In an era of ever-bigger Broadway budgets, the pressure is on newly minted Tony Award-nominated productions to capitalize on the buzz.
First, a word about budgets. I added up the capitalization of every commercially produced Broadway show this season. The total was $410 million. Most of that money has been or will be lost by investors. The previous season, the total capitalization was closer to $290 million — with far fewer commercial musicals, which generally cost much more to mount than plays.
With the Tony nominations announced on Tuesday, a picture of which shows have the best chance of surviving came into sharper focus, after the blur of openings to comply with the Tony cutoff date.
The Outsiders, produced by the Araca Group and based on the novel by S.E. Hinton and the Francis Ford Coppola movie, was nominated for 12 Tonys, including best musical. It grossed $924,000 last week, enough to post a small operating profit, based on figures in a pitch deck distributed in 2022 to prospective investors.
At these sales, it will recoup its $22 million capitalization in six years.
The circus-themed Water for Elephants, nominated for seven Tonys, grossed $1 million for a second week. While the Peter Schneider-produced spectacle is covering its costs, it won’t ever recoup its $25 million capitalization at these sales, according to production documents. Both Water for Elephants and Outsiders need to average at least $1.4 million a week to recoup their costs within a year, give or take.
Winning the Tony for best musical on June 16 would make that goal more achievable.
Jukebox musicals had a mixed reception among the 44 Tony nominators. Despite warmish reviews, The Heart of Rock and Roll, based on the Huey Lewis and the News catalog, didn’t receive any nominations. Hell’s Kitchen, produced and scored by Alicia Keys, got 13.
Stereophonic, David Adjmi’s ecstatically reviewed $4 million play with music about a tension-filled Fleetwood Mac-esque band recording an album, faces an uphill climb, as a new play without stars or a West End pedigree. Its 13 nominations — the most for a play in Tony history, boosted by nods for Will Butler’s score and five members of its cast — should help. It grossed $541,000 last week, just above its operating expenses. Producers Sue Wagner, John Johnson and Greg Nobile are selling tickets through Aug. 18.
The Tony Awards’ ability to boost the fortunes of shows has been tested in recent years. Neither A Strange Loop (the 2022 best musical) nor Kimberly Akimbo (the new musical winner last year) were financial successes.
Justin Peck’s acclaimed dance piece Illinoise, scored to Sufjan Stevens’ album Illinois and produced by Orin Wolf, may be the closest cousin of Kimberly and Strange Loop. An experimental, late-season entrant, it got just four nominations, including best musical, which suggests it may be an underdog in that race. Suffs, another best musical contender, got six nominations.
The nominators gave Ambassador Theatre Group’s transfer of Cabaret a lifeline. Acclaimed in London, the $26 million revival originally looked like a prestige production — until tough reviews were published earlier this month in New York. Its nine nominations reinforce the notion that paying up to $1,551.98 for two stage-side seats and a light meal is a worthwhile indulgence. And with both Eddie Redmayne as Kit Kat Club emcee and Gayle Rankin as Sally Bowles getting nominations, there’s more reason to buy tickets before their scheduled departure from the production on Sept. 14.
Replacing Redmayne and Rankin represents a challenge for ATG to maintain sales and potentially belatedly win over the critics. With its current gross of $1.7 million, the show’s earning operating profit of hundreds of thousands of dollars a week. But at the Tony Awards, besting Maria Friedman’s revival of Merrily We Roll Along — produced by her sister, Sonia Friedman — will be a tall order. That revival is a commercial success — it already announced that it recouped — and a critics’ favorite.
