Explaining theater investing's crazy financesfrom @middlebrowpod

Transcript

And then theater investing is so bizarre because you could see your $30,000,000 capitalization be lit on fire or you could make passive income for the rest of your life. Like O'Meary or whatever. Totally. And bless them. I hope that they make money for the rest of their lives. Let me be the first to say, I think O'Merry is really funny. Yeah. I'm going out on a limb here. I saw this on the Internet. Can't verify. Someone will, hopefully, but I believe The Lion King the musical is, like, the highest earning entertainment property ever. It's made, like, $9,000,000,000. And, you know, if you tossed $200,000 at Tier Lion King in 1998 or whatever, it's like, you're getting a second Hampton's house. So that's the weird thing about theater producing. It's like, it's... There's usually not a middle ground. We've worked incredibly hard Yeah. To get people their money bad, and I feel really proud that, by and large, like, we've been able to do that because it's... Breaking even is often the goal. Jesus. That's, like, the best you can hope for. So the jobs take money for best? Or, like, how long does it have to run off Broadway? And then what does it have to do Off Broadway to get totally Broadway? Great question. Part of the success of Job initially was we ran it as a nonprofit production, which meant we borrowed the nonprofit status of the theater and raised essentially donations. That cost around $90,000, give or take. Those were in units as big as $3,000 and as small as, like, $50. Like, my friends from college all, like, came together and gave yes, like, $200 You know, like, you're not seeing that money bad? Wesleyan's kids can only come up with 200? Some of them gave more. Look. No. Oh, no. Actually, I take that back. Wesleyan kids are notoriously performatively broke. Oh, yeah. They're like, dude, I think things are... I live in Bushwick. You no? Like, you're like, okay. And when are you taking the plane back to LA? Thanksgiving. Great.