Maybe Usher can finally quit his day job.
A Strange Loop — Michael R. Jackson’s deconstructionist portrait of a musical theater artist as a young, Black, insecure gay man — was named best musical at the 75th Tony Awards tonight. A former Lion King usher, Jackson spent nearly two decades working on his sacred-cow-slaughtering show about a “Disney ushering, broke-ass middle-class politically homeless normie leftist Black American” aspiring composer-lyricist.Continue Reading
What started as an existential crisis for Broadway’s nonprofit producers turned into an unexpected windfall.
Thanks to a resurgent but fickle stock market, insurance payouts, cost-cutting and emergency grants from the federal government and foundations in response to Covid-19, Lincoln Center Theater and Roundabout Theatre Co. emerged from the 18-month industry shutdown wealthier than when they entered it.Continue Reading
EXCLUSIVE: Six, the sizzling pop musical in which British Royals meet #MeToo, may be able to repay investors within 11 weeks of its first preview. That’s according to a projection distributed to investors, and assuming the production can sustain the momentum it’s built up through four stops in the U.S. and Canada, more than a year on the West End and ongoing tours in the U.K., Australia and at sea via the Norwegian Cruise Line.
Capitalized on Broadway at $5 million to $6.5 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Six could potentially make its backers whole faster than Hamilton. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s blockbuster took seven months after previews began on Broadway, in July 2015, to recoup its $12.5 million and make its first profit distribution. Should Six become another New York money machine, credit a witty and contemporary score about the divorced, beheaded and otherwise beleaguered wives of King Henry VIII. And its relatively tiny budget.Continue Reading
Pulitzer Prize-winning collaborators Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey have a new musical that airs tonight on the Disney Channel.
They say their adaptation of Mary Rodgers’ 1972 novel Freaky Friday, the mother-daughter body swapping comedy, isn’t so different from Next to Normal, their acclaimed rock musical that explores mental illness. Both pieces seek to convey emotional truths.Continue Reading
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