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Mickey Jo
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Mickey Jo
So even as the Broadway community reels in response to the latest closing notice, I am here today to tell you that the sky is not falling on Broadway, even if it does seem to be raining prematurely. Closing musicals oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you're listening to this on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. Why else would I be wearing a jumper with the names of various different actresses who have played Rose in Gypsy? And speaking of Gypsy, sadly, In the last 24 hours it has been announced that the current Broadway revival playing at the Majestic theatre starring Audra McDonald as Rose, will end its run earlier than originally planned. The show was previously booking through later in the fall, but will now conclude performances in just a few short weeks on August 17th. And whether you personally consider this surprising or not, it is in the very least auspicious as the latest in a series of prematurely closing musicals after the Tony Awards. And so today, as well as sharing some insights into why Gypsy is closing earlier than planned on Broadway, I'm also going to be talking through the reasons behind the early closures of shows like Boop, Dead Outlaw, Real Women have Curves, even Redwood, which closed pre Tony Awards but just after the Tony Award nominations were released, as well as Smash. And I'm not glancing back through the entire season. We're not going to talk about the likes of Tammy Faye and Swept Away, which I think were fairly self explanatory in terms of critical disappointment and struggle to find an audience respectively. But we are also also going to talk about the bigger picture for Broadway. Whether this is, you know, more shows closing than usual, whether Broadway is in its flop era, whatever that may mean, and the handful of different factors that may be motivating the challenges that these shows faced at the box office. Because inherently all of these shows are closing, have closed already earlier than planned because they weren't making enough money, because they weren't selling enough tickets. That is what it all boils down to. But for each of them, the reasons as to why are a little different. And that is what we're going to be talking about today. Now if you have your own theories thoughts about any of these closing notices, feel free to share them in the comments section down below. My thoughts, as always, are with all of the company members, the crew members, everyone working inside and beyond these theatres, on these shows who are unemployed as a result of these closings. It's always a very difficult time, but Broadway, like the world itself, is going to keep turning and by this time next year there will hopefully have been new tenants in all of these theatres and exciting new performances for us to enjoy and talk about. And if you want to hear me talk about all of those upcoming shows, then make sure you're subscribed right here to my theatre themed YouTube channel or following me on podcast platforms. Meantime, let's talk about Gypsy, Boop, Smash, Dead Outlaw, Redwood and Real Women have Curves. Why did they close early? So before we talk about each of these shows individually, let's talk a little bit about the big picture and why Broadway may be facing some challenges at the moment, perhaps even more so than usual. And one factor currently is the reduction in international tourism. The US is currently experiencing another turbulent political chapter and a lot of people may be more reluctant to visit New York to visit America in the first place for fears of not being let into the country, which by the way, is a political reality I have absolutely no interest in debating in the comment section down below. I'm here to talk about musicals, but international tourism traditionally contributes to a huge proportion of Broadway audiences. And with a reduction in the number of people visiting the country, fewer people are going to be coming to see Broadway shows, which means there are fewer audience members, which means inherently while some shows are going to succeed, other shows are going to struggle, especially when Broadway is sort of at capacity. And this is something that we see around the spring leading up to the Tony Awards. Pretty much all of these Broadway houses end up being filled. And it has been said to me on more than one occasion by people who have worked in ticketing for a very long time that there are just not enough audiences, particularly now, to sustain that many concurrent Broadway shows. There is not enough interest for all of those shows to be full every single night. So some shows are always going to struggle in that climate, sadly. And another thing of course affecting all of this is ticket prices. We have perceived a rise in ticket prices over the last few years, and in this last season we have noticed a handful of shows selling tickets at extraordinarily high prices, which I said at the time was going to be ultimately off putting to several audience members. And even if people were willing to spend hundreds upon hundreds of dollars per ticket on some of these shows, I do still believe that they would have been disinclined to go and see another show the next night. It's not the same as when people were coming to see Hamilton and that helping Broadway because they would see other shows on their trips. I don't think it is at least. And which were the shows that were able to command those audacious ticket prices? Well, it was the ones which were star led. But this last season in particular, the stars were really starry and it made it harder to sell a show on the back of an established Broadway name or an exciting newcomer who was giving a star making performance. They couldn't compete with the box office power of George Clooney and Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal and Sarah Snook. Finally, it's