With no end in sight for the global coronavirus pandemic and U.S. theater shutdown, the Broadway League announced an agreement with the industry’s unions requiring suspended productions to pay an additional two weeks to actors and other workers who lost their incomes. Continue Reading
CUOMO ORDERS BROADWAY SHUTDOWN AS MAYOR PREDICTS ‘LONG BATTLE’
Broadway will go dark for at least a month — its longest shutdown in modern times — as U.S. performing arts and professional sports screech to a halt in an attempt to limit the public health threat of the coronavirus pandemic.
With Broadway in the thick of its annual spate of openings to qualify for Tony Awards, sixteen new productions — including Six, scheduled to have opened tonight — must reset as all eligible theaters go dark. Most off-Broadway shows also close beginning tonight.Continue Reading
N.B.A. SUSPENDS SEASON; BROADWAY USHER TESTS POSITIVE FOR COVID-19; ‘HAMILTON’ SUSPENDED IN SAN FRAN: ROUNDUP
The National Basketball Association announced it will suspend its season, after a Utah Jazz player tested positive for the coronavirus. Los Angeles Times story here. The announcement may put pressure on New York City and state to order Broadway to go on hiatus.
Other developments related to the outbreak:
A Broadway usher who worked recent performances of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Six tested positive for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. New York Times story.
‘AIN’T TOO PROUD,’ ‘MOULIN ROUGE’ SUFFER THEIR WORST WEEK AS VIRUS SPOOKS TOURISM & MARKETS
The musicals Ain’t Too Proud, Moulin Rouge, Frozen, Jagged Little Pill and The Tina Turner Musical posted their worst sales since opening as tourists increasingly stay home in response to the coronavirus threat.Continue Reading
BROADWAY GOES BACK TO THE FUTURE WITH ‘WEST SIDE STORY’: REVIEW
Video has a starring role in the dazzling new revival of West Side Story.
‘PLAZA SUITE’ ADVANCE SALE TOPS $10 MILLION; BOSTON CRITICS SIDELINED
EXCLUSIVE: A month before previews start on Broadway, the limited run of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite is approaching full occupancy.
The advance sale for the revival with husband-and-wife stars Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker has surpassed $10 million, according to a person familiar with the production. Its tryout at Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre ends on Saturday and previews begin on March 13 at the Hudson Theatre.
In response to the strong demand for tickets in Boston and New York, lead producer Ambassador Theatre Group, which operates the Colonial and the Hudson, has already raised prices on Broadway by as much as 150 percent.Continue Reading
THE AGE OF THE BLOCKBUSTER MUSICAL (GRAPHIC)
Hit musicals are running longer and making more money than ever — which is illustrated by two fascinating interactive charts.
DAVID BYRNE PROFITS AS ‘UTOPIA’ TICKETS TOP $649
EXCLUSIVE: Turns out the road to nowhere is paved with gold.
Investors in David Byrne’s Broadway concert American Utopia have been repaid and profit checks are imminent, according to a person familiar with the production.Continue Reading
CHEAP ‘SIX’ COULD MAKE INVESTORS WHOLE IN RECORD TIME
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
IDINA MENZEL LOOKS LIKE A GO FOR ‘FUNNY GIRL’ (EXCLUSIVE)
Idina Menzel is in talks to play Fanny Brice this fall in the first Broadway revival of Funny Girl, the hit 1964 Jule Styne-Bob Merrill-Isobel Lennart musical that starred Barbra Streisand.
The show would be directed by Michael Mayer and overseen by the U.K. producers Sonia Friedman and David Babani, according to two people familiar with the project. In 2015, Mayer staged a Funny Girl revival at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory (where Babani serves as artistic director) starring Sheridan Smith. The production had a revised book by Harvey Fierstein and transferred to the West End.Continue Reading
