Can Reviews Wait? How Broadway Opening Nights May Be Changing

Years ago, I interviewed Theresa Rebeck and I asked her one thing she’d change about the industry. I was shocked her response was about review embargo times.

“On our opening nights we have a party and the community comes together and celebrates all the work that we’ve done,” she said. “When the review comes out in the middle of the party, if it's a bad review, sometimes the stars don’t show up or people go home or people get really sad. I'm like: ‘What's the point of that?’ It's a little bit like that primae noctis trope—you’re having a wedding and the lord comes down and rapes the bride. There's no need for that. We need to protect our hearts more.”

At the time of this interview, the industry had settled into a pretty steady habit of having them released at 9pm or 10pm, show length and curtain time depending. Rebeck wanted to go back to a time when not everyone had access to the reviews an hour after the party started. That was a time when TV reviews might run during the party, and the team may go get a copy of The New York Times at the Times’ office at around 11pm and bring it back to the party, but most party participants were unaware of the reviews until they left. That is unless The Times was a rave, in which case on some occasions the party was interrupted for an announcement. Of course, sometimes word spread regardless of an official announcement. But, overall, most party attendees were focused on the party, rather than the reviews. And while we haven’t gone back to that, Rebeck has sort of gotten her way. In the last couple of seasons review embargo times and days have been all over the place, evidencing producers’ choices to do what appeals to them when setting these parameters.

To understand how this all works, you need a little history. Critics used to come to opening nights and rush back and write their reviews to try to get them in the early editions of the next day’s newspaper. There were a lot of pre-Broadway stops and shows often only had a few days in New York before opening. So, it made sense to have critics go on opening night, not before. Eventually, preview periods became longer, but we still held onto the opening night critic tradition for a while. Then, in the 1960s, inviting critics to previews became popular. While official embargo times were rare, during this time, reviews came out no earlier than 10pm. 

“10pm for many years was deemed necessary,” said veteran press agent, and recipient of the Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre, Adrian Bryan-Brown. “There were six local TV stations giving reviews, some during the 10pm news.”

The newspapers usually weren’t heard from until later, with the early edition of The Times being obtained at the Times’ HQ, and folks from the advertising team monitoring it all. (John Lahr’s reviews famously sometimes came out early; as The New Yorker was weekly, if he could work it so his review hit the newsstands the Monday before an opening, he did.) Changes kept happening and then, of course, the internet blew everything up. Official embargo times became more necessary. But they were kept in the 9pm or 10pm area. The idea was to set it so at least the show was over. A type of nod to when people still went to opening nights to review and would in no way be able to run their review until post-curtain. 

For years that thinking won out, even though local news had stopped running reviews regularly. There were exceptions to the rule of course, but generally embargo times were set for shortly after the final opening night curtain came down. With the proliferation of smartphones, that meant everyone was on their phone by 10pm. Variance was met with skepticism. When Bad Cinderella set a midnight embargo (wink, wink) in 2023, The Observer’s David Cote refused to comply; his review went online at 9pm. There was an idea held by some producers, critics and outlets that people became in the habit of reading reviews before bed and so an earlier opening night embargo helped draw eyeballs to reviews. (I’m not sure that was ever born out by statistics. If it was, I never saw them, and I did ask.) It also helped the behind-the-scenes team make advertising deadlines. Because, remember, there used to be large print ads the day after an opening, filled with quotes. The earlier the advertising and press team received those quotes, the easier it was for them. 

But times change. In the last couple of seasons, embargo times have been all over the place, and having your opening night party on a completely separate night than the review embargo date is happening more and more. Back to the Future, BOOP!, Maybe Happy Ending, and Just in Time are among the Broadway shows that have had a gala opening before the review embargo date. (Just in Time even changed the embargo date after invites initially went out.) For shows that open on the same day as reviews come out, there are some that stick to 9pm or 10pm, but it’s now more often a mix. Some go earlier: Bug was 8:30pm. Stranger Things: The First Shadow and Queen of Versailles are among those who went 11:59pm. 

“What’s happened is there is sort of a movie mentality now that media can run anytime,” Bryan-Brown explained. “If you have it at 10pm, everyone is on their phones and it kills the mood. There isn’t a physical need to have a certain time. So, producers have thought: ‘When is the best time for us?’ [For legacy reviewers,] it doesn’t interfere with what they do, so they are not going to find a reason to fight it.”

This is all part of the diminishing importance of opening nights beyond the celebration aspect. The change in the Tony rules mean a performer no longer needs to perform on opening night to be eligible for a Tony. The divide between previews and opening doesn’t mean what it used to when previews were much cheaper (though they often still are but the marketing of them as such is different). In fact, very few people I meet under the age of 50 that aren’t regular theatergoers even know there is a difference between pre- and post-opening night. Whereas, when previews were often promoted as extremely inexpensive, people paid more attention to such things. (My mother’s friends know because of the divide in cost that existed when they were younger.) 

Reviews also mean less than they used to. There are very few full page print ads filled with quotes—it’s now generally digital ads with less quotes. The digital ads don’t need to be in at a certain time to make the paper, meaning that if reviews come in at midnight, a digital ad can still run the next morning as long as the team stays up late. The hard deadline aspect is absent.  

Then of course there is the proliferation of non-professional critics sharing their opinions online. That happens from the invited dress on. Professional critics abide by the embargo because of a sort of pact—they are provided free tickets if they abide by certain rules. (This doesn’t mean there aren’t accidents; a few critics have accidentally put reviews up early. Then there is the Lahr exception I referenced previously and a couple of other such critics/circumstances.) Last season, New York Post critic Johnny Oleksinski's review of Othello broke a week before the embargo date because his press tickets were revoked, so there was no quid pro quo. For most people sharing their opinion online, they are paying for tickets (unless they are influencers, specifically invited early to comment) and can put up whatever whenever. Sometimes there are so many of these comments online, whether in written form or on Tik Tok, that regular people absorb the comments as official reviews. More than once I’ve heard “the reviews were great” when a show hasn’t opened yet. 

All of which is to say, the focus on openings is different than it once was. I personally still think legacy critics are important to the industry. I care about when embargo times are. I check the BroadwayWorld Review Roundups. I know many ticket buyers who still read legacy critics. I still believe those quotes matter in ads. The Tony rules have changed to make a show’s official opening less significant, but a lot of rules are still tied to it. 

However, there is no question the industry is changing. And maybe one positive change will be divorcing reviews from the celebration. Back in our conversation several years ago, Rebeck noted there are not that many times to celebrate the immense effort that goes into putting on a show. Sure, award season exists, but not all shows get there. So why taint the one celebration that is a definite with reviews? Perhaps there used to be some necessity to it, but now there seems to be less of a need.