.67 weeks

Revival of a Musical               51.59 weeks

New Play                              24.40 weeks  

Revival of a Play                     15.65 weeks

Interesting stuff, huh?  Now, if I know that an average revival only runs 51.59 weeks, I know I better figure out how to recoup the investment in that short period of time.

But Nicole and I are not done yet.  The next figure that will help me build my budgetary box?  Average price of a ticket.  For a revival.  Of a musical. 

Stay tuned.