Broadway Journal

TODAYTIX ADVANCE PROMPTS BOX OFFICE UNION PROTEST

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EXCLUSIVE: Broadway’s box office union, which is in contract negotiations with the Broadway League, claims that the industry’s embrace of TodayTix Group represents an unfair labor practice.

The Treasurers and Ticket Sellers Union — Local 751 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees — accused the League and two of its largest landlord members, the Shubert and Nederlander Organizations, of “unilaterally changing terms and conditions of employment…concerning the distribution of theater tickets.” The complaint was filed with the National Labor Relations Board in connection with TodayTix, the 11-year-old, easy-to-use app for buying tickets to Broadway shows and other cultural events.Continue Reading

‘SOUND & FURY’: INSIDE THE ‘SLEEP NO MORE’ LITIGATION

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As Sleep No More  prepares to close after a historic 12-year run, the producers of the immersive show are in an epic battle against their landlord.

Producers Arthur Karpati and Jonathan Hochwald owed $4.5 million in rent as of July 1, 2024, having guaranteed the payments on their West 27th Street lease, according to their landlord, Harlan Berger, in a sworn statement filed in New York Supreme Court. The debt has increased by about $500,000 a month, per court records.Continue Reading

‘OPERATION MINCEMEAT’ TARGETS GOLDEN THEATRE

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EXCLUSIVE: Producers of Operation Mincemeat  are raising at least $11.5 million to transfer the critically acclaimed, Olivier Award-winning musical to Broadway, according to financial documents. People familiar with the show said the plan is to open at the Golden Theatre early next year as part of the current, 2024/25, season.

The Golden is home to Stereophonic — the Tony Award-winning play about a fractious rock band making an album–  which recently “extended by popular demand for a final time” to Jan. 12, 2025.Continue Reading

JUJAMCYN PROFIT REVEALED IN RARE DISCLOSURE

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Broadway investors stand to lose about $200 million on the 2023-24 season’s flops. For Jujamcyn Theaters, the Broadway landlord, it was a different story.

Jujamcyn earned a profit of $34 million on revenue of $116 million in the year ending March 30, 2024. The disclosure, in a filing in the U.K. by Jujamcyn’s new parent, ATG Entertainment, is the first time in memory that a major commercial Broadway theater owner shared its financials.Continue Reading

OSKAR EUSTIS’ LONG GOODBYE

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EXCLUSIVE: Before the Public Theater fired a fifth of its staff, the downtown institution faced a financial crisis.

When it disclosed layoffs last July, the renowned nonprofit company said that it hoped to avoid a budget deficit in the year ending in August 2023. Instead, expenses exceeded revenue by $8 million that season, according to its most recent audited financial statement, which was obtained by Broadway Journal. That was the 70-year-old organization’s biggest budget deficit in at least a decade.Continue Reading

‘HELL’S KITCHEN’ AIMS TO DEFY BIG BUDGET SLUMP

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In a tough time for big Broadway productions, Hell’s Kitchen is burning up the box office.

Despite its surprise loss to The Outsiders for the Best Musical Tony Award, Alicia Keys’ semi-autobiographical show has consistently posted the biggest weekly ticket sales among new musicals from the past season. Just over two months after opening, it’s paid back 10 percent of its $22 million capitalization to investors.Continue Reading

‘OUTSIDERS’ WIN TONY RUMBLE; ‘SUFFS’ SCORES TOO

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The Outsiders  may have had the inside track at the Tony Awards after all.

In awarding Best Musical to the $22 million adaptation of the S.E. Hinton novel and Francis Ford Coppola movie about an ill-fated gang of teenagers in 1967 Tulsa, Oklahoma, voters rewarded Danya Taymor’s meticulously staged production over the propulsive glitz of Alicia Keys’ Hell’s Kitchen, the presumptive favorite in the category going into the evening.Continue Reading

TONY OVERLORDS HOLD FIRM ON CO-PRODUCERS STAGE BAN

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Tony Award leaders today affirmed their decision to bar Broadway co-producers from the stage of the David Koch Theater on June 16, while offering the investors and bundlers a consolation prize: live shots of them elsewhere in the theater on Broadway’s big night.

According to a Tony Awards memo circulating this afternoon, a “Voice of God” in the Koch Theater will announce a specific category during a commercial break and invite co-producers to gather in the lobby off the first tier. When a winning show is named, the triumphant cluster will congregate on a riser for their live moment on primetime television.Continue Reading

OPENING DOORS: DAVID CARPENTER ON CAROLINE PRUGH

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While working as an arts reporter for Bloomberg News, I met Caroline Prugh in March 2006 at the now-defunct Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, Kentucky. She was there on behalf of the revered producer and general manager Stuart Thompson. Just 32, Caroline seemed to know everything about theater, commercial and nonprofit, past and present.

Keenly insightful and quick to laugh, Caroline later left the safety of Stuart Thompson’s office to go to graduate school and become a playwright. During the pandemic, she created interactive video dramas with her close friend David Carpenter. Continue Reading

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