Buyers of tickets to live performances sometimes feel they want their money back, but it’s usually when a star drops out, after seeing a show, or at least after the reviews come out. All In: Comedy About Love instead had several people requesting refunds when they simply heard more about it. You see, many bought tickets under the impression that the show, which is currently charging a high of $634 (not including service fee) for an orchestra ticket, was fully staged with actors standing, walking, maybe touching each other. When social media and press revealed it as more of a seated evening of readings, à la Love Letters, several folks cried foul and wanted their money back. Some got it, most I spoke to did not.
Undoubtedly, the production bears some responsibility for audience members being misled originally. The original description of the show–on the website, in the press release, and in ticketing emails–read: “All In: Comedy About Love by Simon Rich is a series of hilarious stories about dating, heartbreak, marriage and that sort of thing, adapted from the short stories of Simon Rich, and performed by a rotating cast of some of the funniest people on the planet. Sometimes they will play pirates, sometimes they will play dogs, and there’s one where we make them talk in British accents.” (Emphasis mine.)
On October 1, the day tickets went on sale to the general public but after the pre-sale, the description on the website and press release had changed. It now read the stories would be “read live by some of the funniest people on the planet, with different groups of four taking the stage each week.” (Emphasis mine.) There were other slight language changes, but none as significant. Now, people who had read the first description, likely did not re-read it and note the differences, but, at least it was there as of October 1 for those who had not read it previously.
I spoke to lots of people early on who were excited about the potential to see some of their favorite stars performing onstage in All In. As a big Chloe Fineman fan, I got it. The show put up huge sale numbers early. No one I knew who bought tickets thought it was a seated reading. I admittedly was not fully sure what the show was. There was very little information about it. With an announced Magnetic Fields score, performed live, it sounded like an evening of Elaine May one-acts for aging hipsters. Given the cast rotation, I theorized maybe each actor did only one bit so there would be less to memorize. A contemporary Love Letters was not what I envisioned. That’s closer to what it is. John Mulaney, the main star during the run’s 1st half who departed yesterday, was off book and standing for a bit of stand-up at the start. All the other stories in the 90-minute piece are delivered from the actors’ seats with binders in front of them. There are varying reports of how much the four actors seem to have memorized versus actually reading. Original cast member Richard Kind posted on social media yesterday, on the occasion of his last performance, that he was “almost off book.”
“I spent over $350 per ticket, and bought four,” one purchaser told me. (I have chosen to anonymize the purchasers as to not hurt their ongoing dispute status.) “I would have never spent $1500 for a reading, as much as I love John [Mulaney], so, as soon as previews started and I heard the truth of what it was, I asked for a refund. That was denied.”
I spoke to only one person who received a refund without insurance, though a couple of others posted on Reddit and social media that they were lucky. They seem to have asked first, but without complete data it’s hard to tell. Because All In is at the Hudson Theatre, operated by Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG), ATG’s own ticketing is the official box office, and the place everyone I spoke to bought their tickets from. Of the eight people I communicated with on this issue, only one first requested their refund after seeing the show. The other seven requested them before their performance date, allowing for potential resale of the tickets. (ATG ticketing offers ticket protection insurance from UK-based Secure Refunds Limited, which allows a refund for any reason, so insurance purchasers will get their money back if requested. I spoke to one person who did request and obtain a refund in this manner.)
Everyone I have been in touch with who was denied received the same email from ATG customer service:
“We value your feedback and have shared it with the producers of the production.
As the venue host, we do not have control over refund decisions. After discussing the matter with the Producers and Managers of All In, we regret to inform you that they have decided not to approve any refunds.
For your reference, the description on the All In Broadway website reads: “And so is ALL IN: COMEDY ABOUT LOVE, a series of hilarious short stories about dating, heartbreak, marriage, and that sort of thing—written by Simon Rich (Saturday Night Live, The New Yorker)—and read live by some of the funniest people on the planet, with different groups of four taking the stage each week.”
We understand your disappointment and appreciate your understanding.”
The “read” was bolded in the email, an implicit recognition that the author of the form email found it to be a magic word.
