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Foreign. Hello, all you theater lovers both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history legacy of American theater's most exclusive address, Broadway. I am your host, Matt Koplik, the least famous and most opinionated of the Broadway podcast hosts. This episode actually was going to not exist. I was going to have just a blank episode this week because due to scheduling reasons, I just. Nothing was really lining up to have an episode released. We have two more deep dives that we are doing, and scheduling wise, it just hasn't really synced up yet for us to release the episodes. And then we were doing a conversation with a listener of the podcast who also happens to work in the industry to talk about this past season and what we can learn from it and looking at next season and what we can sort of expect. Um, and that episode is still happening, but again, due to scheduling reasons, we couldn't get it done in time for this week. So I was like, you know what? We'll just let this one slide. And then there was an article that came out in the New York Times in the last 24 hours that I thought was interesting and I wanted to address because it actually kind of. It includes a whole bunch of Broadway news and. And we haven't really done an episode about Broadway grosses in a while. So I thought that we could sort of include that in this subject matter, which is to say that Michael Paulson of the New York Times had an article come out and it called, what Happened to Broadway's New Musicals this Year? They Vanished. And it's a highlighting how Hollywood actors in big plays and investors who are nervous and landlords who are kind of being keeping things close to the vest have created a shortened pipeline of new musicals on Broadway. Now, first things first, if you know Michael Paulson, if you know his work in the New York Times, you know that he isn't necessarily lying. He's also not necessarily a sensationalist, but he is very much a Debbie Downer. And that's not to say that he's someone who provides facts you don't want to hear. It's that he provides facts, and his interpretation is always a bit doom and gloom. And there are things that he doesn't really consider in this article that I would like us to consider as we sort of scan through it and talk about next season. So at the top of the article, right at the start, he says how coming out of the pandemic, we had a whole bunch of new musicals for every season. There were 14 new musicals in the 2024-2025 season. That was the maybe happy ending, Death becomes her season. And then there were 15 the year before that. That was the Illinois Outsiders Suffs year. And he says now almost all of them were flops. The industry took note because this past season we only had six new musicals. Two of which were Beejes and Queen of Versailles and they were notorious disasters. And then the other four, he hasn't really discussed much about them, but mostly he's just saying, you know, the trends are not looking good. And he says that this is most likely going to continue because as of right now, we only have two new musicals that have been announced for Broadway that are going to premiere before the end of 2026. One is wanted, which had an out of town tryout at Paper Mill two years ago. And then the other one is Galileo, which has been sort of kicking around most recently at Berkeley Rep. And that one is going into the Shubert Wanted, going into the James Earl Jones. And he's also saying that it doesn't necessarily have to be this way because there are musicals that are wanting to come to Broadway, but there are many things that are keeping them from doing so. So right off at the top, yes, we did have 14 new musicals last season and we had 15 the year before that. That is not normal. That is not how Broadway has been. Even before the pandemic. If you look at seasons prior to 2020, we are average about 10 new musicals a season, which is, you know, a healthy number. But that is not 15. In 2019 we had 11. Also, some of these are technicalities because I was going through Wikipedia trying to, you know, discern how many new musicals there were every season. And Wikipedia would include things like, you know, all about me, the Dame Edna concert, one woman show sort of thing. And so my assumption is that that was considered eligible by the Tony committee, but like that's not really a new musical. But even so, with that said, 2019, we had 11. We had seven in 2018, just seven. So that's only one more than this past year. 2017 was the most we've had in about 30 years. 2017, the most new musicals we've had in a single year in 30 years, which was 13. Sorry, I shouldn't. Sorry. Not 30 years because we had post pandemic shows. But you know what I mean. From 1996 to 2019, 2017 had the most new musicals with 13. 2016 had 11, then back to 1012 in 2014. And then prior to 2014, we're flop flopping from 8 to 10 to 11. 7. From 2002 to 2004 it was. Sorry. From 2001 to 2004, we had seven new musicals every year. And, and on those years we would have two, sometimes three new musicals recouping. Worst case scenario, one. 1999, we had eight. None of those shows recouped. 1998, we had eight or nine new musicals, depending on your litmus test of that. And only one of those recouped, which was the Lion King. 1997, we had seven new musicals, none of them recouped. 1996, seven new musicals, two recouped. So let's start with that, which is to say that new musicals recouping on Broadway has always been rare. It is high risk, high reward. It is not normal to have 15 new musicals in a season. Honestly, probably not since the 1940s or 50s. And to see how this is nothing new, all you have to do is read William Goldman's the Season to learn how doom and gloom on Broadway has always been the case. As, as Al Hirschfeld said in Broadway, the golden age. I've been hearing about the death of Broadway since I was wearing, you know, short pants. And same is true here. Michael Paulson is not wrong. The numbers don't lie. We did have 14 last year, 15 the year before. That is not normal. So why did we have so many when prior to the pandemic, we, you know, would max out at 13 over the course of 24, five years? Well, one thing that Paulson does talk about is how there was a backup of new musicals that kind of came in a flurry when Broadway reopened after a year and a half of being closed and a lot of shows did not come back. So were all these open theaters. So that's one thing there was available real estate. Another thing was there was a major tax incentive with new works on Broadway action with all Broadway shows that allowed shows to have a better chance of recoupment. Because even if you only like recouped 90% of your investment, once you got your tax incentive at the end of your run, that kind of pushed you into the black. That was something that happened with the revival of Parade. As I understand it, Parade almost fully recouped in its Broadway run. I believe it lost money on the road, but due to its tax write off, it ended up recouping overall at the end of the when, when all was said and done. So there was a lot of incentive to bring shows to Broadway. There was money there and then there was also money to be gained from the tax write off. So that was one thing. So a lot of shows came to Broadway because the money was there, the theater was ready, and that's that. Why did a lot of these shows flop? Well, first things first. We had 15 shows in a season. That is an insane amount of supply and not that much demand. Not when we were still having issues with tourism. People were afraid to fly, people were afraid to come to New York. Tickets are very expensive. A lot of these properties were untested. They would have out of town tryouts at the old Globe or La Jolla or Arena, you know, two, three years prior to their Broadway run. And a lot of the momentum had died. So a lot of people had forgotten what was special about them or what was worth investigating about them. You know, shows like Harmony, which had a very well sold run and got a very strong review in the New York Times, waited about a year and a half till it came to Broadway. And by that point any buzz that it had had from the Yiddish theater kind of died. I mean, I also don't think Harmony was terribly good, but that's my own opinion. But that kind of leans into another thing which is a lot of these shows came to Broadway whether they were ready or not. It was just that the money was there, the theater was available. And if you look at a lot of these shows in the last season or the season before or the season before that, look at the critical reception that they got and the audience reception that they got. Yes, you know, all of these shows, every single one of these shows has their fans. But there is still a narrative that persists that many of these shows just were not fully cooked yet or they were a bad idea. Sometimes shows are a bad idea. A show like Heart of Rock and Roll, fun as it was, really needed a second look to get really streamlined and be the tightest version of itself. When it came to Broadway, it was sort of like a third draft of a show that needed a fourth draft. Something like Boop comes to Broadway and it has an out of town tryout. But if you read the reviews from out of Town, all the critics say, while this is very fun and Jasmine Amy Rogers is a star, this book needs a giant facelift and here and gave bullet points