Thursday, September 15, 2011

Playwright Money Matchup

In an attempt to look busy at work, I sometimes open an excel document and enter random bits of data. I've started to make a little game of it. I call this one Playwright Money Matchup.

Here's how to play.

Think of two playwrights who have had shows on broadway. Then go to The Broadway League and select NYC Grosses on the Research & Information page. Go down each playwright's CV, pulling the total NYC Grosses for each of their titles, and then see who has the higher grosses. See?

So, for example, Tom Stoppard's stat card might look like this:


Impressive, eh? The dude has done well.

Now, let's see what kind of cash David Mamet has brought in.


Ah. Mamet wins!

But, golly, isn't Mamet annoying? Wouldn't it be great if there were some female playwright who could step to the plate and take him down?

There is. You know who it is. Welcome Yasmina Reza to the ring. Better sit down....


Oh, snap! That's a lot of NYC grosses! Yasmina Reza wins the day.

Tune in next week to see Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber go at it.

3 comments:

joshcon80 said...

I wish it were Annie Baker or Liz Merriweather or Sheila Callaghan or somebody... but... yay? I guess, yay?

Patrick Link said...

Soon enough, Josh.

Neil Simon has her beat, if that makes you feel better.

Monica said...

*shudder*

There are few plays I hated more than God of Carnage. Every time the couple made a move to the door I thought, "YES! Please leave so that this play can be over! PLEASE!"