Producer Hal Luftig suffered a setback in his court battle against a wealthy investor over millions of dollars from the musical Kinky Boots, a conflict the U.S. Supreme Court may play a role in resolving.
Luftig said that Nevada investor Warren Trepp jumpstarted the producer’s career — and then tried to destroy it. Trepp said that after decades of patronage, he was the one who was betrayed.Continue Reading
Producers Orin Wolf and Greg Nobile are preparing to move the acclaimed dance piece Illinoise to the St. James Theater, packing another new musical into the busy 2023-24 season.
The transfer from the Park Avenue Armory — where Illinoise is scheduled to play its final, sold-out performance on March 26 — would be so quick that the show may not have time for previews on Broadway, industry sources said. To be eligible for Tony Awards this year, productions must open by April 25. Continue Reading
The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which has been busy organizing off-Broadway, has turned its attention to downtown Manhattan’s most storied and prolific producer.
On Wednesday, the management of the Public Theater declined a request by production workers at the 70-year-old institution to voluntarily recognize their petition to unionize under IATSE. In response, a group calling itself “Unionize the Public” posted on Instagram that it will seek an election supervised by a third party.Continue Reading
EXCLUSIVE: Four decades after Gerard Alessandrini introduced his Broadway satirical revue at an Upper West Side cabaret, the ever-changing spoof will finally plant its funny flag in a Broadway theater.
Forbidden Broadway, Merrily We Stole a Song is scheduled to run at the Hayes Theater July 29 to Nov. 4, according to a pitch deck prepared for prospective investors. The title is a play on Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Merrily We Roll Along, which evolved from 1981 flop to this season’s boffo revival, which is on the cusp of recouping its $13 million capitalization.Continue Reading
Stage technicians at the musical Titanique have voted to unionize with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). If the National Labor Relations Board certifies the election results, it would be the first victory for IATSE in its roughly year-old campaign to expand its off-Broadway presence, opening the door for better pay and higher production costs.
“It plants a flag for other off-Broadway workers,” said Daniel Little, an IATSE organizer, in an interview.Continue Reading
With two shows running on Broadway (Kimberly Akimbo and Days of Wine and Roses) and at least two others on the way (Buena Vista Social Club and English), the Atlantic Theater Co. has affirmed its status as a preeminent presenter of new work and a sought-after partner of commercial producers and other nonprofit companies.
Now, leaders of the Chelsea-based institution are trying to head off what they see as a less desirable distinction: becoming the first major off-Broadway nonprofit to employ exclusively union production workers.Continue Reading
Charlotte St. Martin, who’s led the Broadway League trade association since 2006, will step down on Feb. 16. The sudden departure occurs amid an industry changing of the guard as Broadway struggles to recover from the pandemic and respond to calls for greater diversity.Continue Reading
Producers are working on two high-profile additions to the busy 2023-24 Broadway season: Stereophonic, an ecstatically reviewed play with music about a fictional mid-1970s rock band creating an album; and The Great Gatsby via Paper Mill Playhouse, one of two Broadway-bound musicals based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Roaring ’20s novel.
John Johnson, Sue Wagner and Greg Nobile are in discussions to move Stereophonic to the John Golden Theatre, following a sold-out, two-and-a-half-month run at Playwrights Horizons off-Broadway, people familiar with the plans said. Continue Reading
Last season, 25 to 49-year-olds who attended Broadway shows outnumbered those 50 and up for the first time since 2008-09.
It’s too early to proclaim a generational shift. The audience was younger in the year ending May 21, 2023, than in the prior full season, 2018-19, because youngish age groups shrank less than the entire Broadway pie, which is still missing a slice or two.Continue Reading
After opening red hot in October 2019, Little Shop of Horrors at the Westside Theatre had a rough second half of 2022.
Box office sales fell short of the revival’s $180,000 to $200,000-a-week running costs in 27 of the final 31 weeks of the year. Operating losses for Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s plant-based off-Broadway musical comedy, set in a Skid Row flower shop, totaled $734,000 over the seven months ended Jan. 1, 2023.
Such shortfalls can lead to closing notices. Instead, the producers distributed $1.2 million of profit to themselves, their investors and co-producers. That was on top of $1.9 million of profit paid out over the previous 15 months.Continue Reading
Copyright © 2019 Broadway Journal.