like all the things that needed to get changed and Boop, I think adhered to like 20% of those changes. So when it didn't do well on Broadway, people can be upset, but you cannot be surprised. We've had Broadway musicals recoup that have opened post Covid we've had jukebox musicals like and Juliet and mj. As I said, Kimberly Akimbo and I believe Some Like It Hot also recouped on the road. Shucked did very well on the road and recouped, I believe, Suffs recouped on the road. The Outsiders has actually recouped on Broadway during its Broadway run. It is possible people have been able to do it, and to say nothing of, you know, very expensive revivals like Sweeney Todd and Merrily We Roll along that have recouped into the woods. Not expensive, but recouped. Just investing on Broadway in general has always been a gamble. It's a bigger gamble now because there's more money at stake and things are more expensive to keep running. But ultimately, when you have a surplus of shows waiting in the wings and then all of a sudden there's an opportunity rather than stop and think, huh, are we ready to go? And you just sort of go. There is a butterfly effect to that. So Boob coming to Broadway and not fixing all of its problems. Lempicka coming to Broadway and not fixing all of its problems. Redwood coming to Broadway at all. All of that impacts the shows after that, right? That is. That is something that everyone in the industry has to consider. No one wants to make a bad show. That's never anyone's intention. But in order to make a good show, you have to be incredibly shrewd, and you also have to be ruthless. You have to be willing to kill your own darlings if it is what's best for the show. You also need to check your ego and understand that sometimes the best idea is not going to be your idea. If you want to be a good collaborator, you have to acknowledge when someone on your team has the correct idea, even if it overshadows your contribution. Right? And you often hear stories of songs that are kept in shows because it's the songwriter's favorite and they really fought for it, or a moment that, you know, the star performer really demanded to keep in there, even though it ultimately kills the vibe of the show. Also, you hear these stories of songs getting rousing, standing ovations, or songs going viral on TikTok and Instagram. But then the song in the show is actually kind of detrimental to the show itself. Think about A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, the infamous story of the opening number of that show, where, you know, the script is kind of locked and loaded. It is set, and Sondheim basically has to write songs around it. And so the trick is to find Songs in moments of the show where the audience needs a breather. And the opening number was a tough nut originally to crack. Sondheim wrote a song that told the audience straight up front, this is a Greek show, but it's not about tragedy or war. This is a comedy. And the director, George Abbott, said, I cannot hum this. We cannot set the show on the foot of, you know, atonal music. Give me a song I can hum. So Sondheim writes a little soft shoe called Love Is in the Air, which is, you know, kind of accurate to what the vibe of Forum was in terms of the themes. But they go out of town with the show and it's just dying. Everywhere it's going, it's dying, and they don't know what to do. And Jerome Robbins comes in and he sees the show and he goes, the opening number is wrong. What you have is a big, brassy farce. And you open the show with a very soft, lovey dovey, soft shoe. Everyone thinks they're about to see a Noel Coward show, and then you give them Borscht Belt. So you need to tell them that that's what this is. And Sondheim gets all grumpy and he goes, well, I did that, but George said he couldn't hum it. And Jerome Robbins says, okay, Steve, do another one that he can hum. And Sondheim, to his credit, was like, you know what? Fair. Let me. Let me do the same mentality of the first song. Give it the hum ability of the second song and give it the energy that will set the tone of the show. And that's what gave us comedy tonight, and that's what made the show work. So rather than digging in his heels and going, no, I did my job, you, you should look to George Abbott to make it work. They all figured out what to do, how to make it all work. And there are other songs that in other shows that are beautiful songs that get cut because we just need to get to a plot point faster. Think of Come down from the Tree from Once on this Island. Beautiful Aaronson Flaherty song. You should listen to it on, I think it's in the Lost in Boston series. Lillias White sings it, and it's gorgeous. Audra McDonald also sings it, I believe. And it's a wonderful, wonderful song sung to Ti Moune right after the opening number. But ultimately it was decided that we needed to get to Adulthood Moon faster because we needed to get to the inciting incident of the show, which is Ti Moune and Daniel and that love story. So we did not have three and a half minutes to spare to sit and watch, you know, childe ti moune come down from the tree, even though it does tie into the end of the show. And ultimately that is for the best. We don't get stories like that really anymore with new Broadway musicals. You don't hear stories of a song that was great that people loved, but ultimately it wasn't healthy enough for the show getting cut. Okay, so Michael Paulson says, what happened? How did the new musical Long Long Broadway's fundamental building block become so scarce that the New Drama Critics circle opted to forego an award this year for best musical. And two of the five nominations for best score went to music composed for plays. Well, they didn't have to go to plays. They could have gone to Queen of Versailles and Beaches, but the Tony nominators were being bitches this year. Listen, I do not begrudge them Beaches. That show is a show. I do begrudge them Queen of Versailles. It's not a great score, but worse scores have been nominated. This leads us to the three bullet points that Paulsen talks about of what ultimately is leading us to this, what he calls dearth of new musicals. We already started to talk about the art portion. He says, art, money and real estate art, AKA a script, and for musicals, a score that are both more or less ready to go. We already kind of talked about this. But that is a major component to why a lot of these shows have not found success on Broadway is there are ideas there, there are things that work, but there are a lot of either super large chunks that are muddled. For me, that was something like boop, where I thought that the script was just so confused and I thought that there were two or three banger songs and then like a bunch of songs that were just sort of there. His second point, money. Mounting a play or musical cost millions of dollars. This is also true. There is a new tax incentive for New York State with Broadway theater. I'm not sure how it relates to the previous one. I'm not sure if it's quite as enticing as it once was, but there is that has been implemented still. And thus investors could have more reason to invest in some of these shows, but it is costing more money these days. One is inflation. She's a bitch to everybody. Second is, I hate to say this, but unions, union negotiations over the years have created higher price tags for everybody involved. Some of those are absolutely warranted. Landlords are also asking for giant chunks of money that I think is pretty fucking criminal. And then there are also people on the payroll now for a lot of these shows that weren't necessarily on the payroll to begin with. There was a Broadway revival within the last two or three years where a listener who is a, an aspiring associate producer won't say their name. But they showed me the breakdown of the running costs for this revival that they were asked to be an associate on and they said no, even though it was very enticing, it had a lot, it was going to have a lot of clout to it and did. But he said, showing me this breakdown, he was like, there's absolutely no way that they're going to recoup or even like recoup half of their investment on this. He's like, the running cost is insane. He's like, and look at this. And he showed me that there was a section where there were producer fees for the top producers of this revival. Now, producer fees are not totally out of the ordinary, but ultimately most producers take a small fee just, you know, so they can keep their offices running so they can, you know, do their business day to day. And ultimately they're doing their job, which is keeping the show running. But they do not get a giant chunk unless the show is making a lot of money. Again, it's sort of, you know, they need incentive for the show to do well, so they will do their hardest to make it work because if they do their hardest and it succeeds, then they make a lot of money from how, from what the show makes. But you see more of these fees getting into the five digit quadrant, which, which when the, these salaries pile up, that's adding another like 100k to a lot of these shows running costs. There are some musical revivals in the last like two or three years that could have run for like 150k less. But I digress. And then the third point that Paulson says is real estate. Broadway has 41 theaters operated by a small coterie of landlords. They are indeed one of the bigger villains