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Welcome to Today on Broadway for Thursday, November 20, 2025. I'm Broadway Radio's Matt Tammini and I'm.
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Tell Me on a Sunday podcast Grace.
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Ake Grace Tonight over at the Longacre Theater we will have the latest Broadway opening. This one is Two Strangers carry a cake across New York. So because of that we are going to record later tonight after the reviews are out. So if you normally listen in Patreon, that will be fairly late. I'm not exactly sure when the reviews are embargoed for, but we will check that out and get that episode out as soon as we can. It'll be in the regular feeds as normal, however. But speaking of reviews, I wanted to start with a major Off Broadway show that just opened this week and that is over at the Shed as this World of Tomorrow officially opened. It is led by Tom Hanks and Kelly o'. Hara. Tom Hanks wrote the script along with James Glossman, and it is based on short stories by Hanks. Kenny Leon directs and the cast also includes such luminaries as Ruben Santiago Hudson, Jo Sanders, Kerry Bechet, Kaylee Carter, Lee, Aaron Rosen, Jamie Ann Romero, Paul Murphy, Donald Webber Jr. And Michelle Wilson. In the story, Tom Hanks plays Burt who embarks on a time traveling quest. He returns again and again and again to one special day at the 1939 New York World's Fair in Queens and revives a dream of what the future could be. The show is currently scheduled to play through December 21, so a little bit over a month from now. And as the show opened, Grace, the reviews were mostly mixed, one major positive and a few fairly significant negative reviews. The major positive though, was from the New York Times, which sometimes is the only one that matters, although with Tom Hanks I'm not sure that any of it really matters. But Laura Collins Hughes said, quote, the play's futuristic framework notwithstanding, and despite the distinct Groundhog Day element to its conceit, connoisseurs of Nora Ephron's movie youe've Got Mail will detect several echoes of that classic here. Not because of any writerly pilfering, but mainly because Hanks, who made his Broadway debut a dozen years ago in a posthumous production of Efron's Lucky Guy, is the one speaking the lines. Jackson McHenry of Vulture was one of the negatives saying, quote, there are plenty of talented folks around Hanks who have been roped into making this, and plenty of people in the audience who might be paying a lot to see him, but they don't factor into the equation. This thing is entirely about admiring its star. Hey, at least there are some fun hats. Benjamin Lee, writing for the Guardian, said, quote, in his new play the World of Tomorrow, his fondness for the good old days has led to the inevitable. A story about a man with a fondness for the good old days who actually gets to experience one of them for himself. It's a loosely familiar tale of time travel based on a short story written by Hanks that tries and half succeeds to bring something new to a table we've sat at many times before. One of the negative reviews was Naveen Kumar from the Washington Post. But despite being negative, he did have something positive to say about Tom Hanks co star. He said, quote, first let's keep Hanks co star Kelly o' Hara above this fray, where she belongs. As a wounded but warm and plucky divorcee, she is the lone lighthouse in this sea of slop. It's easy to see why a few minutes with her character as she kicks off her uncomfortable heels at the 1939 World's Fair would make a time traveling man crazy to see her again. In fact, Oharas delicate radiance in the role and the devotion it inspires is the only part of the story that makes sense. So Grace, as I said, I'm not sure that this matters. It's Tom Hanks off Broadway. I think people are going to pay to see this show no matter what. But interesting that it is not getting necessarily the reviews or even the word of mouth that you would probably expect from a show led by one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.
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This is so challenging. I think it's challenging in the world of Good Night and Good Luck George Clooney. I think of like our biggest movie stars doing theater, right? And I mean listen, of course as a Nora Effron Stan and a Tom Hanks Stan. Like I wanted to see this show too but I was like I there's no way I can just, you know, the, the it's hard to do, but I understand wanting to see a person of that caliber live in front of you. It's. It's just this tedious nature of, like, is the work good? Like, is this necessary? I don't know, but it's. It's wild. These reviews are kind of wild, but a lot of people that I know have really enjoyed getting to see it, so I hope it doesn't hinder people. But I agree with you. It's kind of tedious because there's the. They're building off of the nostalgia that you just talked about for, like the you've got mail of it all. But it's hard.
