Broadway general managers Carl Pasbjerg, Frank Scardino, and Tim Kashani break down what it costs to mount a show. A straight play runs $2.5 to $3 million; a large musical hits $15 to $20 million. A chorus member makes roughly $1,800 per week, or over $100k annually with benefits.
How do you explain, when they look at how expensive this whole world is, that role of the general manager in helping to manage or mitigate that?
I think the only thing that you can do is explain, you know, almost line item by line item what these things cost. Usually it starts with a budget process, and somebody will bring, you know, a script and the idea and what's going to be involved, and then we work on, you know, the broad strokes of what it actually is going to cost. Costs in every facet to get this from the written page up to performance on stage. And depending on the size of the show, is it a play, a straight play with one set that's 4 or 5 characters that costs $2.5, $3 million, and they go, "Wow." Or is it a musical, a small musical that costs $8 to $10 million, or a medium-sized musical that costs $12 million, a large musical that costs $15 to $20 million, and you Sometimes you don't have that discussion ahead of time. You usually do try to set out those parameters, and then you actually do a detailed budget for the specific project. And then when producers have a question, I think you have to go through and explain. For instance, a chorus person on Broadway, which is, you know, or the basic actor's salary is approximately $1,800 a week. Before benefits, and then you add on pension, welfare, vacation pay, and sick pay, and payroll taxes, and you probably would look about $2,200, $2,300 per body, minimum, minimum, minimum.
So just for the chorus person on the left who isn't playing a role, they dance in the show, but other than that, they're, you know, they're part of an ensemble of people, but they're costing you on a yearly basis in excess of $100,000 a year. And that's for those people. You get into people who are more specialized than that, from that point, anything from musicians to technicians to managers to press agents, all of the people who are involved in the various facets are at the top of their game. They're at the top of their earning potential for their craft. So Of course they're going to be expensive. You know, it's just like any other industry. You're going to pay for the skills you need. And, and it's not like there's that many people out there that do it. So there, there are other people are competing for their skills. So the cost is high.