of, of Broadway right now, I will say. And new musicals must compete with starry play productions as well as revivals to land a home. There was a time when theater owners actually would invest in these shows that ran in their theaters. If you read Gerald Schoenfeld's book, I think it's called Mr. Broadway, he talks about they, that the Shuberts, when he and Bernie Jacobs took over the Shuberts again, to kind of give them an incentive to, you know, try to select shows that they thought were interesting and worthwhile that could possibly be successful. And to really do their best to make the shows work, they would invest super money into these shows. Now, the uptick of that is they would invest in things like A Chorus Line and Les Mis and Cats and Phantom, and that would pay for years for them. They also would invest money in shows like Chess, which did not work out, or Big Deal, which didn't. Which also didn't work out. But they. It was their prerogative then to make these shows have the best chance of success as they could. So when the show didn't work, they couldn't blame anyone but everyone in the room with them, right? Themselves, their collaborators. It was like, you know, it didn't work. What can we learn so we can make the next one work, Right? It's very. It's very rare when a show works. When it's like really just fan fucking tastic. Where every element is right and it still flops. It happens. It's rarer than you would think. Even the shows that I love, that I think are fantastic and did not work, that did not land with audiences. I can understand why. I think Caroline or Change is one of the greatest musicals of the 21st century. And that original production was fucking poetry. I fully understand why it did not land with people. It is a tough cookie to, you know, munch on. It is music that is not for everybody. And it is a leading character who is a tough sit. And it's. And it's racial politics that do not make liberal white audiences comfortable. Because it does not what's the wronging for? It does not placate to what they want to hear. Right. I don't mean to bring up ragtime too much, but like, I say this all the time. That's one of the things that ragtime kind of has going for it for a lot of musical theater loving liberal audiences is that the racial politics are traumatic as they are for its black characters really kind of incentivizes white audiences and galvanizes them to. And makes them feel like that they are doing something important by being there. That they're learning something by being there. And they're really not. It's nothing that you didn't already know. Caroline or Change is a show with its racial politics that actually does kind of challenge what you think you know or what you might know. Same thing with plays like, you know, Fat Ham. And while I don't think it's a very good play, Slave Play, I think does challenge our norms like that. But this is to say I'm sorry, I went off a whole tangent me tangents. You see these theater owners, you see that now they are very few of them are actually investing money into any of these shows, if at all. The rent that they are charging for so many of these shows is astronomical. Friend of The Pod, Lucas McMahon, who is a producer on Six and has been a producer on Mrs. Doubtfire and oh Mary. He was on the podcast many, many years ago back in like the 1.0 version and he talked about how theater fees, theater rental fees are the number one cost for any Broadway show. It's the biggest financial burden of any show's budget and always will be. Some shows have gotten lucky in the last couple of years due to theater sitting empty and landlords desperately wanting the theater to be filled. I know for a fact that part of the reason why Beaches and Titanique were able to go to Broadway, the Shuberts and the and ATG respectively gave them extraordinarily good deals on their rent just so that way the theater could be filled. These theater owners want shows that make money for them. And while a Broadway musical could be successful, more likely it's not going to be. They they need the theater to be full. They need people to be buying refreshments and merchandise. And even if say something like, you know, Hell's Kitchen is technically running, but it's running at half capacity for six months, that's 750 people a night who are not buying concessions as opposed to art at the Music Box, which is fully selling out, 1100 seats a night. That's a lot of people buying wine and soda and popcorn and what have you. So yeah, there's definitely a lot of gatekeeping going on there. And I think many of these landlords need to have their feet held to the coals so they can feel a little more pressure about all of this. The rest of the article goes on to talk about a lot of the expenses. As I mentioned, there's inflation, there is union pricing. There is also a lot of issues with, you know, our current administration and trading goods tariffs, if you will. That has definitely sped up the inflation with the whole country. But Broadway especially. The other thing is that because the price is so high on a lot of these shows, the price tag on tickets is also incredibly high. It's always, it's been high for a very long time and it just keeps getting higher. And the price of tickets are not matching where people are at financially. And so people are less likely to take a risk on a new musical if it got mediocre reviews or it has tepid word of mouth. People always say, oh, don't listen to critics. They don't matter. The New York Times doesn't have the clout that people think it does. And that's true. It's like the New York Times itself cannot kill a show. Reviewers alone cannot kill a show. But think of it a bit like grubhub or Yelp. If you're looking for a place to go for. For a date, let's say, or you're looking to order in for a Friday night and you're looking at the ratings that all these restaurants or these bars have, you are more likely to go for a place that has four and a half stars from 3,000 reviews than a place that has three stars from 1,000 reviews. Now, it's possible that the place with three stars has just been very unlucky and has had like 900 Karens take the take to the Internet to, you know, fully sync their rating by a full star. And it actually could be this amazing hole in the wall hidden secret that you would love, but you're not gonna take that risk. And the same is true of Broadway. If you are coming in from out of town or if you're just a New Yorker in general and you're interested to see what the season has to offer, and you read the New York Times for a new musical and the review is kind of tepid, and you go, eh, I don't know. Well, let me see what Variety had to say. Variety's also kind of tepid. Then you read the Hollywood Reporter. That one's positive. But then you read Entertainment Weekly. If you're reading Entertainment Weekly and that one's negative, you're reading Vulture. That one's negative. Then you're reading Charles Isherwood, wherever the fuck he's writing now, and that one's positive. You don't know where to go. And then you're starting to ask around, you're looking on show score, you're going on Instagram. And ultimately the vibe is just not selling. And thus you don't put your money there. You put your money towards something else that has much greater confirmation for you. It's something that ticket pricing is something between producers and landlords. Again, we're talking about these very frustrating landlords. There's this expectation that because the tickets are scarce, you're only getting a couple hundred seats a night for what should be this big event that you should want to see. The pricing comes in way too high and people get turned off and they do not buy their tickets. And then the prices get lowered eventually because nobody's buying the tickets. And that then puts a stink on your show. Rather than starting at a reasonable place where people will be willing to shelve out say 75 bucks for, you know, a rear orchestra seat to see something they've never seen before, take a chance on it. Then if they love it, they'll tell people they might even go again if the tickets are still reasonable. And that's something to think about. But that's not something that a lot of Broadway is doing. You're slowly starting to see it. For example, Paulson talks about Wanted and Galileo and Wanted announced their Broadway run rather early a few months ago. And so they have a very long trailway before their Broadway opening. And they are being very smart by offering very reasonably priced tickets early in the run, in previews, and right after opening. This is something we saw also with Shucked. This is something we saw with many new musicals that either didn't have an out of town tryout or their out of town tryout was so long ago that they need to build up buzz again. So they need to fill the theater. Even if you look at Paddington, which also has announced its Broadway run officially at the Hirschfeld. We talked about this before. You're welcome. Paddington's pricing for all of its, you know, three weeks of previews is pretty, you know, decent for what is a big ticket musical. For a show that, you know, is coming directly from London, where it's sold out until September, that has won seven Oliviers, is critically acclaimed. It's IP that is very recognizable. It's going into a theater with 1400 seats, which is a very nicely sized theater. But considering people thought it might go into the