This Year’s Tony Nominees & More on JB
June 1st, 2006Marilyn Stasio of Variety (5/22/06 edition) notes that last year’s four Tony-nominated musicals: Dirty Rotton Scoundrels, The Light in the Piazza, Spamalot, and Spelling Bee are still up and running 12 months later. Will it happen again with 2006′s quartet of tuner nominees? This year’s nominees–Jersey Boys, The Color Purple, and the Drowsy Chaperone are currently pulling in grosses near or at capacity, while the underdog fourth nominee, The Wedding Singer, is playing at 62& capacity. The winner will be announced on the June 11 telecast.
What are the experts in the business saying about Jersey Boys?
Nancy Coyne, from Serino-Coyne Advertising:
According to Nancy Coyne, who has monitored the market for 30 years at Serino-Coyne Advertising, it is no longer considered a smart bet to pitch your show to a niche audience. “The niche is only the low-hanging fruit, those people who have an affinity for this particular material,” she says. The challenge is “to grow that niche of people who already love Frankie Valli into a huge demographic of people who have never heard of Frankie Valli.”
Dodgers producer Michael David:
“Every show is desperate to reach that anchor audience in those first six to eight weeks when you can lose everything,” says Dodgers producer Michael David, who was grateful for the Jerseyites who showed up in droves when Jersey Boys was in its early days. But he couldn’t relax until his niche audience leveled off and the show began to reach “an ecumenical audience” of young people, families and seniors. “We even have the literati,” he jokes.
