Anyone think about the end-to-end costs to produce a Broadway show? A show written by a 28 year-old Columbia University grad student whose previous plays were caustically left-wing diatribes about 9/11 and abortion?

All total, there will be literally millions of dollars spent on this show starting from pre-production to rehearsals to marketing to opening night and the end of its run–two days later.

Why? Because rich liberals agree with Beau Willimon’s politics and are good enough businessmen that they can fund his ridiculously bad play on Broadway.

Liberals, somewhat paradoxically, are very good at making money. They have no problem spending millions per year on mostly unprofitable (at best these would be “revenue-neutral”) projects like this or Li’l Bush. Based on an elevator pitch, a rich liberal will figure out how he can make money off a play that very few people will ever see and will likely piss off 51% of the entire population of the United States of America. This is an axiom that will never change.

Political conservatives that are wealthy will identify themselves as fiscal conservatives. In contrast to the liberal rich guy, the political/fiscal conservative never wants to spend any of his own money on funding some “artsy-fartsy” production even if it was conceived by a fellow conservative. Based on an elevator pitch, the rich conservative will give a million reasons to the artist why the production won’t be a good return on investment (starting with: “Do you have any idea how much it costs to rent rehearsal space and a theater in this town?”)

I understand that conservatives would only produce the highest quality entertainment that anyone and everyone can enjoy unlike the e-e-e-e-e-e-evil liberals polluting our nation’s youth with all their hip hop music and video games. The key word here is “would” produce… conservatives on the whole are not producing any significant amount of entertainment for anyone whose age is less than room temperature. Talk radio is great for my parents and grandma, but Limbaugh isn’t very entertaining to Gen-X, Gen-Y, and beyond.

Limbaugh recognized that people in his generation were starving for a voice like his to connect with in the mass media and he deftly exploited that market… when he was in his 30s… twenty frickin’ years ago. Limbaugh was able to get funding from like-minded rich guys at Clear Channel who became even richer. God bless ‘em for it.

Bottom line: Limbaugh belongs to the Boomers. On the whole, Gens-X, Y, and beyond don’t identify with Limbaugh at all. So, who’s the twentysomething/thirtysomething person that will make that same connection with this generation? Who’s the like-minded rich guy who will fund this connection and become even richer?

Michelle?
Gutfeld?
Breitbart?

ScottMcC on June 15, 2007 at 9:13 PM