St. James, which has another 300 seats, you know, they are. They could really be doing dynamic pricing up the ass and fuck themselves. And for the first three or four weeks, it's actually pretty okay. It gets pricier after opening night, but not by like a huge margin. That is definitely. Those are definitely prices that they will hike up if the demand calls for it. It's a very tricky game to figure out, right? They. He quotes the head of Broadway banking at City National Bank, Eric Peacock, Pyecuk Paisyuk, who says that it. Broadway itself is an optimistic industry. Nothing makes sense. None of it pencils out. But despite that, you still see bank accounts open up for shows that could be six months down the line, five years down the line. There are shows in the pipeline. There's a Pipeline of shows that are being developed. And this is true. Many shows are waiting. There's also new roads that come to Broadway that everyone is trying to reconfigure. Out of town tryouts are very helpful. They are also the most expensive way to see if your show works more often. More often now we are seeing shows doing workshops and then opening directly on Broadway. Things like the Lost Boys. That is very scary because if there are bumps in the show, you don't know until it's in front of an audience. And the minute you do your first preview, it's out on the Internet and people start finding out about songs that are terrible, that need to get cut. And maybe you do cut the song, but you still have to waft off that stink for about three or four weeks. And that those three or four weeks are money that you could be losing right now. You want to, whether you like it or not, as a Broadway producer or Broadway creative, the moment your show starts, performances in New York City, it's basically open as far as the Internet is concerned. It's unfair, but it's the truth. And so you have to think about just how ready your thing is, how fully baked your thing is, and if it's not fully baked, be prepared and be ready to make changes quickly. Because the only way to ward off the sense of doom for your show if something isn't working is to change things immediately and get those people who wrote you off early to come back and see the progress you've made, which has happened. It's absolutely happened. But out of town tryouts themselves are still the best road to Broadway. What an out of town tryout looks like now is a little different. It used to be that you raised your capital. You found a theater in Chicago or Boston, D.C. if you really wanted to get out of the way, Seattle or San Francisco, and you would do about four to six weeks, you would put your show up in front of the audience, you would get reviewed by the critics. If it was working, word of mouth would come to Broadway, you would tool it up and you would be coming in knowing what you had with what you think is the best version of it, and people getting buzzed. You hear success stories about this all the time. Like Hairspray trying out in Seattle. I would love to do a deep dive episode on Hairspray and really talk about the out of town process with that. Because the thing about Hairspray that was so exciting was it was a movie that it was IP that was known, but it was not like they were adapting Jurassic Park. This was not a billion dollar movie that the world knew. This was a cult film that was the most successful film of John Waters, who was the king of cult films. And so it had a fan base, it made a star of Ricki Lake, but it wasn't a super known property. So it was more that there were, you know, a couple hundred thousand people who had their eye on it, all of them in New York. And when it goes to Seattle, the reviews are such that everyone in New York takes notice. And so when it comes to New York, that very first Preview, it's like 98% the hairspray that we know and love and it goes off like fucking gangbusters. And when I tell you that New York exploded from that first preview and that show became a sellout hit right after that preview, that is the benefit of taking the time to really develop your show, going out of town with your show and really, you know, experimenting with what you have and what the audience is responding to and how that can benefit New York ticket buyers. As I said, that is expensive. So now out of town tryouts are more looking, looking like going to a regional house like La Jolla, Old Globe, the Art in Massachusetts and offsetting some of your costs with the regional theater. You're not officially an out of town tryout, you are a regional premier. But if all things go well, you can invite commercial producers to the production, see what you got, explain how much money you need to go to Broadway and what that money would be going for, or we're going to and do your best to get that thing straight to Broadway as fast as possible. The hardship of that is by being a regional premier, you do not already have a theater locked and loaded in New York. Sometimes there's like back end deals where you can sort of where producers kind of figure that out up front. But a lot of times you see, and we're seeing this right now, these shows that do well regionally and then try to raise their funds to go to Broadway, but they don't have that Broadway theater locked in yet. So it actually ends up being two, three, sometimes four years before it finally comes to Broadway. Where as opposed to something like A hairspray or producers or more recently, you know, God bless them, but like a Queen of Versailles or last year Death becomes her, they did their out of town tryout with a theater in mind already. So they didn't have that much long to wait between out of town tryout and Broadway. They could come in ready to go. Well, Queen of Versailles did a year but that year wasn't because theaters weren't available. That was for other reasons. But Death Becomes her came to Broadway pretty shortly after its out of town tryout. So that's the upside and the downside of doing a regional premiere as opposed to a legitimate out of town tryout. The other thing that shows will do when it's not an out of town tryout, when it's not a regional premiere, when it's not a workshop, is they will do Off Broadway, which is something that Paulson also sort of talks about. We have this season, we have the Heart, which is going off Broadway at the Roundabout. It also had a regional production, I think, at La Jolla. And then we also have the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I saw in London and reviewed in a past London episode, if you want to hear about that, which is having its Off Broadway premiere at the Public. I actually think that's a very good idea for both of these shows because, and he talks about it in this article, that these are musicals that have a lot of credibility to them. They got good reviews, strong audience responses, but ultimately they are still not fully sellable to investors for a Broadway run. They need one last step of convincing. And the Hart and Benjamin Button are shows that are small enough that they can get done off Broadway at the public or roundabout. And it's not quite the financial burden for these nonprofit companies in their Off Broadway houses. I think, according to Paulson, the Hart has commercial producers attached, same producers who are attached to come from Away. So there my assumption is that those producers are talking to landlords and saying, this is what we're looking for. If the show works, we want to go directly to Broadway that season. We do not want to wait. Because if you wait, then you end up being a dead outlaw where you have a full year where you lose all of your buzz. Right. Same thing with Benjamin Button. I would imagine that the producers that are attached to that show are making it known to investors and landlords that this is a show that works. It's been proven to work in London. They are trying it here in a lower stakes environment just to really kind of guarantee what they got. And if it. And if it. If that check clears, they plan to go. That happens more often now. Not every show makes that work for them. For every Kimberly Akimbo or Days of Wine and Roses or Pre Pandemic, we have Band's Visit or Spring Awakening or Grey Gardens right now. And Paulson credits this in the article when he's talking to Tom Crudehi. You have The Bedwetter, which premiered at the Atlantic Theater in New York and then went to the arena in Washington D.C. and is looking for a Broadway theater. Kurdehi talks about how their problem isn't that the show isn't ready. They felt that the show was good at the Atlantic. They worked on it at arena to make it even better. It has been well received, it has sold well. It is based off of a Sarah Silverman property, or at least I think Sarah Silverman's life. And so there is celebrity attachment to it, which helps it with visibility. They are being very particular about what theater they want to go into. They're most likely looking for a mid sized theater. Same thing for the Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Jason Robert Brown musical that was at the Goodman in Chicago. