Without wanting to get too heavily into the hit/flop discussion, I will just mention that neither Purlie nor Shenandoah had paid off when they closed. The former probably would have if it had not been forced to play in three different theatres during its Broadway run. The costs of the two moves it had to make probably kept it from paying off. I posted elsewhere about the Shenandoah situation. It seems to have paid off eventually, but it took a very long time. And it's not like Sweeney Todd, which took an even longer time to pay off, as Sweeney cost a huge amount (for the time) to produce, and I think it had the highest weekly nut in Broadway history at the time. (Had they closed Sweeney when the original leads left, they would have been wise. They lost a lot that had not yet been distributed by running it four more months.) Shenandoah had a low production cost for the time and had a lowish weekly nut.
I don't think it would be accurate to describe either as flops. They were both too popular and ran far too long. But they weren't quite hits either. They were sort-of hits. If they had both just about paid off, I think they could be described as "soft hits," which is a good term, one that I would use for a show like Child's Play, which closed with a very small profit and never played a sold-out week. I suppose that since it seems that Shenandoah eventually paid off, it might be described as a very soft hit. And Purlie might be described as a near-hit.
But then some short-lived shows have paid off for one reason or another, sometimes just because of a movie sale. |
