Broadway Journal

BOONDOGGLE OR SOUND POLICY? CLARIFYING THE BROADWAY TAX CREDIT

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EXCLUSIVE: Good Night, and Good Luck has repeatedly set weekly records as the highest-grossing play in Broadway history. Nonetheless, the George Clooney blockbuster projected it will qualify for a $2.5 million subsidy from New York State, according to a production operating agreement distributed to investors.

Glengarry Glen Ross, the hit revival starring Kieran Culkin, expects $1.9 million from the state. Othello, which charges as much as $921 to see Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal, projected $2 million in state aid.Continue Reading

JUJAMCYN PROFIT REVEALED IN RARE DISCLOSURE

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Broadway investors stand to lose about $200 million on the 2023-24 season’s flops. For Jujamcyn Theaters, the Broadway landlord, it was a different story.

Jujamcyn earned a profit of $34 million on revenue of $116 million in the year ending March 30, 2024. The disclosure, in a filing in the U.K. by Jujamcyn’s new parent, ATG Entertainment, is the first time in memory that a major commercial Broadway theater owner shared its financials.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

BROADWAY CINDERELLA STORY: ‘A STRANGE LOOP’ FOLLOWS ITS PULITZER WITH BEST MUSICAL

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Maybe Usher can finally quit his day job.

A Strange Loop — Michael R. Jackson’s deconstructionist portrait of a musical theater artist as a young, Black, insecure gay man — was named best musical at the 75th Tony Awards tonight. A former Lion King usher, Jackson spent nearly two decades working on his sacred-cow-slaughtering show about a “Disney ushering, broke-ass middle-class politically homeless normie leftist Black American” aspiring composer-lyricist.Continue Reading

AMBASSADOR THEATRE GROUP & ITS PRODUCTIONS SECURED $79 MILLION IN U.S. AID (EXCLUSIVE)

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As lead producer and landlord of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite, Ambassador Theatre Group has bragging rights to the most commercially successful play of the 2021-22 Broadway season.

The average ticket price for the Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick revival was $213 the week ended May 29, behind only The Music Man and Hamilton. Pairs go for as much as $2,051, which includes Piper-Heidsieck Champagne and Ladurée macarons served in a semi-private lounge at ATG’s Hudson Theatre.

The U.K.-based conglomerate isn’t crowing. “ATG does not control, and cannot provide comment about” Plaza Suite, an ATG spokesman told Broadway Journal in an email. Continue Reading

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