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It is. Well, and Anthony, too is like, I think anytime you say Tom Hanks and then throw in the other stars, Kelly o', Hara, Ruben Santiago, Hudson at all, and then compare it to a Nora Ephron thing, like, that doesn't sound bad to me. Like, even if it's not a great facsimile of Anora Ephron kind of story, like, I still am okay with being warmed over by those nostalgia vibes. So. But I don't know that that necessarily matters for this run of the show, but maybe that it will impact what happens in the future. All right, let's dive into. Last week's Broadway gross of mostly Broadway was flat, maintaining 34 shows on Broadway. The grosses only dipped a little under $500,000 to come in at 40,196,250 bucks. Attendance was down 3% to 297,542 people. And the average ticket price was just up 1% to 135.09. Hamilton was the leader, as it has been for throughout the duration of Leslie Odom Jr's run, coming in at $3,852,326. But next up was Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, obviously celebrating the first week of Tom Felton's return to the role of Draco Malfoy. What's interesting about that, though, is, is the fact that even though it did basically $2.6 million last week, they only had seven shows and one of them was a heavily comped and invited gala opening night kind of performance. So if that would have been a full eight show week, could it have gotten closer to $3 million? Probably. So it'll be interesting to see how this plays out through a normal week of shows with Tom Felton in it. Does it eclipse $3 million along with Hamilton kind of doing what Leslie Odom Jr. Is doing for that show. Both running in their own right. So we will have to wait and see. But with an average or with a. With a top ticket price of $900 for Cursed Child and $1,500 for Hamilton, the opportunity to pull in big dollars in the grosses is certainly there. Next up though was wicked at basically $2.39 million. Obviously heading into everything with Wicked for good will be interesting to see if that bumps up as well. Chess came in fourth place at 1.78 million, which is down from the previous week. But because of open of comped tickets were factored into that and then the Lion King was in fifth at 1.76. The rest of the shows north of seven figures in descending order are Mamma Mia. Waiting for Gadot Art. Just in time. Death Becomes Her Ragtime. Oh, Mary maybe Happy Ending. The Great Gatsby, M.J. the Queen of Versailles, Buena Vista Social Club and the Outsiders. Grace. I don't know if this is possible, but at what point do we see Mamma Mia. Continuing to be in the top five, six, seven shows grossing $1.5 million? Do you think producers will start to actively consider maybe not closing it after the new year? I'm sure those conversations, if they are happening, have already happening. But, like, is this something that we might be able to think about over at the Winter Garden?
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This is such a challenging thing. It's such a real estate market right now and I've not heard a lot about what people are, you know, moving out of, moving into, like, I think the grosses. I think that everything that's happening in the world, frankly, is causing a lot of standstill. Like, we don't have the same influx of new works happening right now. I think it's very much who has the money to put up their show and whose investors are keen to make those shows happen with those real estate agents, AKA the theater owners. So who knows? And I think that the new year, I think that the holiday season is going to be very telling for a lot of shows. I'm very hopeful for shows like Two Strangers Carry a Cake, which will open, I guess, in a day now, tomorrow.
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Yeah.
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And that is to me, a very great holiday recommendation show. Not to like, you know, break embargo, but I'm hopeful for some of these newer shows that people will say, you know what, we should try these out. Liberation. Also a part of that. That it's just a very. It's a challenging market. But I agree with you. I don't know the Winter Garden. I've heard a lot of rumors about that too. I don't know.
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Yeah, well, first off, Two Strangers is set around Christmas, so, like, it is a good holiday show regardless of whether or not it is good or not. Spoiler alert. It is, but like, the Winter Garden doesn't have anything announced for the spring. And when I'm seeing these grosses, that's like, kind of what I'm thinking. And I've heard a lot of, you know, talk around the industry about, like, there are certain shows on Broadway that have had to pare down their like, sets because of tariffs importing things from overseas. So, like, I think just the, the prices of things are very expensive. So with a show like Mamma Mia. That is already up and running, the set has long been paid for because it's the tour set. Like, I just wonder if that's just a better financial opportunity given the fact that it's pulling in $1.5 million already. So we'll have to wait and see. Lots of rumors around there, but will be fun to watch. All right, some pretty cool news coming out of the Southern California area this week. It was announced that Tony Award winning director Jessica Stone will take over as the artistic director at the La Jolla Playhouse. She is succeeding Christ, who is moving across the country to become the AD at the Roundabout Theater Company. Of course, Jessica Stone won a Tony Award for Kimberly Akimbo, also helmed Water for Elephants and a number of other great shows in New York City. She will take over beginning in early 2026. Obviously there has been a ton of great people that have come out of the La Jolla Playhouse, including former artistic directors Des MacAnough, Michael Greif, obviously Christopher Ashley and more. And many, many Broadway shows have come from there, including the Outsiders, Indecent, Come From Away, Memphis Jersey Boys, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Tons of Things, Big River. So excited to see what she does over there and interested if she's able to keep a foot both in New York and La Jolla or if she'll only be represented on Broadway with shows that are transferring from there. But congratulations to her. That is very exciting. And then, Grace, I have not heard of this show, but it is fascinating to me. It's a show called Burnout Paradise. Have you heard of this?