also worth reflecting on the reality that over the last few seasons Broadway turnover over has been increasing. The Broadway seasons have been busier and busier. There have been more eligible plays and musicals, new shows and revivals than we have seen in a very long time because things are running for shorter durations. And so there are more opportunities for other shows to open in the same Broadway season. And that has a handful of problems. Not only do you have so many concurrent shows, making it harder to be the ones that are less flashy, less exciting, less well reviewed, but also what you end up with is really great material and fantastic performances. Who can't wait win the big awards, the drama desks, the Tony Awards, because there are only so many of those to go around. And Broadway this last season has been spoiled for quality when you have shows like Dead Outlaw and John Proctor Is the Villain not winning best Musical and best Play. That I think is evidence alone of the brilliant quality of this past Broadway season. And so those are some of my general thoughts about the Broadway climate at the moment, which I'll reflect on again at the end of this video. But for now, let's dig into each specific instance and talk about why all of these shows are closing. If there is one you want to hear about more so than the others, ch out the chapters down below and navigate to that show. But let's start with Gypsy. So we're going to begin by talking about why Gypsy is closing early, because this is the latest to announce and I'm going to read some details for you from the press release so that we get these dates correct here. It is Gypsy to play final Broadway performance on Sunday, August 17th. And I don't suppose they're going to tell me in this press release when the show was originally booking to, but I have in my mind that it was going to be scheduled through October. And the first thing, the very first thing that I would like to point out here as I sit here wearing a sweatshirt acknowledging previous productions of Gypsy, is that Gypsy has never really been a Broadway juggernaut in terms of box office demand. The last revival of Gypsy, the one starring Patti LuPone, also closed earlier than it was originally scheduled to, after something like 330 performances. This production is going to close after something like 270 performances, aside from the previews, and so not an extraordinary difference between the two, but also that other production of Gypsy won a bunch of Tony Awards. Laura Benanti won a Tony Award, Boyd Gaines won a Tony award, and Patti LuPone won a Tony Award. And this production of Gypsy, though it was nominated, did not win either Best revival or Best Leading Actress in a musical for its star, Audra McDonald. Which isn't to say that the production wasn't reviewed well. It was to a certain extent divisive. I shared some of my disappointments around this revival in a full review that you can watch here on my channel. Nor is it to say that the production didn't receive any awards during awards season. But it's the Tonys that of course have the most power to affect the box office. And I think for a lot of, you know, the seasoned hardcore theater goers, they were always going to try and see this show before the Tonys because that's what that group of people, of which I am included, tends to try and do. Because you want to watch the Tony Awards with a perspective on everything. You want to know how you feel about all of these shows before the Tony Awards happen. And that's really the market for a Broadway revival of Gypsy. It's those kinds of theatre goers. And with the show having opened so far in advance of the Tony Awards, people had had plenty of time to go and see the show and go and see Audra's performance and it had been talked about to death. So by the time the Tonys were rolling around, there weren't necessarily as many people desperate to see the show who were going to go and see it thereafter. Combine that with the fact that the show didn't win big at the Tonys and it starts to look like Sunset Boulevard's decision to conclude just a month after the Tony Awards was in fact a smart one. And the Majestic is also an intimidatingly large house. I do think it's disappointing that the show is not going to be able to continue long enough that they can recast because there are a lot of other talented actresses who pre Audra McDonald have never really had the opportunity to play Rose in Gypsy. Who would be great in this role? I've talked about Cheryl Lee Ralph before. Others have talked about Heather Headley. Montego Glover. Tony Award nominee Montego Glover has recently joined the production. She took over for Audra for a week while she was on a very well deserved vacation and has subsequently become an alternate, playing the role on Sunday performances. And people who pay attention to the publicly released Broadway grosses perceived a little bit of a dip when Montego Glover went in, but there wasn't really a huge rise when Audra McDonald returned to the show either. So it didn't necessarily seem linked to Montego as much as the fact that interest was just dwindling in the show itself. And honestly, the entire marketing focus of this revival was inherently linked to to its original star. This wasn't just Gypsy, this was Audra Gypsy. And they let you know that from the beginning. But there are still a few more weeks to catch this revival since it has opened. People have had very strong opinions about this one, even more so after Audra's Tony Awards performance. And I would encourage you to share any other thoughts or opinions that you have about Gypsy closing on Broadway in the comments section down below. Next, let's go back a couple of months to the early closure of Redwood. So Redwood on Broadway new musical starring Idina Menzel at the Nederlander Theatre. This announced early closing very, very, very shortly after the Tony Award nominations and Redwood was shut out entirely from the Tony nominations. Idina