“After I was rejected, I forwarded them the pre-sale email, which had the other description, as well as proof that I bought before the write-up said the “read” but I received no response,” an upset consumer, who planned a Better Business Bureau complaint and had initiated a credit card dispute, told me. “And them acting like I’m stupid made it worse. That wasn’t the description.”
Now, the email from ATG is a tad misleading. The ticketing agency does have some power over refund decisions. (One of my favorite stories from years ago–told to me by a Shubert executive–is a producer wanting to try a “Satisfaction Guaranteed” gimmick for a show at a Shubert house and the Shubert executive telling the producer in non-polite terms that would not be happening.) But it is surely the All In team that is guiding the decisions in a case such as this. Therefore, I went to the production spokesperson and asked a series of questions about those decisions. I received no responses to my questions, despite repeated requests. What I did receive was a statement from the producers. It read:
“We have received only praise from the enthusiastic audiences who have seen All In. The show that we set out to do is exactly the one that is on the Hudson stage, and we look forward to welcoming new casts and new happy crowds to the theater as this joyous run continues.”
That first sentence struck me as a little strange. I suppose it is true that the producers may have only heard praise from “enthusiastic audiences.” But, of course, not all audience members have been enthusiastic. I spoke to one person who, after seeing the show, posted on multiple social media platforms, directed at All In, complaints about the show’s format, in addition to asking for a refund. The reviews were also not all positive. Sara Holdren’s New York review opened:
“I hate to be a Grinch at Christmas, but it’s not a good sign when your Broadway show has more than one Reddit thread asking if it’s a scam. So things currently stand for Simon Rich’s All In: Comedy About Love. Bothered by the lack of indefinite article there? I hear you, but alas, for All In to qualify as a comedy about love, it would actually have to be a play. Instead, it’s an expensive staged reading with a rotating cast of celebrities.”
Of the two Reddit threads she linked to, one was from a person who had already seen the show and believed it to be a “scam.” So there is definitely evidence–while I know people who liked it–that not everyone is heaping praise on the show. You can obviously argue that is true of all art: it is subjective. However, there is a difference between simply not liking a show and feeling you were misled by the description of it. I know someone who hates Hamilton, but she doesn’t believe the Broadway production is a “scam.”
That brings us to the second sentence of the statement: “The show that we set out to do is exactly the one that is on the Hudson stage[.]” The issue is not whether the production is a fully realized vision of the creative team, it is whether ticket buyers were misled by the description of that vision. One person I spoke to planned to file a complaint with the Attorney General over what he believed was false advertising. That might be a stretch. According to Dictionary.com, the relevant definition of “perform,” the word that was featured in original descriptions of the production, is “to enact (a play, part, etc.), as on the stage, in movies, or on television” and the definition of “enact” is “to represent on or as on the stage; act the part of.” There is no firm guideline as to what that means: no requirement for blocking. These actors do go through rehearsals with director Alex Timbers; they are not reading cold with no direction. But certainly, without an explicit statement otherwise, you’d expect more staging for a Broadway show. (While the recent revival of Love Letters was billed as “a staged reading,” the current production of Pen Pals is not, despite its similar format. However, these and other such examples are from off-Broadway.) Whether that expectation is enough for the Attorney General to investigate is another matter.
At this point, there is enough out there about the show that people should be on notice that it is basically a staged reading with live music. Yet the show continues to sell. I observed tickets for this weekend’s performances decrease in the week prior. The decision is now in the ticket buyer’s hand: they can easily find adequate information on the production if they choose to look before purchasing.
The issue is the folks who bought tickets before performances began on December 11 or even before opening on December 22. Would a reasonably diligent person in their position have been able to make an educated purchasing decision based on the words “read live”? How about the people who relied on the wording before it changed? And if a reasonably diligent person wouldn’t have been able to make an educated purchasing decision, is that a reason for a refund? Or do producers not have to inform consumers about the type of theatrical offering they are purchasing tickets to because buying tickets is always a risk? The answers to these questions will determine how you feel about this issue. But, one thing is for certain, no one wants unhappy ticket buyers. Even if the impact of their bitterness is not felt financially on an individual show, it damages the industry.