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil has been looking for a theater, quote unquote for a while now. I think there are other things that are keeping them from coming to Broadway, which is, as Paulson says, skittish investors and landlords. I'm not entirely sure that Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil has a flurry of investors who are ready to put all their money into it. Nor do I think that the landlords of Broadway looked at the reception at Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, got in Chicago and said, absolutely, come to Broadway. My assumption is that they're getting the feedback of have you been working on it? But have you really been working on it? And more importantly, how's the budget looking? All of these shows, you have to ask yourself, what is the budget? What is the capitalization? A lot of these budgets seem higher than they probably are because workshops and developmental readings all get rolled into capitalization for a Broadway show. You saw this happen with Natasha Pierre in the great Comet of 1812. Part of their price tag came from the art production and I think even the Off Broadway casino production. So they while they only returned like 30% of their investment, it could have been 50 if they hadn't rolled in the price tag from Off Broadway and Boston. You also have shows that had regional premieres in Old Globe, like Regency Girls, which had a very strong reception and has a commercial producer, Rodman Goodman, attached. Goodman explains in Paulson's article that their problem is just raising money. Now, from what I understand about Regency Girls, which they describe as Bridesmaids meets Bridgerton, I understand the Regency Girls is very good. It is subject matter that is very particular. In fact, I would say it's sort of like Bridesmaids meets Bridgerton meets Suffs, if suffs were willing to go harder because it's a comedy, but it's a comedy of. About birth control as, from what I understand, I think is an amazing concept. Gonna be hard to sell that to a lot of people. And they're kind of sticking to their guns of not having a major name attached. They have been flirting with the idea of getting some, like, big names into Regency Girls. Ultimately, I don't think they can really find anybody with true name recognition who's right for any of the roles. So now they're trying to look at, like, big Broadway names. But big Broadway names don't really sell. They will sell with tried and true properties like Kelly o' Hara in a revival of, like, I don't know if we were to do Music man again, I know it's soon, but like, let's say sure to do Music man again. That would sell more than Kelli o' Hara in Days of Wine and Roses. Look at Kelli o' Hara in Fallen Angels. Right, With Rose Byrne. Rose Byrne already a bigger name than Kelly, but the two of them together in a nonprofit where there is a subscriber base in a 700 seat theater of a property that is by Noel Coward. That' lot of those are a lot of names that thrown together lead to ticket sales, as opposed to Kelly o' Hara and Brian Darcy James in a musical version of a movie that a lot of people don't know. And once you hear the plot, it's very depressing, right? Names very rarely alone sell tickets because then Paulson talks about how a lot of theaters instead want to go for plays. Primarily plays starring movie stars or TV stars, because those are more sure bets. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they've proven to be a good investment for Robert Downey Jr. For Denzel Washington, for George Clooney, less so. For Adrien Brody, less so. For John Bernthal. Dog Day Afternoon is a property that a lot of people know. Those two men are very well known for their TV work, a little bit for their film work. And Dog Day Afternoon started with very high ticket sales. It is now on TDF for every performance. Whereas they were easily clearing a million dollars a week, like 1.1, $1.2 million a week during previews and soon after opening reviews and word of mouth and lack of Tonys have absolutely killed its buzz. And now it is averaging way lower. We will talk about that in a second when we get to grosses. But the same thing for the fear of 13, which has cut its run short starring Adrien Brody. Pretty soon after his second Oscar win. And you know, feel how you feel about Brody. He is a name and was a bit of a draw for fear of 13 again at the beginning of previews. Him and Tessa Thompson together in this technically speaking transfer from London where it got Olivier nominated. No ticket sales started strong and then it's taken a nosedive. Word of mouth is a major killer. So even no named actors are not necessarily a done deal. There has to be something beyond that. There has to be. It has to resonate with the demographic that you're trying to reach that's buying these tickets. You see, I talked about this kind of recently. I mentioned the movie Obsession. And if any of you are movie people or even box office people, you'll know that Obsession is having a historic box office run right now. A movie that cost less than a million dollars to make. It was purchased by focus features for $15 million. It opens at 17 about six weeks ago. And in the last six and a half weeks the movie has now grossed $220 million. That is more than 12 times its opening weekend. 12 time multiplier of its opening weekend. Kind of likes that is unheard of in the 21st century. We haven't seen a run like this in literal decades. And in fact, Obsession famously made more money on its second weekend than its first weekend and then made more money on its third weekend than its second weekend. And that has only happened in the last 40 years to movies that have opened at Christmas time. Anything else does not do that. The last movie to do what Obsession did that wasn't a holiday movie was ET in 1982. So why is it that Obsession is doing so well? Well, first of all, it is a good movie. It's an. It's a good concept that is told well. It's got very good acting, excellent acting, if you're indeed never ready. But it's also striking a chord with a particular audience. The Gen Z moviegoers see this movie and they see themselves on screen and they see themselves being portrayed well and interestingly and thought provokingly. And it's a movie that is touching on a feeling that a lot of people have, or a lot of people don't understand the idea of autonomy, toxic relationships, the difference between romance and obsession, between love and romance, of intimacy, of communication, of loneliness, of isolation, of how the nice guy can actually become a predator. All of these things are in this novel 100 minute horror film. And I question to you, what's the last Broadway musical you can think of that was able to touch on something, a nerve like that, in a way that became a conversation. Let's exclude nationally because obviously Broadway is exclusive. You can only see a Broadway show on Broadway, and if you're lucky, it's 1,800 people a night. Usually it's about 1,1100 people a night. So you're not getting half a million people across the country every day seeing your film or seeing your Broadway show. But what was the last Broadway musical you can think of that really started a cultural conversation in New York? I can't really think of one post Covid. I really can't. Best one I can think of is probably Dear Evan Hansen, probably. And then that started its own conversation when it went viral on Love it or Leave it. But even the shows that have done the musicals that have done well on Broadway, they aren't really creating a conversation. They're doing well within the subsect of Broadway theatergoers. But it's not branching out. And before you say to me, well, Matt, how far can Broadway really reach? I would argue that there are Broadway plays that have absolutely become cultural talking points. Some adjusted in New York, some a little more outside of New York and some nationally. Omar has become an absolute gangbuster culture zeitgeist in New York. In London, it's about to, you know, go on tour and. And do extremely well there, I guarantee you. But beyond that, people who don't live in New York know about Omar. People who don't live in New York know about John Proctor as the villain. Right. We have had quite a few plays people knew about. Appropriate. Yes, Sarah Paulson was the star. But Sarah Paulson is not Meryl Streep. She is not this internationally renowned movie star. She's not leading billion dollar franchises. She is. She is one of the leading ladies of the camp cult gay demographic, the Ryan Murphy fandom, if you will. And so her being on Broadway, inappropriate, yes, was big, but also it was that appropriate as a play, became a talking point for a lot of theatergoers. It became a hot ticket because of its quality and because of its subject matter and because of its excellence. And that is something that I don't see a lot of Broadway musicals happening. And that is something that Paulson isn't really talking about in his article. He does talk about the financials. He does talk about the theater owners. He does talk about how there were an influx of new musicals that came and sort of went. But he doesn't really talk about how none of them lived up to their reputation of being The American Musical. In the article, people are being interviewed or they're saying, like, we're gonna stick with it because this is what we do. Broadway does musical theater better than anyone. Not always. Not always. Many of these musicals have blown. Many. For many of them, the reason why they did not succeed was because they blew. Now he does talk about lack of theater availability in a lot of these shows. Looking for the right theater. So with that in mind, let us take a quick look at last week's grosses and see where we are at in terms of theater