Menzel was not nominated. The show itself was not nominated. There were not even design nominations for Redwood, which honestly, perhaps there ought to have been. This in spite of the show receiving a New York Times critics pick from the soon to be assigned Jesse Green. Redwood is not the only show in this list of early closures, it's worth pointing out, which received new critics picks, which upon reflection isn't necessarily a great look for the newspaper. That is meant to be the strongest voice in terms of arbitrating quality on Broadway and the show absolutely had its fans. But I also think there are a great many people who resonated with my experience, which was one of slightly baffled disappointment. Once again, I have reviewed Redwood on here. You can go and check out that review. I thought this was staggeringly disappointing, if I'm being completely honest. And what was missing from the whole thing was any sense of a strong narrative. And ultimately I think that as well as show stopping performances is going to be the thing that sends audiences out of a theater excitedly talking about it and with enough enthusiasm to generate good word of mouth and to call up their friends. Who calls each other up anymore to text their friends and DM their friends and post it on their Instagram stories and be like everyone needs to see this. And that is what word of mouth can look like in 2025. And I don't think that that was happening with Redwood because I don't think that that is the zone of enthusiasm that the show left us in. It was a show that abso have had an intermission and felt like it only didn't have an intermission because people would have walked out, perhaps even contentedly at the intermission having heard Dina Menzel both sing and fly around a stage, which if we're being honest is kind of all people were buying tickets for. And though Idina remains a massive Broadway star with significant pull, as does her Wicked Broadway original co star Kristin Chenoweth, who is set to return later this year in the Queen of versailles at the St. James, which I will be watching very closely, this is not the first time that either of them have found themselves in a vehicle that just hasn't sold well enough on Broadway. And I think in the case of Redwood, it can largely be attributed to a lackluster word of mouth, to a lack of a strong narrative, to the kind of a score that wasn't really resonating online, and to the show's inherently mystifying identity. For the longest time, all I knew about Redwood was Idina, Menzel and Trees. Then I went to see the show and that was pretty much still all I knew about. Now. Red Hood was the only pre Tony Awards casualty. All of the rest of these shows, even though some of them were already visibly struggling at the box office, managed to hold on through the ceremony in June. But very shortly afterwards.
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Mickey Jo
We heard of another closure and that was Smash. So in one of the more ironic headlines from the last Broadway season, the musical Smash, based on the NBC TV series of the same name, became a Broadway flop, closing after just a few months in late June, very shortly after the Tony Awards, at which it's worth saying, it had scarcely been nominated. I believe Smash was nominated for choreography and for featured actor in a musical for Brooks Ashmanskas, neither of which the show ended up winning. And even if it had, do we really think a choreography win or a featured actor in a musical win were going to reignite a then flatlining box office? It is interesting, however, that Smash went first, because around this time there were a few shows that everyone could tell tell via the Broadway grosses were struggling. And Smash was not the lowest on that list. However, it was very likely the most expensive, not just because of its large company and a lot of different scenic pieces and, you know, high running costs, but also because a lot of those company members were established Broadway performers who were going to be more expensive than the cast of, say, Real Women have Curves, many of whom were making their Broadway debut with that show. And with Smash. We also have to acknowledge, just like we said, Gypsy has never really been a commercial Broadway success. Neither was Smash. The TV series that this was based on, like, that wasn't the most hugely popular thing to begin with. It wasn't a guarantee that tourists would even know what this was. This was a sort of a niche series that was cancelled after two seasons, and it meant a lot to the musical theater community at the time. But therein we discovered another problem, because when Smash was adapted for the Broadway stage, they made several substantial changes to the show as fans knew it. Very few of the characters from the TV series were actually retained for the Broadway version. And this alienated a lot of fans who had been kind of the key demographic for Smash on stage. And if you're upsetting your main fan base and you're not that well known in the first place, then you are going to find yourself with problems. Who is left to go and see this show? This was another New York Times critics pick once again. I reviewed it here, if you want to go and find out what I thought. My thoughts go beyond the disappointment that it had such a flimsy relationship to its source material. And I think it actually had bigger problems as a standalone show, even for audience members who had no idea what it was based on. But that, of course, only applies once they've actually bought tickets and gone inside the building. I think another issue that Smash had was they were trying to sell fictitious stars. And I'm not talking about the brilliant Robin Herder, who is an established and demonstrably talented Broadway veteran. I am talking about the Ivy Lynn of it all and trying to sell this idea of her originally portrayed, of course on screen by Megan Hilty, who audiences could also go see at the same time at death becomes