2015 Theses Master's

The Myth of the "A-List" Creative Team: Why Past Commercial Success Should Not Be a Factor in Putting Together the Creative Team of a Broadway Musical

Bogner, Andrew Ryan

In exploring the phenomenon of the myth of established artists being a safer
choice and giving a show a greater chance of success, we will first look first at the history of the form, showing that prior to the 1990s there was a small and insular group of artists that drove the success engine of new Broadway musicals, with more frequent and consistent success. We will examine this earlier period by delving into an exhaustive quantitative study produced in 2005. Then, in an effort to explore the recent history and the counterintuitive and unusual fact that all profitable new Broadway musicals in the period examined had new blood on the creative team, the paper will explore the factual realities of the current and more recent landscape of new Broadway musicals, examining the track records of commercial success of producers, directors, choreographers and writers in the period between Grand Hotel and Aladdin.The paper will also look at instances in which producers dipped into the same creative well and were not successful, as well as examine the careers of some of the most successful producers of new Broadway musicals in recent years, looking for suggestions as far as how to approach the creation of creative teams for new musicals, without using commercial track record as the primary benchmark. Finally, we will explore some of the reasons why working with new talent is often preferable in creating a successful commercial Broadway product.