Content area
Full text
Ten years after winning a Tony Award for portraying Elphaba in the hit show Wicked, Idina Menzel returns to Broadway as the lead in the new musical If/Then.
David Stone produced both shows, in which Ms. Menzel plays women at a crossroads, and there's already buzz that she'll receive another Tony nomination for the musical, which opens March 27.
Should If/Then even come close to repeating Wicked's financial success, Mr. Stone would defy gravity. In an industry with a failure rate of 75%, Wicked has not only thrived for 10 years, but it also has rewarded its investors with a 900% return. That's better than Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, which has returned about 140% in the same period. Investors pumped $14 million into the Broadway production of Wicked, which opened in October 2003. They've received a collective $140 million, or 10 times their initial ante, investors who spoke on the condition of anonymity told Crain's.
As the old show-business saw goes: Broadway - you can't make a living, but you can make a killing.
"That's the kind of return investors are hoping for and don't really see," said George Wachtel, president of Audience Research & Analysis, a consulting firm.
Additional fees
And that sum doesn't even include the licensing fees and other money from touring, national and international productions that investors in a successful show typically receive. There are 59 investors in the company that produced the Broadway version of Wicked, including Universal Pictures, sources said. Not all investors get the same deal.
"Ever since we recouped [in 2005],...