her One street over at the Luntfontanne Theatre, always going to prove challenging. Do you go see a fake Broadway diva or do you go see Audra McDonald play Rose in Gypsy? Do you go see a fake Broadway diva or do you go see Nicole Scherzinger play Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard? The timing was just not good for Smash, and I actually think if they'd opened last season, they probably would have had a better time of it now. By this point we were into late June and the closings were coming through thick and fast. And on June 29, two different musicals closed on the same day. Brutal stuff. One of those was the aforementioned Real Women have Curves. So Real Women have Curves is a really sad story from the last Broadway season and one that we really hope is going to have a happy ending at some point. We hope that the show is going to go on to have a successful regional life or perhaps in community theatre, and it will eventually, through its future reach the communities whose stories it was telling on stage who never really found the show in order to connect with it in the first place. The show opened late in the season at the James Earl Jones Theatre, and it's worth pointing out that I can't remember the last time that was really seen as a problem, but this season we definitely noticed a couple of, you know, good quality musicals opening perhaps just too late in the season because by that point there had already been such quality and the focus was elsewhere and trying to generate rate the kind of press attention that is going to sell tickets and trying to get the great reviews that is going to sell tickets and trying to get the award wins that is going to sell tickets becomes harder when the winners from the season are kind of already decided before you've even opened. It is also said occasionally that the James Earl Jones is a less desirable Broadway house because there are far fewer theaters on that side of 7th Avenue and Broadway than there are on the other side around the kind of Shubert Alley area. But but this season's surprise hit and Tony Award winning best musical, maybe Happy Ending, which it's worth sharing, started out with a very slow box office and fears that it was going to imminently close is also on the eastern side of 7th Avenue a couple streets down at the Belasco Theatre. Another of this season's biggest hits is the comedy play oh Mary, which is also on that side of Broadway. A little further down we have Anne Juliet continuing to run at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre and having become one of the most successful shows from its season. And yet, whether it was geography or whether it was a different problem, Real Women have Curves never really found its audience from the beginning. And this was a show that did have great word of mouth. This was a show that was sending people out onto the street saying, oh my gosh, that was joyous and uplifting and everyone needs to go and see this. Unfortunately, it was competing, I think, with just too many other shows that people were saying the same things about. Maybe happy ending was already established by that point. And it certainly didn't help that Real Women have Curves perhaps had an alienating title. This was an idea that I threw out there when I shared my review of the show, which again, you can go and listen to or watch wherever you're seeing or hearing this. And a lot of people agreed in the comments that they had been put off of the show because of the title. And I think, you know, it's based on a film and a play from decades back. And in 2025, the notion of real women is already a little inherently problematic and unsettling, especially when linked to any kind of a physical characteristic that they need to have in order to be defined as real women. And that is not what the title is saying. And there is an implied double meaning here about the curves that experience in life and the challenges. Because this is not a musical principally about body positivity. This is a musical about the experience of immigrants during a time of raids, which makes it incredibly topical right now, as the US devastatingly is experiencing the same thing once again. And as pertinent as that might be, it is also for some people, off putting. I just today read a comment about someone saying how BOOP was a little too political for them. And if a musical like BOOP is considered to be too political for you, then you'd never be able to contend with the difficult political realities of a show like Real Women have Curves. It's unfortunate, though, that it never seemed to really substantially connect with the community which it was brilliantly representing on stage. And I wonder if it faced competition from the more successful Buena Vista Social Club, which did win a couple of Tony Awards and which was very well received and had had a pre Broadway, Off Broadway life. That is another show depicting Latin American culture with all of its music performed in. In Spanish. But I also don't know to what extent the demographic that that show is actually reaching is that same community. But I'd be very interested to find out whatever the exact reasons were, though Real Women have Curves absolutely deserved better on Broadway. And so did this next one. Now, on the same day that Real Women have Curves closed early on Broadway, over at the Longacre Theater, so did Dead Outlaw. And I was devastated about this. Not just because I hadn't yet had the chance to share my full review, which I still haven't had the chance to share because objectively, there is now no rush and there are so many other shows that I need to talk about and quickly. But I do plan to, so, you know, make sure you're subscribed. Stay, stay with me. I will share my thoughts about Dead Outlaw. Needless to say, I loved it. And that's the other reason why I was so sad and so frustrated about this. Because this is a quirky, fascinating, unique, wholly original show that ought to have been able to find a