Broadway Journal

INSIDE BROADWAY’S $1 MILLION NUT CASES

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Water for Elephants, the circus-themed new musical, will be under pressure to make a big splash when it arrives on Broadway.

Scheduled to open March 21, 2024, at the Imperial Theatre, it will need to sell at least $960,000 of tickets each week to cover operating expenses, according to an internal budget prepared over the summer and reviewed by Broadway Journal. (The sales here refer to “gross gross,” the weekly figure that the trade association the Broadway League makes public, which includes credit card commissions and other fees the production doesn’t keep.)

Joining the million dollar club at the Broadway box office used to be a matter of prestige. Today, it’s often a requirement for a show’s survival.Continue Reading

SHUBERT-PRODUCED ‘SOME LIKE IT HOT’ TO CLOSE

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The Broadway musical comedy Some Like it Hot will close on Dec. 30, just over a year after the $19.5 million show opened. Producers emailed a closing notice tonight.

The lavish adaptation of the 1959 Billy Wilder movie was nominated for 13 Tony Awards and won four, including for lead actor J. Harrison Ghee and Casey Nicholaw’s choreography. But Hot is burdened with formidable running costs — it needs to sell at least $900,000 of tickets a week to pay its bills (that’s the published gross, or “gross gross”), according to a 2021 recoupment chart reviewed by Broadway Journal. It met that threshold in just 14 of its 47 weeks at the Shubert Theatre. Continue Reading

SOLO SHOWS DELIVER AS ASPIRING BLOCKBUSTERS STRUGGLE

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Capitalized for $22 million, the David Byrne-Fatboy Slim musical Here Lies Love dramatizes the rise and fall of the Marcos regime, in a Broadway theater repurposed as a discotheque.

Last week, it was outgrossed by $35,000 by a little-known comic on an open stage with three stools. Just for Us, Alex Edelman’s monologue about antisemitism and identity that ended its run on Saturday, was capitalized for $2.25 million.

In an era of mammoth Broadway budgets and huge losses, one-person shows have been a relative safe haven for investors. Prima Facie, James Bierman’s $4 million production of Suzie Miller’s one-woman play starring Jodie Comer, is the only show from 2022-23 to announce that it recouped.Continue Reading

‘KINKY’ SUITS: HOW THE PRODUCER OF A HIT MUSICAL LANDED IN A BANKRUPTCY COURT BATTLE (EXCLUSIVE)

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Successful producers rarely publicly discuss filing for bankruptcy. Hal Luftig — whose Kinky Boots  had a lucrative six-year Broadway run — said last week that personal bankruptcy may be in the cards if a judge doesn’t approve his plan to reorganize one of his companies.

Hal Luftig Company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December, after an arbitrator ruled that Luftig and his company breached an agreement with a longtime investor, Reno, Nevada-based Warren Trepp.Continue Reading

EDDIE REDMAYNE-LED ‘CABARET’ WILL TRANSFER TO BROADWAY IN 2024 (EXCLUSIVE)

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Ambassador Theatre Group and Underbelly Productions plan to transfer their hit West End revival of Cabaret  to Broadway, two people familiar with the production said.

Eddie Redmayne has committed to reprise his performance as the louche Weimar-era nightclub emcee — a role made famous by Joel Grey in the 1966 Hal Prince-directed musical and in the 1972 Bob Fosse-helmed movie, and more recently by Alan Cumming in two Roundabout Theatre Co. revivals. Rebecca Frecknall is slated to direct the production, which is to begin previews in March 2024 ahead of an April opening.Continue Reading

NEW YORK EXTENDS $3 MILLION BROADWAY TAX CREDIT; DISNEY’S ‘ALADDIN’ APPROVED

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New York State extended the New York City Musical and Theatrical Production Tax Credit, a subsidy of up to $3 million per Broadway show, as the industry struggles with rising costs and subpar sales.

On May 3, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the two-year extension through 2025 and said commercial Off-Broadway shows will also be eligible, albeit for a smaller credit. The Broadway League trade association lobbied for preserving the program. It was designed to jumpstart the industry, which contributes billions to the economy, and encourage productions “to begin performances sooner and come back stronger” as the city recovered from Covid-19.Continue Reading

TONY NOMINATORS LIKE IT ‘HOT’ AS VOTERS’ TREND FAVORS QUIRKY ‘KIMBERLY’

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The $19.5 million crowd-pleaser Some Like it Hot was nominated for 13 Tony Awards today, the most of any Broadway show this season. In six of the past 10 Tony races, the musical that got the most nominations won the high-profile best musical award.

But a less encouraging trend could derail the Shubert Organization-produced show — which was also nominated for lead actors Christian Borle and J. Harrison Ghee, and for Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman’s toe-tapping score. Eight of the past 10 best musical winners were smallish and experimental — a la A Strange Loop (2022), Hadestown (2019), and, potentially, Kimberly Akimbo.Continue Reading

BEN PLATT TO LEAD $6.5 MILLION ‘PARADE’ (EXCLUSIVE)

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Parade, the 1998 Broadway musical featuring a Tony Award-winning score by the-then 28-year-old Jason Robert Brown, will be revived this spring by Greg Nobile’s Seaview Productions and Ambassador Theatre Group, according to a pitch deck distributed to investors.

Ben Platt (Dear Evan Hansen) will star in the dark historical drama, following an acclaimed weeklong tryout at New York City Center in November. Platt will reprise the role of Leo Frank, a Jewish Brooklynite transplanted to Marietta, Georgia, where he was falsely accused of murder and lynched by a mob in 1915. Micaela Diamond (The Cher Show), who earned stellar reviews playing Leo’s loyal wife, Lucille Frank, also returns to the cast. Platt, who like Diamond is Jewish, has spoken eloquently about the story’s timeliness amid rising antisemitism. Continue Reading

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