Broadway Journal

DECLINING SALES MUTE SEASON’S CURTAIN CALL

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The frenetic 2023-24 Broadway season officially ended Sunday. Notwithstanding encouraging results this Spring amid back-to-back openings ahead of the Tony Award nominations, industry statistics indicate a stalled recovery from the pandemic.

Broadway recorded 2023-24 attendance of 12.3 million, which was little changed from the previous season and down 17 percent from 2018-19, the last full season before the industry shutdown. Box office grosses in 2023-24 dropped 2.4 percent to $1.54 billion, according to the Broadway League, the trade association of theater owners and producers. That’s the lowest since 2016-17, not counting seasons that were partially or entirely cancelled due to the pandemic.Continue Reading

‘MERRILY’ TICKETS ROLL UP TO $899

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The producers of Merrily We Roll Along  have raised the revival’s top ticket price to $899 — the most expensive seat on Broadway so far this season.

The $899 tickets, which include a $50 fee for buying online, are for some orchestra and mezzanine seats in the Hudson Theatre for a handful of weekend performances in December. In this era of “dynamic pricing,” the move reflects strong demand heading into the holidays.Continue Reading

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

WILL A NEW ‘SWEENEY TODD’ MAKE ITS INVESTORS A KILLING? (EXCLUSIVE)

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Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller is raising as much as $14.5 million to revive Sweeney Todd on Broadway this spring, a test of whether a big-budget Stephen Sondheim revival can succeed in the post-Sondheim era.

Josh Groban (The Great Comet) will play the vengeful barber and Annaleigh Ashford (Sunday in the Park with George) will play the creative pie maker Mrs. Lovett, according to an operating agreement distributed to investors and reviewed by Broadway Journal. The musical, with a book by Hugh Wheeler, will be staged by Hamilton director Thomas Kail with a full orchestra playing the score, a person familiar with the revival said. (Two prior Broadway revivals, while critically acclaimed, were comparatively small-scale productions.)Continue Reading

THE PLAY BOOM & DERREN BROWN’S ‘SECRET’ AMBITION: WEEKLY WRAP

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Derren Brown

Derren Brown‘s challenge: make a vacant Broadway theater appear out of thin air.

In a conversation with Adam Green at the New Yorker Festival on Oct. 7, the British illusionist said he’s “hopefully doing Broadway next spring, fingers crossed.” Greg Day, his United Kingdom-based spokesman, told Broadway Journal  that Brown seeks to bring in Secret  later this season. Ben Brantley called the show “enthrallingly baffling” when it played off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theater in 2017.

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DANIEL RADCLIFFE, CHERRY JONES & BOBBY CANNAVALE STAR IN A BROADWAY MAVERICK’S SWAN SONG

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Norman Twain

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.

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