availability. Keep in mind that this past weekend was Father's Day as well as Juneteenth. I'm not sure how many people are going to see a Broadway show to celebrate Juneteenth, but, you know, maybe. Maybe more than I expect. I don't know. When it comes to pride, I tend to just sort of stay on my couch and watch Sense and Sensibility. Other people like to go out and party. Maybe other people want to go and see, you know, death becomes her. That is their right. But so looking at the grosses from this past week, we've had quite a few shows go up in their grosses, a few go down, some by a large amount, some incrementally right at the top. We have N Juliet, which grossed just over $600,000 at 72% capacity. When you take out credit card fees, that's about half a million dollars for a show that costs about 750 to run, maybe eight at this point. Now Chrissy Metz is in the show. I believe this gross reflects her first weekend in the show. So we'll see if she sells plenty of tickets during her run. However, I have been seeing and Juliette on TDF quite a lot still and while she's in the show. So I can't imagine that's going to help much. But also, I'll be honest, and Juliet's kind of been on life support for about a year now. And if they aren't calling it quits by the end of the summer, I don't know when they are. But the Sondheim is, you know, a medium sized theater. It's a little over a thousand seats. It is kind of in a shitty location and it's not a great looking theater. But if the show is a hit, it can feel quite intimate, right? Like seeing anything goes in that theater was very electric. Seeing Bye Bye Birdie in that theater felt deadly. Aladdin, we can skip past. That's not going anywhere until Disney wants to put something in the New Amsterdam besides it did gross 1.1 million this past week. Buena Vista Social Club went up. It grossed over $700,000. Buena Vista Social Club has continuously filled the theater, not always to huge profits, but it has. It has tended to fill the theater above 80 or 85% capacity every week, sometimes 95 to 100% capacity. And they've had more money making weeks than money losing weeks. So I think Buena Vista Social Club is probably safe until the end of the year at the very least. Cat's the Jellicoe Ball is currently only selling tickets to the end of the year at the Broadhurst. And I think that is where they are going to keep it because while they did do well at the Tonys, they won three, they did not win the big one, which was revival. And even though I thought they had the best performance of the night and they, you know, definitely gone viral on the Internet with their Tony performance and they just did skimbleshanks on Jimmy Fallon, it's not really translating to ticket sales. They have maintained over $900,000 a week, sometimes a little over a million dollars a week, but it's not quite breaking the box office like it should. So I would imagine depending on how the rest of the summer goes, they will keep it to January. They might close it up earlier than that. But I would imagine they'd like to take advantage of the holidays especially I imagine Halloween is going to be for that show. Celebrity autobiography, Sayonara. Closing out the Shubert, leaving us room for Galileo. Chess just closed at the Imperial, went out on a high 1.7 million, not their highest gross, but not their lowest either. Chess started out strong, like most revivals tend to do. Part of it is the name recognition. A lot of people love Chess. A lot of people were curious to see how the survival was going to go. Lea Michelle sells tickets. Love her or hater, she sells those tickets. Aaron Tveit, Love him or hate him, he also has a fan base. Clearly not as big as Michelle's, but he does sell tickets. And Nick Christopher after the show has had has gotten a very sizable fan base and I'll be interested to see what he does next. Ultimately, the reviews for Chess were middling at best. They had a couple of strong reviews. Sarah Holdren at Vulture fully claims that the show is camp in the best way. I would love to sit down with her and ask her what she thinks camp is. But also word of mouth on the show was very divisive. There were people who insisted that it was a phenomenal time. Some of people like me disagreed. That did ultimately hurt Chess. It also does doesn't help that Chess was running for so long. But you see this happen with a lot of revivals. They start to lose steam after the three month mark, sometimes after the two month mark. And Chess was losing steam once we hit 2026 and it was very easy to get tickets even when Leah was in the show. Whether it was TKTS or tdf. Chicago at the Ambassador currently welcomed Matteo Lane and Krista Rodriguez. It grossed $470,000 this week, up from 438. That is not money making for Chicago. But they also did make extraordinary bank when Whitney Levitt was in the show. And I would imagine they're looking for ways to get her back into the show so they can make that money again. Chicago, whoever knows when that thing's gonna actually close? And of all of the mid sized theaters, the Ambassador is the one that nobody really wants. It's got terrible wing space, it's in desperate need of a renovation. It's a weird staging layout. I'd imagine that the Shuberts are trying to hold off on a renovation on that theater for as long as possible. So Chicago is not going anywhere anytime soon. Death Becomes her is closing this month at the L'. Enfantan. It has gone up. It went up over $123,000. It still hasn't quite cracked 900k, which I'm hoping it does this upcoming week. The show is closing this coming Sunday and it'll be making way for warriors next spring, which will most likely leave the l' Enfantin empty until until warriors comes in. Unless somebody does a residency there or someone does a one person show. Much like how Billy Crystal is doing another one man show at the Imperial after Chess closes. I would imagine that there's going to be another show going in after Billy Crystal. Death of a Salesman is rocking it at the winter garden. $1.9 million full standing. Oh, that's got to be a record for a straight play. No, that can't. No. What am I saying? That's not a record for a straight play at the Winter Garden because George Clooney was just there last year. How quickly we forget about good night and good luck. How quickly I forget about good night and good luck. Or at least how quickly I want to forget about good night and good luck. Winter Garden is spoken for for another year because once Death of a Salesman closes, Much Ado About Nothing is going in there. Followed by Evita starring Rachel Zegler. The August Wilson is Dog Day Afternoon went Up. It went up by $31,000. It grossed a full 585k at 75% capacity. That is not a terrible gross for a straight play in general. But at the August Wilson, where they have about 1100 seats and where they have two TV stars and the show was grossing over a million dollars early in the run, as I said, word of mouth has fully killed that thing. But we do have Paranormal Activity going into the August Wilson this summer. They just moved up their opening date. Word on the street is that the Dolly Parton musical will be going in after that. But TBD, I believe Paranormal Activity closes at the end of 2026, leaving the theater open in the spring. We'll see if Dali comes in in the spring or if they want to keep working on it, but that theater will be open in the spring of 2027. The Hudson. Every Brilliant Thing. That theater is spoken for after Every Brilliant Thing closes when we get Other Desert Cities with Julia Louis Dreyfus, Ed Harris and Allison Janney. But in the meanwhile, Every Brilliant Thing continues to just absolutely print money. Not to the extent of when Daniel Radcliffe was in the show, but Mariska Hargitay is holding her own with almost $1.2 million. Can't fucking complain about that. Giant recouped one of the few shows this season that announced recruitment at the music box. Almost $1.5 million. Almost a complete sellout this week. Music Box is spoken for with Rosamund Pike's one woman show coming right after. And in the spring it'll be empty and ready for something to come in there. I imagine it'll be a play, but who knows if the Hart or Benjamin Button is looking for a theater in the spring. Music Box is open for them. I think the Walter Kerr is safe for a while. Hadestown continues to chug along. There was a time when we thought it was kind of ready to call it quits, but they pulled through and they've to have some pretty awesome casting coups and they've kept audiences and fans excited and engaged by having some really fun replacements. So that is something that Hadestown always has going for it. Hamilton, what can I say? 2.2 mil, 100% capacity, not going anywhere. Harry Potter and the cursed child 1.5 mil. As long as Tom Felton is in that show, it will be selling tickets. So Tom Felton, how long do you want to stay in it? Joe Turner's come and gone at the Ethel Barrymore went back to over a million dollars this week. Very exciting. Although it had been kind of going down in the grosses for a while. Not that any of this really matters. The show is a limited run anyway and nothing is claiming the Barrymore after them. So it's not like they're cutting this run short. They're. I don't think that they're going to fully recoup, but they will not have lost their entire investment. So that is saying something just in time. That is a show that did recoup. It has not sold in