What I find striking is that the modern playwrights who have had several recent plays on Broadway haven't been recouping. With the exception of McNally's It's Only a Play and Wilson's Fences, most of the works by McDonagh, McNally, Wilson, and Stoppard over the past 10 years have lost money. And people were going to see Lane and Broderick, and Denzel Washington, not a play by McNally or Wilson.
(Of course, some of those productions were in non-profits, like Coast of Utopia, making the picture less clear.)
David Mamet, however, seems to be a financial brand name in the right setting. In the past 10 years, China Doll, Race, November, and the revivals of Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-the-Plow all recouped if my memory is correct. He also had The Anarchist and the revivals of Oleanna, A Life in the Theatre, and American Buffalo in that time period, and those shows probably lost all their investment, so he's far from a sure bet. But his overall picture is better than his colleagues. |
