Matt Tammini (0:01)

Welcome to Today on Broadway for Thursday, December 5, 2024. I'm Broadway Radio's Matt Tammini. I'm on my own today because Grace on Wednesday night got invited to go be a part of the audience that got to see the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree be lit hosted by Kelly Clarkson. So she is very fancy. So she is over at 30 Rock while I am recording. But we have a ton of news so there will be plenty of things to get into. So we will have a jam packed show nonetheless. But before we get into that, yesterday I sent out a notice to all of our Patreon subscribers. Grace and I will be recording a Q and A episode this weekend. So if there's anything that you want to hear us talk about, go further in depth on shows that we've seen, our favorite things that we have seen this year, questions about what shows to see over the holidays, rumors you've heard about shows coming in or casting or thoughts about the spring season. Feel free to send those into patreonrodwayradio.com and we will answer as many of those as we can this weekend and we will get that out to you on Patreon at the Mezzanine Tier and above next week. Now onto the news. Yesterday we got further principle casting for the upcoming Broadway premiere of Stranger Things, the First Shadow, and that includes three stars of both stage and screen. The biggest name probably in this casting is T.R. knight. Not only is he, of course an Emmy nominee for Grey's Anatomy, but he is currently starring in the Merchant of Venice Downtown at the Classic Stage Company. He's going to be playing Victor Creel. And then joining him is another Emmy nominee, Gabrielle Navia, who has done a lot of work on Nickelodeon. She's playing Patty Newby. They are also being joined by Alex Brio, who is playing Dr. Brenner. Now here's what's interesting about Alex Brio. He is in Stranger Things Season 5. We don't yet know who he is playing in that season, but according to IMDb he is in all eight episodes. So this is where I really do wish that Grace was here because maybe she could help me understand a little bit of the mythology behind Stranger Things because she has seen the First Shadow and of course she watches the show as well. So I don't know who Dr. Brenner is in terms of Stranger Things lore, but it is very interesting to me and I'm guessing not super coincidental that he's in both season five and in this stage show. But also joining the company are Rosie Benton, Nikki Eldridge, Andrew Havelson, Alison J and Burke Swanson. Alison J is playing Joyce Maldonado who is the Winona Ryder character and Burke Swanson is playing James Hopper who is the David Harbour character. These are the younger versions because this happened this a prequel show to what we have seen on Netflix. Performances of course will begin on March 28th at the Marquis Theater with an opening day scheduled for April 22. Stephen Daldry directs the show with Justin Martin as the co director and the script was written by Kate Treffery based on an original story by the Duffer Brothers, Jack Thorne and Treffery as well. There will be additional casting announced coming up next month in January. So I don't know if there's more ensemble or understudies or whatever, but this cast is filled with people with lots of stage credits, even if they aren't the biggest theatrical names. T.R. knight has been seen on Broadway in Noises Off, Tartuffe, A Life in the Theater and It's Only a Play. Brio was last seen on Broadway in the Real Thing and the Shakespeare in the park in 2016 of Troilus and Cressida. So if you want more information on the rest of this cast, we will have it in the show. Notes that is not the only exciting casting that we got yesterday because New York City Center Encores announced the complete cast for the upcoming production of Urinetown. That'll happen from February 5th through the 16th. We already knew that Jordan Fisher was playing Bobby Strong, Taron Killam was playing Officer Lock Stock, Keala Settle was Penelope Pennywise and Stephanie Stiles will be Hope Caldwell. Joining this production are some fantastic names playing Caldwell B. Caldwell. Hope Caldwell's father is Rainn Wilson. Yes, Dwight Schrute himself will be taking to the New York City center stage in this musical. He will be joined by Tiffany Mann as Soupy Sue, Jenny Barber as Little Becky Two Shoes and Mrs. Millennium. Josh Breckenridge as Senator Phipp, Yaman Brown will play Billy Boy Bill, the always delightful Tony nominee Kevin Cahoon as Old Man Strong and Hot Blades, Harry Pearl Scarlet Gold will play Little Sally, Greg Hildreth will play Officer Beryl, Jeff hiller will play Mr. McQueen, Daniel Quadrino will play Robbie the Stockfish Myra Lucretia Taylor will play Josephine Strong and John Yee will be Tiny Tom. Included in the ensemble will be Graham Rowat, but he is going to also play Officer Lock Stock on Valentine's Day. I don't know if Taran Killam and Colby Smulders have plans on Valentine's Day, but Taran Killam will not be in the role on that performance. Over at the Lena Horne Theatre, we got a different kind of casting announcement yesterday because all six of the current queens now have departure dates set. And breaking with the tradition of the past couple casts, they are not all leaving together. We already know that Caleb Wilcoxon left on November 24. She was replaced by the original Catherine of Aragon, Adriana Hicks. We now know that Jasmine Forsberg, one of my favorites, a regular hero on Broadway radio, will wrap up her run on January 12th as Jane Seymour. We already know that she is going to be part of Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends. Then the next month Then the next month, Dee Dee Romero will exit as Katherine Howard on February 9th. Then Adriana Hicks will leave along with Gabriella Carrillo, Olivia Donaldson and storm lever on February 17th. So it looks like at that point they might have the new queens in. It's interesting that they are not doing a wholesale line change like they had with Cast two and Cast three. So whoever Cast four is, it looks like they will be joining in full on February 17th. It might be that the people who replace Jasmine and Dede might start earlier, but whenever the full cast is for the next year of 6 will start probably on the performance after February 17th. All right, let's dive into last week's Broadway grosses. And they were historic. And I don't say that lightly. Last week Broadway had the biggest box office showing for any Thanksgiving