PR for People Monthly November 2017 | Page 36

One of the things that I do as a producer is to evaluate the financial viability of a theatrical endeavor. For my own projects, that means crafting budgets and financial projections, and for other people’s projects - projects that might be worth investing in - that means evaluating the quality and accuracy of financials prepared by that particular entity.

A recent article from the New York Post by Michael Riedel reported that a group of investors in the recently closed Tony-Nominated musical Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 are auditing the productions’ records. The request was brought on by investors’ curiosity of how the show, which grossed around one million dollars a week for a little under a year, returned only about 15 percent of their investment.

I spent a lot of time deconstructing this issue on the last episode of The OHenry Report, a new podcast that I co-produce with BroadwayWorld.com about the business of Broadway. I am going to take you through an abridged version of that conversation, but if you’d like to hear the full story, be sure to look for the OHenry Report on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts.

According to the numbers these curious investors were working with, the show should have returned about $11 million of the $14 million capitalization. They claim the actual amount of the return was only $2 million. So what accounts for this $9 million difference?

Before I continue, I want to note something important: I don’t want the numbers above to discourage people from

Broadway Beat

The OHenry Report

by Oliver Roth

Growth & Funding Strategist