593. You Can Make a Killing, but Not a Living

593.你可以杀人,但不能谋生

Freakonomics Radio

社会与文化

2024-06-20

49 分钟
PDF

单集简介 ...

Broadway operates on a winner-take-most business model. A runaway hit like "Stereophonic" — which just won five Tony Awards — will create a few big winners. But even the stars of the show will have to go elsewhere to make real money. (Part two of a two-part series.)

单集文稿 ...

  • Last week on the show, we told you about an unusual new play on Broadway called Stereophonic.

  • It is a long, intimate, funny and totally gripping show about a co ed rock band in the 1970s as they record an album that will turn out to be a huge hit.

  • Stereophonic itself has turned out to be a huge hit.

  • If you watched the Tony awards the other night, you saw superstars like Alicia Keys and Jay Z, Daniel Radcliffe, even Hillary Clinton, who co produced a Broadway musical this season.

  • But it was stereophonic, the play with a bunch of nobodies.

  • As one cast member said during the Tony awards that stole the show, winning five awards.

  • Here is the playwright David Ajme accepting his award for best play.

  • This was a very hard journey to get this play up here.

  • Michael McKeel and Fran Offenhauser, who gave me a place to live for seven years so that I could write this play.

  • It's really hard to make a career in the arts.

  • We need to fund the arts in America.

  • It is the hallmark of a civilized society.

  • When I interviewed Ajme a couple weeks ago, I asked him what it's like to be at the vortex of a huge hit.

  • He has been writing plays for a couple decades, but this is his first show on Broadway.

  • Here's what he told us.

  • I feel like I've been in a car accident.

  • We all feel that way.

  • We're just totally dislocated.

  • It doesn't feel good.

  • It feels weirdly bad.