week ever. And while we always talk about like, oh, the biggest numbers in the box office records don't really mean a whole lot because tickets just keep getting more expensive, it's not like they are suddenly filling more seats. Those are a very finite thing. But this was a gigantic increase over last year. There were 38 shows running on Broadway last week and they brought in $46,046,759. That is eleven and a half million dollars more than they did during Thanksgiving week last year. And yes, higher ticket prices probably play a part of that. I did not go back and do the average ticket price for those two weeks, but I will say last week 312,143 people saw a Broadway show compared to the 228,711 the previous year. So that is a gigantic step up. That was not the previous record week, but it is a good comparison to see where things are this year versus last year. The average ticket price last week, though, did jump quite a bit. It jumped 21% week over week to come in at 147,052 cents, helped by the holiday, but also the juggernaut phenomenon at the movie theater. Wicked came in on the top of the grosses ladder at $2,930,221. They were followed fairly closely by the Lion King at 2.88 million, Hamilton at 2.58, Elf coming in fourth at 1.95 and then the Outsiders rounded out the top five at 1.84. The rest of the many shows north of seven figures in descending order are Aladdin, Sunset Boulevard, MJ, the Great Gatsby, Gypsy in just seven performances, Hell's Kitchen, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Back to the Future and Juliet, Moulin Rouge, O Mary, Death Becomes Her Cabaret, Romeo and Juliet, the Book of Mormon 6, Hadestown and once Upon a Mattress Softs came in at pretty close at $955,000. There were only a handful of shows that actually saw week to week declines. Sunset Boulevard dropped about $49,000. A Wonderful World dropped 81,000. Hills of California dipped about 68,000. Left on 10th declined 132,000. The Roommate, which only did six performances that was scheduled. So they lost $100,000, but that makes sense. And then Tammy Faye, in its second to last week fell $58,000. Eureka Day started performances last week. It only did six shows, but it brought in $170,430. If you divide that over over six shows and then extrapolate to a grand total of eight, it would have brought in $227,240. Of course, again, we always talk about subscription houses. Those early numbers aren't super important because of subscriptions and it's not always representative of how many people have actually paid to see the show. It is just not necessarily always reflected in the individual ticket sales. In total, 22 of Broadway's 38 shows plus played to capacities of 90% or more. O Mary and Wicked were both at exactly 100%. The Outsiders was at 102.09% and then Romeo and Juliet was on top at 102.63% capacity. Last week, the reigning Tony Award winner for Best play, stereophonic, brought in $926,610. But they might have to send some of that out here fairly soon because there has been a conc conclusion met in the lawsuit by former sound engineer and producer for Fleetwood Mac, Ken Calliot, and Stephen Stifle, his co author for his 2012 memoir making rumors over the lawsuit that David Ajme stole incidents from his memoir to include in Stereophonic. We do not know what the finalized terms are, but a joint motion was filed in the Southern District Court of New York on Tuesday in which it said that the two sides had resolved the dispute in principle and would have a finalized settlement for the court by the end of the month. Heading over to the Nederlander Theater, Idina Menzel, as we know, will return to Broadway in Redwood at that very Theater on January 24th. But she will be there before that because this Friday, December 6th, Idina Menzel will be on hand to draw the winners for a very special $20 ticket lottery for the show's first preview. That $20 price on the lottery tickets might sound familiar because that was the price for tickets to rent when that iconic show that of course Idina Menzel starred in became the first Broadway show to offer lottery tickets. So not only did that show play the Nederlander where Redwood is going in, but they are doing a tribute to really revolutionary act accessibility to people who wouldn't be able to normally afford tickets. So you can sign up beginning at 9am in person at the Nederlander box office on Friday and Adina will be there to draw winners beginning at 10am you must be present at the time of the drawing to win, so if you want to get there, get those $20 tickets. You need to be able to stay for an hour or so, but if you don't win, you will also have an opportunity to purchase specially priced tickets for that first preview from $55 for mezzanine seats to $75 for orchestra seats. Those prices are only available on that day. All right, a couple of developmental stories that I want to throw out to you. Happening on December 10, there will be an industry presentation of the new folk thriller musical the Turning. It is directed and developed by Sammy Knold and will feature a cast include including Idina Menzel's Rent co star Anthony Rapp, recent Hadestown star Lola Tung, Tommy, and We Live in Cairo star Ally Lewis Borzge, along with Jane Bruce and Ella Re Ward, in addition to an ensemble of wonderful folks. The book and score were written by Zach Zadick and it follows two best friends who search for healing in a California wellness retreat which ultimately reveals itself to be something else entirely. And then another upcoming presentation actually happens this Friday. It is a new musical called the Gorgeous Nothings that is being directed and choreographed by Danny Mefford. It is inspired by real people and events and it tells the forgotten story of an isolated wing at the Welfare Island Men's Penitentiary, which is reserved for inmates convicted of homosexuality during the 1930s. The cast will include Taylor Trench, Alan K. Washington, John Cariani, Arnie Burton, K. Todd Freeman, and Ken Barnett. All right, before we get out of here, I want to remind you that if you have questions for Grace and me, send them to patreonradwayradio.com and we will answer as many of those as possible when we record our episode this weekend. All right, that's all we have for you today. Thanks for listening to Today on Broadway. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Broadway Radio. You can follow me on Instagram @bww. Matt, have a wonderful Thursday and we'll be back to talk to you tomorrow. Sa.