Industry Trends Weekly

Last week the venue for the 77th Tony Awards was announced—The David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. For the second year in a row, we will have a new venue for theater’s biggest award show. And those I spoke to in the industry were split on the choice.

Grumbling in the industry was this season would have fewer musicals. Shows were taking longer to receive their full capitalization. Many musicals were losing hundreds of thousands of dollars per week. Attendance was down. Buying habits had changed. In other words, it didn’t feel like a particularly hospitable time to launch a Broadway show.

Last week, Forbes ran a piece about the Nederlander Organization, Broadway's second biggest landlord, leaving Ticketmaster. The piece was fairly light on details, so confusion spread, and I read a bunch of incorrect takes. This piece (filed well before sundown Sunday) is my attempt to provide some clarification.

In May, I promised a series of stage door behavior stories. And then there were a lot of more timely stories to report on and, unfortunately, the next installment in the series got pushed. But now I can finally do the second installment, on plays.

This past week, an auction was launched to sell off what was left of Bay Area Children’s Theatre. It is part of the bankruptcy proceeding—most of the theaters that folded managed to do it before the court needed to get involved, but not BACT.

In recent years, the number of theater-related lawsuits has shot up. I’m going to give you updates on a couple of cases.

We have long talked about how the UK has more of a theatergoing culture; how government support is greater there. This idea was only further solidified when the West End rebounded quicker than Broadway. But anyone actually looking closely knows UK theater is undergoing its own collapse.

Last week, I looked at support for independent producers. And there is more to be written about that—for example, the Creative & Independent Producer Alliance’s National New Work Development Network is likely to become even more important as we move forward. But this week is about World Premiere Wisconsin, a statewide new work festival that ran from March 1 through June 30, 2023.

Theater people have all spent a lot of time in recent months talking about how bad things are in the industry. And I believe there are solid reasons to keep writing about that. But in the next couple of weeks, I’m going to write about some of what is happening in the face of current obstacles.

Ever since Under the Radar was canceled, there have been grumblings about Oskar Eustis’ compensation. They only got louder after a July 14 New York Times article announced the Public was laying off 19% of its staff. Who is the highest-paid NYC theater artistic director?

Even before the pandemic, there was talk that the subscription model supporting many non-profits was dying out. In 2000, Theatre Communications Group proclaimed that for the first time since it started examining the topic in the 1980s, average single-ticket income exceeded average subscription income in its studied theaters.

This past weekend, two big New York development programs got underway. This is the first summer season that New York Stage and Film has been completely separate from Vassar’s Powerhouse Theater, opening the opportunity for them each to do their own things.

Last month, Signature Theatre announced three pretty exciting offerings for its 2023-2024 season. What slipped a little under the radar was that it was a complete season announcement—the off-Broadway company will only be producing three shows this season. The constriction is another sign of a theater world in crisis.

When new musicals open on Broadway, there are usually years of development behind the scenes that you do not see. That is the case even when the musical is as high profile as the Britney Spears-fueled Once Upon a One More Time--not everything unfolds in public.

In the “The Tonys Are Too Big to Fail” conversation, what no one mentioned was that the industry no longer knows the true impact of the awards. Ever since the pandemic, we seem to never be able to clearly answer the “what sells” question beyond naming film and TV stars.

Tony night does not end at 11pm, it goes well into the next morning. There is the official Tony party, the parties held by individual shows and also independent community gatherings, like the DKC/O&M party at the Carlyle. And it’s at these places you witness the most candid interactions, so last night that is where I went.

Last week, at a time when Broadway producers were worried about last-minute campaigning and how performers are going to change at the United Palace with limited dressing room space, a fact buried in a New York Times article shook the theater community. It was there that it was announced that The Public’s Under the Radar festival was no more.

The Tony Awards are less than two weeks away and there are still many unanswered questions. The most important is likely—who is going to win? That is of course always an unanswered question until the names are announced, but usually at least one of the major races has a clear-cut favorite.

Last night, BroadwayWorld celebrated its 20th anniversary with a concert at Sony Hall. The show, which benefited Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, took over a year to plan.

The industry has been consumed with Tony chaos. And the latest rumor on that front is that there are some still trying to appeal to the WGA, but awards will be given out on June 11 no matter. That might change by the time you read this and it is also worth noting that it is unimportant to the vast majority of people currently enjoying Broadway.

Last week there were several first-time Tony nominees. One of them was KIMBERLY AKIMBO helmer Jessica Stone, an actress-turned-director who made her Broadway directorial debut with the acclaimed musical, which overall picked up eight Tony nominations.

Tomorrow is the big day—the Tony nominations. That means last week was the last eligibility decisions. Let’s peek behind the curtain at some of the main things we learned last week.

Last week, my friend Michelle, inspired by my story on the talent of Alli Mauzey, went to buy tickets to KIMBERLY AKIMBO. She went to SeatGeek. Why? Because the last time she went to a show, it was FUNNY GIRL, and I told her SeatGeek was the box office, so she assumed that was true for all Broadway theaters.

When last week's Tony eligibility decisions were announced, there was nothing terribly surprising in the announcements themselves. But there were some interesting tidbits not announced. First, BroadwayWorld has confirmed that DANCIN' standout Kolton Krouse, who is nonbinary, will compete in the Featured Actor in a Musical category. Additionally, although SHUCKED was not dealt with this eligibility meeting, BroadwayWorld has also confirmed that Alex Newell, who identifies as gender nonconforming and plays a woman in SHUCKED, has also requested to be considered in that category.

Last month, when the Lucille Lortel Theatre announced the purchase of a new building in Chelsea, there was some surprise. What caught some off-guard is that the Lortel also announced new artistic leaders focusing on the development of new works.