Early in his funny and poignant off-Broadway show, The New One, the comedian Mike Birbiglia expresses a low tolerance for children. “We gotta get babies off planes,” he says. “We got rid of smoking in the eighties, so we could get rid of babies now. Or bring back smoking and get those babies some cigarettes, because they’re too stressed out and they’re too powerful.”
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.
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
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.
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
Disney’s Frozen and Scott Rudin’s revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel performed promisingly in an otherwise wet and dismal week.
Frozen was a near sellout, grossing $984,000 in five previews. Its composers, Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, picked up their second Academy Award last night, for best original song with Remember Me, from the Disney film Coco, which shouldn’t hurt Frozen‘s prospects when it opens at the St. James on March 22.
Casting directors could finance their own big-budget play or musical for what they may spend defending themselves against the Broadway League’s antitrust lawsuit.
Merely complying with the League’s request for evidence, a process known as discovery, could collectively cost casting directors as much as $4.7 million, a litigation support specialist said in a signed declaration filed in Federal Court. Earlier today, U.S. District Judge Gregory Woods denied the casting directors’ motion to halt or “stay” discovery, which may require their lawyers to review as many as 3 million documents.
In its December suit, the League, which represents producers and theater owners, accused casting director companies of illegally fixing prices. The companies responded that in seeking contributions from producers for healthcare and pension benefits, they’re attempting “to secure the basic workplace fairness enjoyed by nearly every other worker on Broadway.” The League’s lawsuit, the casting directors say, is an attempt to “exact crippling commercial leverage” in negotiations.
Call it the Hamilton effect or just supply and demand.
Producers of Waitress have raised the top ticket to $600 with pop stars Sara Bareilles and Jason Mraz in the leading roles. That’s the priciest seat for a star-driven musical on Broadway today, after Hello, Dolly! slashed prices when Bernadette Peters replaced Bette Midler as the matchmaker Dolly Levi.
With Bareilles back onstage after a stint last spring, Waitress weekly grosses spiked 51 percent to $1.6 million. It was by far the musical’s best seven days since it opened in 2016. That’s impressive given that frigid weather contributed to Broadway’s worst week in almost three months.
Thanks to ever-rising prices, 2017 ended on a frosty high note.
It was Broadway’s best-selling year, at $1.64 billion; its top-grossing week — $50.4 million; and the best week for a single show: Hamilton, natch, at $3.9 million, aided by record $1,150 seats.
Sales overall for 2017 were up 20 percent, according to data from the Broadway League, a trade association of producers and theater owners. The average ticket ascended 16 percent to $119.
EXCLUSIVE: The year isn’t over, but it’s already demolishing records.
As of Dec. 24, Broadway grosses for 2017 totaled $1.59 billion, vs. $1.37 billion for all of 2016, which had been the bestselling calendar year. With a holiday bonanza likely this week, 2017 sales are on track to be up about 20 percent, according to data from the Broadway League, which represents producers and theater owners.
Broadway is hitting new heights as it weathers a 4 percent drop in international tourism in the U.S. in the first half of the year. (Numbers for 2017’s second half aren’t available.) Some say President Trump’s anti-immigration, “America First” rhetoric and agenda is a factor in the decline of international travelers. Yet thanks to a continued influx of Americans, overall tourism is up in New York City. “The domestic audience may be more attuned to Broadway than international visitors,” said George Wachtel, president of Audience Research & Analysis, which conducts market research about cultural tourism.
