Philip Boroff

DANIEL RADCLIFFE, CHERRY JONES & BOBBY CANNAVALE STAR IN A BROADWAY MAVERICK’S SWAN SONG

June 6, 2018 by Philip Boroff

EXCLUSIVE: Conventional wisdom dictates that most new plays need an off-Broadway or out-of-town tryout before they’re Broadway-ready.

Norman Twain didn’t do conventional.

The New York movie and theater producer spent years nurturing The Lifespan of a Fact, a comic-drama about the interplay of facts and truth in the magazine world, based on the 2012 book by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal. Twain sought to open it cold on Broadway, in a starry one act, while putting a cleaver to runaway production costs.

BERNSTEIN MADE $3 MILLION IN TWO YEARS AT LINCOLN CENTER

May 30, 2018 by Philip Boroff

EXCLUSIVE: Jed Bernstein, a Broadway producer and former leader of the industry’s trade association, earned $3.3 million in pay and benefits during the 27 months he ran Lincoln Center.

He took over the performing arts complex, one of the largest in the world, on January 27, 2014 and relinquished the presidency on April 14, 2016. His 2016 compensation was $1.1 million, including $252,000 in salary for three and a half months, $100,000 in bonus/incentive pay and $720,000 in severance, according to Lincoln Center’s 2016-17 tax return. The return was recently posted on its web site.

MUSICALS’ AVERAGE TICKET JUMPS TO $126; PLAYS REBOUND

May 30, 2018 by Philip Boroff

The Broadway season that ended on Sunday was strong but not stellar.

Overall attendance: up 4 percent to 13.8 million, according to the Broadway League. Grosses rose 17 percent, to $1.7 billion. The average price of a ticket for a musical gained 11 percent to $125.70 — thanks to strong demand for Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, The Lion King, Hello, Dolly! with Bette Midler and, increasingly, Mean Girls, which looks like a hit.

SNUBBING ‘MEAN GIRLS’ & ‘SPONGEBOB,’ CRITICS’ CIRCLE SKIPS MUSICAL AWARD

May 4, 2018 by Philip Boroff

Maxwell Anderson, left, receives the first Critics’ Circle Award from Brooks Atkinson

The New York Drama Critics’ Circle voted not to give a prize for best musical this season, implicitly endorsing The Band’s Visit‘s Tony Award ambitions and rejecting Broadway’s other new musicals.

“It does bode well for The Band’s Visit,” Critics’ Circle President Adam Feldman said in an interview.

‘BAND’S VISIT’ SHOULD WIN & MAY NOT & OTHER TONY TAKES

May 1, 2018 by Philip Boroff

BEST MUSICAL SUSPENSE: There were just seven new musicals on Broadway this season, the fewest in at least a decade. Only one received “Critic’s Pick” from the New York Times and generally great reviews: The Band’s Visit, about an Egyptian ensemble stranded in a sleepy Israeli town. It has a now-Tony-Award-nominated score by David Yazbeck that’s packed with prospective cabaret standards. As expected, it did well, collecting 11 nominations this morning. But a source of its integrity, the understated drama — its “zero razzle-dazzle,” as New York Magazine‘s Sara Holdren put it — could be a liability with road presenters, who represent a chunk of the roughly 840 Tony voters.Continue Reading

DISNEY CUTS ‘FROZEN’ PRICES

April 30, 2018 by Philip Boroff

EXCLUSIVE: Maybe Frozen isn’t critic-proof after all.

Following mixed reviews and turmoil in the secondary market, Disney has cut some ticket prices for the musical — one of the most highly anticipated of the season.

The best orchestra seats for Tuesday and Thursday of this week were originally $227.50, according to a February group sales memo from Disney. As of Monday afternoon, Ticketmaster was offering three tickets 11th-row center at the St. James for Tuesday for $100 less — $127.50 each — plus fees. Other center orchestra for both nights near the stage are $169.50. Balcony seats that were $99.50 are now $79.50.

HOW ‘HAMILTON’ MAKES MONEY BY MAKING NEWS

April 27, 2018 by Philip Boroff

LAST OF A SERIES: When the cast of Hamilton visited the White House on March 14, 2016, President Obama joked that the musical was the only thing that he and Dick Cheney agreed on.

The excursion was a PR coup at a bargain price. It cost just $85,000, according to a financial statement filed with New York State by Hamilton Uptown LLC, which presents the juggernaut on Broadway. That’s a fraction of what a production spends to stage a single number on the Tony Awards. Hamilton Uptown bused the cast to Washington and put them up overnight, but they weren’t paid extra to perform on their day off, according to three people familiar with the trip.

Actors were told their attendance was optional. A White House gig is traditionally an honor, and this one yielded wall-to-wall news coverage and YouTube videos that have been viewed more than 23 million times. A production spokesman declined to comment.Continue Reading

‘HAMILTON’ PAYS MIRANDA & SELLER TENS OF MILLIONS A YEAR

April 26, 2018 by Philip Boroff

SECOND IN A SERIES: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop juggernaut is the first single-author show to win a Tony Award for best new musical since Jonathan Larson’s Rent, in 1996. With no writing partner to share the mammoth royalties and profits, the 38-year-old composer-lyricist-librettist and actor stands to earn hundreds of millions of dollars should Hamilton have a long life.

Miranda amassed $12.7 million in author royalties and profit participation from the Broadway production in the 12 months ending in July 2017, according to a production financial statement filed with the office of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. That’s more than the $11.6 million median annual compensation for a large-company chief executive, based on a recent Wall Street Journal analysis.

‘HAMILTON’ PROFITS SHOT PAST $160 MILLION LAST YEAR

April 25, 2018 by Philip Boroff

PART ONE OF A SERIES: Nearly three years after storming Broadway, Hamilton remains unrivaled in its moneymaking.

The original production, which began previews at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in July 2015, distributed more than $102 million of profit through November 2017, according to documents filed with New York State. A Chicago engagement and tour that started in San Francisco paid out another $62 million through July 2017.

“Even after adjusting for inflation, it’s hard to imagine a show churning out profits the way this one is,” said Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, a producer and theater professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

We estimate that profits to-date for the Hamilton empire, which now has outposts in London and a second tour in Salt Lake City, exceed $250 million. Lead producer Jeffrey Seller declined to comment for this series through a spokesman, Sam Rudy.Continue Reading

BROADWAY HAS RECORD SALES FOR 8-PERFORMANCE WEEK

April 9, 2018 by Philip Boroff

There’s New Year’s week, when the city is packed with tourists and many shows have nine performances, and then there’s every other week. Last week was a record for the latter.

Bruce Springsteen, Denzel Washington, Harry Potter, Frozen and spring break for public schools lifted Broadway to its highest-grossing week that didn’t coincide with the New Year’s holiday. It was the fifth-highest-grossing week in history.

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