the way that it did when Jonathan Groff was in the show, but it is selling, uh, this week. It's gone down to its lowest gross in a while, under 600k, 84% capacity. Part of that is because Jeremy Jordan has been on vacation. Jeremy Jordan has been able to surprisingly keep that show afloat again, a few hundred K shy of when Groff was in the show. But as I said, the show has recouped. They made their money and it actually has a pretty low running cost. So I would imagine that even at over $700,000 in grosses like they were last week, that is probably a slight profit for them. Maybe. Happy Ending had a pretty low gross last week with 633,000, going up to 710,000 this week at the Belasco. It's about to become the longest running show at the Belasco, which sounds impressive until you realize that it hasn't even cracked 700 performances yet. So that's just how many shows have closed very shortly at the Belasco. Also, by the way, Just in Time has announced tickets up until October at the Circle in the Square, so they may extend past Jeremy's contract. I don't know who they have in mind to go into the show, but Circle in the Square is a desirable theater for a lot of people. It's not a lot of seats, so you can do a lot of dynamic pricing there. They've had a lot of success with things like Enemy of the People and Romeo and Juliet. And of course with Just in Time, there was a moment where Baker's Wife really wanted that theater. But I think Baker's Wife, that transfer is dead. Tbd Belasco also not like the most desirable theater, it has had its successes. We saw this happen with Goodnight, Oscar and Network and maybe Happy Ending has done way better than people expected, but we'll see what happens. I would imagine if things don't turn around soon for maybe Happy Ending, we might see this close up shop after New Year's. But still, that's an over two year run for the show and that's great. MJ at the Neil Simon not going anywhere with 1.6 mil. Moulin Rouge, as we know, is closing up at the AL Hirschfeld hasn't cracked 800 this weekend. I expect ticket sales to pick up towards the end of the summer as it goes to its closing weeks, but right now there doesn't seem to be a huge incentive for fans to go see the show again. Oh Mary with Maya Rudolph at the Lyceum. I think that no one should really think of the Lyceum as an option for anything for a while. Not until we get word that they've run out of Mary's because at the moment, oh, Mary seems to be just fucking killing the game when it comes to replacements and they get really interesting, awesome people to play Mary and that gets people constantly at the Lyceum and that's amazing. Operation Mincemeat at the Golden. Like Omari, they do not say that they're open ended. They just keep announcing extensions, which is tricky and, you know, dishonest, but good for them. It keeps them in the press every time they say we're extending. And Mincemeat has been on a profitability streak lately. It's not fully where it was when it opened. They this week they're at 675k which is. Nope, that's a very healthy gross for the golden, not nearly the highest that they've ever had. It's also not a fully full capacity week. They're at 89% capacity. But I would say Operation Mincemeat is safe for a while. Definitely until January, maybe until next March. I'm sure there are plays that are desperately wanting the golden, so that's just a matter of how how badly the Shuberts want whatever's looking for the Golden Proof at the Booth. It's a limited run, but that's another show that started out very strong and reviews and word of mouth and lack of Tony nominations absolutely killed its momentum. You can get tickets for it on TDF all the time. $730,000 this week, you know, solid capacity, 92%. But again, considering where it started, it's not great. Ragtime doing great for Lincoln Center Theater. Oh, also, nothing's really, really cleared for the Booth right now, but as of as of this moment, I don't think anything is going in there once Proof has closed. So any plays, play, revivals, musicals could go in there again. Maybe even Benjamin Button could go into the Booth if they really wanted an intimate theater. The Beaumont is spoken for once Ragtime closes in August Which I think is a good thing. Once Ragtime went past its first extension, I believe everyone had to move off of their Lord contract and go onto a full Broadway contract. So Ragtime became exponentially more expensive to run. Run. And so while it is doing very well for them, it's not making heaps of money for them. And so closing rack time when they are is probably for the best. Especially since they won't be able to keep the majority of their cast past August. And that is a major selling point and one of the main reasons why this production is successful. So them doing A Few Good Men in the fall and Sounding Music with Jasmine Amy Rogers in the spring is a good move. Move. Schmigadoon at the Nederlander is running until January. It just had its highest grossing week yet of 1.18 mil and almost full capacity. That's great for them, considering they just won best musical. 4 Tonys including best Musical. You'd hope that they would be an SRO at this point. That might be building. We'll see what happens in July and August. But, I mean, this is a show that I think think will continue to sell decently until the end of its run in January. I don't expect them to go past that. I expect them to take it on tour and make bank with that. Which will leave the Nederlander open into the spring. As I understand it, that might be where Damn Yankees is heading. Which has been announced, but has not confirmed its dates or theater. There were rumors of it going into L', Enfantin, but I think it's going to the Nederlander. 6, the Musical at the Lena Horn went down. One of the few shows to go down in its gross this week. Six has been on life support for months now. Genuine months. What was printing money for the first three years of its run. It is now. I mean, that show must cost pennies to run because they are at $553,000 this week in their grosses. $453,000 when you take away the credit card expenses. And there's no way that that's a profitable week. I can't imagine that it is. If it is, they've ma. They've created some amazing deal with the writers and the designers and the actors where with all the coverage that they have and whatnot, that they've been able to keep this running at 400k a week. That'd be. That would be fantastic for them. But I don't think that's true. I would imagine the Lena Horne to be available for any shows that want it. If not the fall, then definitely in the new year. Stranger Things the First Shadow at the Marquee They've already announced that they're closing. They did get to go up in grosses almost 900k this week. Nothing has been announced for the Marquee. I doubt any show really wants it. That theater is ugly. It is a decent location and the Marriott has done some nice stuff to its marquee into its entryway so people have a better idea how to get into the theater, but it's just not a desirable theater for most people. Ballisters just closed up at the Friedman had a decent run. Not a gangbusters run, but a decent run. And MTC has announced its new season. So of course the Friedman will be taking in the new year. Book of Mormon at the Eugene O' Neill went down by over $1.3 million, but that isn't cause to ring the alarms. That was a very special 15th anniversary thing that they were doing Mormon Mystery Week where they had a bunch of original cast members plus Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Robert Lopez come into the show at any given point and do random pieces from the show alongside the current cast of Book of Mormon. And because of that they had their highest grossing week week ever, I believe, with 2.2 mil. And so now they're at a more normal 850k, which is fine. I believe that is still, if not making money, breaking even for them. That said, Book of Mormon has been on a downward streak for the last year and so I would imagine that they have another year in them. I don't think the Eugene Eugene o' Neill will be available in January. I imagine it'll be available about a year from now, if not a year from now, a year and a half from now. So it's not on death Watch, but she's coming. Fear of 13 of the James Earl Jones did go up slightly, but again, 500k, 71% capacity. As I said, Hollywood stars are not a guarantee. They just are not. Now of course, if Denzel did fear of 13 or George Clooney did fear of 13, no one would care. They would just go see it. But but Adrien Brody is not that caliber of Hollywood actor. He is not that top echelon. He's respected, he's a great actor, but he's not truly a movie star. But also, if this show were better, if it were better received, I think we would be seeing healthier grosses right now. But even so, the James Earl Jones is spoken for in the fall, Great Gatsby at the. At the Broadway, it did go up in grosses, but only up to $775,000. This is a show that was clearing over a million dollars a week for over a year, Proving all of us wrong. Proving me wrong. A show that I do not care for, A show that I do not have respect for. But I do respect its hustle and I do respect how long they have lasted at this point. Uh, that said, they are definitely losing money. They've been losing money for a few weeks now, and they will continue to lose money. They don't have anyone in the show right now that is clearly selling