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I've just recently heard about it.
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Okay, so this is a show that has played New York City before but has been all over the country. It is from all over the world, actually. It is from an Australian theater company called Pony Cam. How this works is there are four performers and they are all tasked with running collectively 20km on treadmills during the show. During that show they have to complete a wide array of different tasks. Everything from preparing a three course meal, washing their hair, reciting the to be or not to be speech, walking a dog and picking up its poop, writing and submitting an arts grant. And if they fail to complete these tasks, they give the audience their money back, which is bonkers to me. They've done this at St. Anne's Warehouse before, but it is coming back. It'll have a limited engagement at the Astor Place Theater, but even though it's limited, it is fairly long. It'll begin performances on February 18th and it's currently scheduled to play through June 28th. This is such a cool, unique thing to do in a theater and reminds me of that one music video where it was all choreographed on treadmills to the song that I can't remember. But this is cool and I am looking forward to hopefully getting a chance to check it out in the spring. And then finally Grace, if you thought Hamilton was everywhere before, just wait because it is getting ready to come to a high school near you Because Concord Theatricals, in association with Lin Manuel Miranda and everybody at Hamilton, have announced that they have gotten the rights for a high school edition of Hamilton and it will begin rolling out to schools across the country in 2028. Lynn made an announcement at the show at Hamilton earlier this week. Concord put out a bunch of stuff on social media, so I'm interested to see how they pare this down for high schoolers. I don't think that any of the content necessarily will be changed, but maybe they will trim things up to make it a little bit shorter. But this teen edition will roll out fairly quickly and I am excited to see Grace, what different schools and programs and directors and actors do to kind of take this show that we all know the visuals of so well because of the pro tape and how successful it's been and make it more of a school friendly show.
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You know, it was time and I knew this day would come. So let the children have it. You know, the churches got to it first. Let the children have it.
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Very good, very good. All right, I want to wrap up with a recommendation, Grace, and this one was one that you were at because to celebrate the three year anniversary of and Juliet on Broadway, they did a performance of Ariana Grande's yes and the current Juliet, Gianna Harris was joined by previous Juliets, Maya Boyd and Lorna Courtney. We have that video in the show. Notes what was that celebration, like, on Tuesday night?
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It was so great. I mean, with 48 shows that opened right after Covid, it's one of three that has survived. And I think that it's worth continuing to celebrate. It's such a crowd pleaser, the fact that they did a fully new choreographed and sung number just for this celebration. Also just, you know, to celebrate. Let's say it. Max Martin and Ariana Grande are also having a moment just as well as the show. This was an amazing thing to see. I got to see my friend Jumin do a full breakdance solo. He's over a thousand performances into. And Juliet, this was just. It was a spectacular thing. It was great to see everybody in the house. Like, the producers were there, the, you know, the company managers that have built the show, the ensembles. It was just. It was an amazing thing, and I'm just so grateful to be a part of that.
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All right, everybody, remember, tomorrow's episode will be delayed in Patreon because of the opening of Two Strangers Carry a Cake Across New York. But otherwise, we will be back in normal tomorrow. All right, everybody, that's all that we have for today. Thanks for listening to today on Broadway. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at broaderradio. If you want more Broadway radio, head over to patreon.com broadwayradio Grace. Where can people find you?
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You can find me at Grace. Aki.
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All right, everybody, have a wonderful Thursday. We'll be back to talk to you tomorrow.