In The Minutes, Tracy Letts’ timely and unnerving dark comedy, Noah Reid (Schitt’s Creek) plays Mr. Peel, a wide-eyed, newly elected city councilman in the fictional small town of Big Cherry. Early in this week’s meeting, performed in real time at Studio 54, Peel’s eccentric colleagues mispronounce ‘piqued’ and ‘jejune’ and squabble over the difference between “semantics” and “nomenclature,” and what constitutes new vs. old business. Continue Reading
‘MUSIC MAN,’ ‘PLAZA SUITE’ SHINE IN BROADWAY GROSSES REVIVAL
For the first time in two years, the Broadway League publicly reported grosses for each show. Although the industry and the world have changed in the interim, one thing hasn’t: stars sell tickets.Continue Reading
BROADWAY NONPROFIT COFFERS SWELLED DURING SHUTDOWN (EXCLUSIVE)
What started as an existential crisis for Broadway’s nonprofit producers turned into a windfall.
Thanks to a resurgent but fickle stock market, insurance payouts, cost-cutting and emergency grants from the federal government and foundations in response to Covid-19, Lincoln Center Theater and Roundabout Theatre Co. emerged from the 18-month industry shutdown wealthier than when they entered it.Continue Reading
JACKSON ESTATE WILL BE THERE FOR OUTSIZED ‘MJ’ PROFITS (EXCLUSIVE)
If MJ The Musical becomes a box office sensation, Paris Jackson, Bigi Jackson, Prince Jackson and the executors of their father’s estate stand to enjoy a bonanza.
Typically, half of a Broadway show’s adjusted net profit is shared among the lead producers. The other half goes to investors, who also qualify for some lead producer profits by raising or investing large sums. On MJ, however, “the entire 50% share of Adjusted Net Profits [due the lead producers] will be paid to the Estate,” according to an investor operating agreement obtained by Broadway Journal.Continue Reading
PANDEMIC PUMMELS AMBASSADOR THEATRE GROUP (EXCLUSIVE)
The self-described “world’s No. 1 live theater company” has taken a drubbing.
The parent company of U.K.-based Ambassador Theatre Group reported a pretax loss of $202 million for the 12 months ended in March 2021. The holding company attributed the results to Covid-19, which decimated rental income when its theaters shuttered in March 2020.Continue Reading
WITH SONDHEIM’S DEATH, ‘COMPANY’ HAS LINK TO ‘RENT’
Stephen Sondheim’s death on Friday morning — an unexpected loss to the people in his life and to musical theater — attaches a new significance to the third Broadway revival of 1970’s Company. The musical, which marked the beginning of Sondheim’s decade-long collaboration with director Hal Prince, is now the last production that Broadway’s most revered composer-lyricist of the past 50 years directly worked on.Continue Reading
UZO ADUBA & SANDWICHES STAR IN LYNN NOTTAGE KITCHEN COMEDY: REVIEW
Uzo Aduba, of In Treatment and Orange Is the New Black, plays the hilariously tyrannical proprietor of her self-named truck-stop diner in Clyde’s. She lords it over her crew of short-order cooks trying to reclaim their lives — and create the perfect sandwich — in Lynn Nottage’s hopeful comedy at the Helen Hayes Theater. Continue Reading
‘HAMILTON’ PRODUCER RETURNS TO ROOTS WITH ‘BLACK NO MORE’ AT THE NEW GROUP
EXCLUSIVE: Seven years after Hamilton began previews at the Public Theater and gave the business of Broadway and touring a shot in the arm, its lead producer, Jeffrey Seller, is following a similar playbook. He’s underwriting The New Group‘s world premiere of Black No More.Continue Reading
EDIE FALCO RADIANT IN MTC’S ‘MORNING SUN’: REVIEW
In Morning Sun, a world premiere presented by Manhattan Theatre Club, British playwright Simon Stephens precisely captures 60 years of history, local custom, and mother-daughter dynamics via three generations of ordinary women just trying to get through in an ever-changing Manhattan.Continue Reading
PANIC OR PRUDENCE? INSIDE THE EQUITY-LEAGUE SUMMER STOCK DRAMA (EXCLUSIVE)
March 2020 ushered in a three-ring crisis for the Equity-League Health Trust Fund, the healthcare plan for theater actors and stage managers.
As the industry shut down indefinitely in response to Covid-19, the fund’s biggest revenue source, employer contributions, largely dried up; its stocks plunged amid a pandemic-induced market crash; and actors and stage managers lost their livelihood. In response, the trustees overseeing the fund’s investments sold all of its publicly traded stock, which as of May 31, 2020 was valued at $25 million, or 23 percent of total net assets of $107 million.
As a result, the fund missed most of a stock market rebound that would’ve generated millions of dollars. The liquidation may slow the fund’s recovery from the shutdown — at a time when few Actors’ Equity Association members, its primary constituency, qualify for even basic coverage and Broadway grosses are off by a third from two years ago.Continue Reading