tickets. Uh, even Oblazada is back in the show with. With Reeve Carney. And they both have their fan bases. But I think this is Eva's third time in the show at this point. Clearly the demand to see her has gone away. And once she and Reeve leave. Her and Reeve leave. That's a nice rhyme. The demand will be even less. So we'll see what happens. And then, of course, when summer ends and tourism will fade and kids go back to school, I imagine the grosses will be even lower. But that said said, I don't know of any shows that are super hungry for the Broadway in the same way that there aren't many shows that are super hungry for the Majestic. Dreamgirls reportedly has the Majestic, but now I'm hearing that Dream Girls might push to next season. Purple Rain, the Prince musical, was also going to go into the Majestic, but now they are taking time to retool. So if they have figured their shit out by the spring and Dream Girls is waiting for a full year, maybe Purple Rain will take the Majestic. Or. Or if Dreamgirls ends up coming in in the winter and Purple Rain is ready, maybe Purple Rain can go into the Broadway. That would be a nice. That would be a nice thing. Lion King of the Midskoff not going anywhere. Almost $2 million and it's been running for almost 30 years. It's the obsession of Broadway, and by that I mean literally the movie obsession. In terms of its run, Lost Boys of the palace had its highest grossing week yet. 1.4 mil. That is a nice healthy gross for it. That is a money making week. They need a lot more of those in order to return their investment. But this is an encouraging sign. I don't think we're gonna see Lost Boys go away just yet. Too soon to tell how long this might last. I don't know if this is a minor boon or if this is a steady stream, that we'll see for a few months now or even a year or two. But at the moment I. We don't have anything to worry about. Outsiders went back to being over a million dollars this week at the Jacobs. I don't think Outsiders is going away, at least for another year. But the Jacobs is prime property. It's a medium sized theater that a lot of people would love to have have. But in the meanwhile, I think Outsiders is safe. Rocky Horror show at Studio 54 Roundabout has not announced any shows for Studio 54. I'm pretty sure once Rocky Horror closes, I believe they want to do some renovations on the theater. But Rocky Horror is making the money. 1.1 mil this past week. And I don't think that's slowing down anytime soon. They have a lot of cast members leaving in July. So I, as I understand it, they have some really fun people coming in. They already have Sheri, Renee, Scott. So they got my money. So we'll see. I. The word I hear is that Rocky Horror is unofficially going to run for a year dependent on ticket sales with new cast members. Titanique at the St. James. It's a limited run till, till September. We'll see if it lasts that long because at the moment, while it did go up, it only went up to $763,000. Word on the street is that there's a revival of 42nd street being produced by our beloved Scott Rudin that wants the St. James in the spring. And if that's the case, then ATG has no reason to to kick Titanique out before their due date. Two Strangers Carry a Cake Across New York did go up at the Longacre. $20,000 to $670,000 gross. That is technically speaking, treading water for them. Again, you take, you want to take away about a hundred thousand dollars for all of these grosses with credit card fees when you want to look at actual profitability. And Two Strangers I do know has a very tight budget. They have kept a tight leash on that show to maintain, to make sure that it maintains. And this is not really a money making week, but this is not a money losing week. So again, we'll see what happens for the rest of the summer. I'm gonna argue that this will close up after Labor Day, most likely. Again, the Longacre is a theater that I think a lot of shows will want. I think you'll see something like the Harmonious or maybe even Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. There's talk in the Michael Paulson, article of Goddess wanting a Broadway theater. But of course, everybody wants a Broadway theater. Goddess did not have a good reception at the public. I do not expect it to go to Broadway immediately. I don't think that there's a lot of trust in that show right now. But maybe they've done another workshop and figured their shit out. And then Wicked at the Gershwin. Nobody wants the Gershwin. It's the biggest theater on Broadway. It's such a Barn, it's ugly. Wicked's been there for 20 years, three years almost, and is still grossing over a million dollars. It costs a million dollars a week to run. It's also made billions of dollars and the movies have kept it relevant. So I think Wicked is safe for another couple of years. So that said, I think we can look at options for anything that's looking for a theater next season. We can look at the Jacobs, we can look at the, we can look at the Marquee, we can look at the Lena Horn, we can look at the Nederlander, the Boots. I think the golden is an option, but I'm not going to say it's a strong option. Belasco Circle on the Square, Ethel Barrymore is fully open. We know. Music Box, we know is open. Wilson, we know is open. Imperial, we know is open. And I think we can honestly, I hate to say this, but I think we can look at the Broadhurst and the Stephen Sondheim as well for next spring for options for shows. So let's think about that in terms of, of what might be vying for a theater. We know that Dan Yankees is coming in. There are a couple of other revivals that have been circling. There's been talk again of how Next to normal is actually happening. But it might not be happening with Casey Levy, which would be a damn shame because she was so phenomenal in it. But more on that in our deep dive for Next to normal. And yeah, think about that. Think about all these things, about what makes Broadway musicals successful, what makes them maintain, what makes them come to Broadway, what makes them click with audiences, with critics, what makes them profitable in the end. Do not let Michael Paulson's article fool you. 15 new musicals a season is not the norm. We should be looking for eight to ten a year. And at the moment, we've got four new musicals confirmed. We have wanted Galileo, Paddington and Warriors. They have announced they have their theaters, tickets are on sale. And that's just we're still in June as I'm recording this, so there's more to come. And if the heart works at roundabout and that transfers and if Benjamin Button works and that transfers verse. Now we have six. We, we don't need 15 musicals, we just need eight to 10. And we need like five or six of them to be good. And then it becomes a robust season, right? Like if I may, we look at the 2005 year which had 11 new musicals, only two of which actually recouped. But our four best musical nominees, Lighting the Piazza, Spelling Bee, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Spamalot. It's a really strong lineup. I think we talk about this a lot of how that's kind of the last really best musical lineup. I think the next one after that is probably 2017 with Dear Evan Hansen, Grey Comet Come From Way and Groundhog Day. But of course with all of these musicals, people have their opinions of quality. So we don't need 15, we already have four. We're definitely gonna get at least seven. This coming season is already shaping up to be better than last season, but we'll talk more about that next week with our special guest. In the meantime, if you like this podcast, please give us a nice 5 star rating or review. You can subscribe to the Discord Channel and talk more about everything we talked about today. I'm sure people, this article was already shared on the Discord channel so you can read it there. You can subscribe to the YouTube channel, you can subscribe to the substack the next couple of episodes we have this talk with Sean Nyberg. I believe next week after that will be our deep dive on line of the Piazza. I'm going to try to get the deep dive on Next to Normal after that. Then I am closing things out with a recap of this past season Broadway Breakdown and specifically some very important announcements of what we plan to do with this podcast going forward and how all of you can help. So keep in mind with that. Then we're going to take a quick hiatus, give or take a review here and there. And then we will have Our backstage pass 4 episode miniseries on Seussical, going from Inception to Broadway premiere to its post Broadway legacy. And we have interviews with original cast members, Kevin Chamberlain, Janine LaMotta, Michelle Pak, we have David Holstenberg, the original music director, we have Joyce Chidic, we have Stafford Arema, the resident director. And I have a couple more interviews coming up. I don't wanna announce them in case anything falls through, but it should be a good series. I'm excited to work on it for you guys. And that's it. So for this episode. What Broadway diva do we wanna close out with with? You know what? Because she's coming back to Broadway again in Rocky Horror Show. It we're going to close that with Ms. Sherry Renee Scott. Because I really want to. So, yeah, we will see you guys next week. Thank you for this amuse bouche episode. Take it away, Sheri. Bye, Troubles Come on, get happy she cares away Shah hallelujah Come on, get happy get ready, get ready.