Term of the Day: flop sweat

flop sweat: when producers start to freak out during production or previews that they may have a flop on their hands, so the creatives are directed to make radical changes, adding or cutting songs and monkeying with the book. Sometimes the freak out is justified and the show is saved, and other times the cuts or additions damage the living organism. "The producer broke into a flop sweat that the show was going to bomb and demanded radical changes to the finale." (term from Patrick Healy, New York Times, April 17, 2014)