Philip Boroff

JASON ROBERT BROWN ON HAL PRINCE, ARIANA GRANDE & GOING HIS OWN WAY

August 1, 2018 by Philip Boroff

INTERVIEW: The last five weeks have been busy for Jason Robert Brown, the 48-year-old composer, lyricist, arranger, orchestrator and performer. There was an acclaimed Encores! run of his 1995 song cycle, Songs for a New World, at City Center; a workshop of an original musical, The Connector, written with Jonathan Marc Sherman, at Vassar College via the nonprofit New York Stage & Film; and a new album, Brown’s first since 2005, How We React and How We Recover. He spoke by phone from his home on the Upper West Side. (The conversation has been condensed.)

Q: How has the political climate affected what you do?

JRB: I don’t want to watch anything that feels frivolous or create anything that feels frivolous.

CELEBRATING RISK & THE INDEPENDENT PRODUCER: A TRIUMPHANT ‘BAND’S VISIT’

June 11, 2018 by Philip Boroff

There’s cause for celebration in Bet Hatikva and Petah Tikva.

The Band’s Visit, a drama about acceptance, missed connections and the romance and ennui of everyday life, won 10 Tony Awards, including best musical. The triumph raises the profile of the quiet show about an Egyptian police band marooned in a sleepy Israeli town, who’d intended to go to a cosmopolitan city with a similar-sounding name.

Some takeaways from the CBS telecast:Continue Reading

‘BAND’S VISIT’ SPEEDS TOWARD RECOUPMENT

June 9, 2018 by Philip Boroff

EXCLUSIVE: On Broadway, selling out isn’t a prerequisite for cleaning up.

The Band’s Visit, which is considered a lock for best new musical at the Tony Awards tomorrow, has repaid well over half of its $8.75 million capitalization, according to two people familiar with the production. They report that it’s on track to make its investors whole by Labor Day.

Matt Polk, a production spokesman, declined to comment.

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

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