more substantial life on Broadway. This is exactly the kind of a show that people are asking for when they're complaining about screen to stage adaptations, when they are complaining about jukebox musicals. And I've seen a lot of comments of people saying, like, Broadway would be doing better if it didn't produce so many jukebox musicals. Tell me where the dozens of jukebox musicals were this season. They weren't. And even the ones that were technically jukebox musicals didn't really feel like it in the traditional sense. Buena Vista Social Club Club felt like a much more authentic narrative on stage. It didn't feel like a jukebox musical in the traditional sense. Even the shows like A Wonderful World, the Louis Armstrong musical, and Just In Time, the musical about Bobby Darren starring Jonathan Groff, felt like very creative, legitimate bio musicals that were doing interesting things. It didn't feel like jukebox musical cash grabs. And so it's really disappointing to see the kind of show that audiences allegedly are wanting to see on Broadway. Original stories, original music, quirky and offbeat and different, different and unique, not getting supported by audiences. And I do think that the Longacre Theatre is cursed to a certain extent. This is also where Swept Away was. This is also where Lempicka was. I think the Prom was there as well, and possibly Diana the musical, both of which were before my time on Broadway. But I've heard from friends that the Longacre has just been struggling to sustain musicals for a little while now. And a big part of that, you may laugh at this, but I think has to do with the scaffolding and the construction on the particular street that is it on 48th. It's across the street from Hadestown at the Walter Kerr, wherever it is. And Hadestown has this brilliant marquee signage that you can see from Times Square. And across the other side of the street there is construction and scaffolding blocking the view of the Longacre Theatre signage. And you can see it from.
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Mickey Jo
8Th Avenue. But there's much less pedestrian traffic on 8th Avenue. It's why I prefer walking up 8th Avenue to 7th or Broadway. But I do think in all serious that that has actually impacted the potential sales for the shows which have played there. And it must be acknowledged as well that Dead Outlaw is a very, very, very difficult show to market. And what little it had going for it wasn't really unique to it because it was trying to be the different show of the season, quirky and original, but maybe Happy Ending and Operation Mincemeat between them had kind of already cornered the market on that. It's interesting how much crossover there is between Operation Mincemeat and Dead Outlaw both being these quirky little musicals about Cor, in spite of the fact that they are tonally so different. And Operation Mincemeat is quintessentially British and Dead Outlaw is quintessentially American. The other big selling point of Dead Outlaw, which did not have huge starry names in its cast, was its previous Off Broadway success. It won a whole bunch of awards off Broadway, but Buena Vista Social Club had already opened earlier in the season as another big award winning Off Broadway success. Dead Outlaw is another one that arrived and opened very late, possibly too late, and in the nicest possible way. Having already told you how much I enjoyed this show. It was admittedly bizarre and morbid and not necessarily to everyone's taste. This would not have been an easy show to recommend to like more casual theater going friends from out of town perhaps, or visiting parents or grandparents or families. In the same way I could more easily send people to go see something light hearted and funny and more obviously entertaining. Dead Outlaw, very subversive in a way that I found hugely compelling. But again, I'm not sure where it left audiences in terms of word of mouth and what they said to each other about the show afterwards. Finally, then, let's talk about the last premature closure that we saw before Gypsy. And though the viral sound we could go see Boop has been trending on social media for weeks, you unfortunately no longer can because the show starring Jasmine Amy Rogers as Betty Boop has since closed at the Broadhurst Theatre. This was another one that didn't pick up any Tony award wins despite Jasmine being nominated for her performance, Jerry Mitchell being nominated for his choreography. They did quite well at the drama desks in terms of nominations and wins. Interestingly enough, Boop was quite well liked by the critics, but audiences have not been flocking to see this show since really the start of its Broadway run. Boop didn't climb a mountain and then begin to fall down the other side. Boop just never really climbed the mountain in the first place. It's sad to say. And that is something I think we have to put down to a lack of an appetite for this show. I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Who was asked to asking for a Betty Boop musical? There are similarities with the Barbie movie and you know, the Barbenheimer of it all. And the marketing of all of that really pushed the Barbie movie. That also had a more obvious message than Boop, which was trying to do something a little more generic and just a little more fun perhaps, but which perhaps overestimated the appeal of Betty Boop as a leading character for a musical. And though both audiences and critics have agreed that Jasmine Amy Rogers was given giving a star making performance, she was phenomenally good in this show. That wasn't enough to create demand at the box office. And we also have to reflect, I think, on a lot of these. And I remember when Suffs closed I raised the question, are audiences in general less inclined to go and see female led stories about femininity and about female empowerment? Because you think about Boop, you also think about real women have curves. You also think about about Smash, which is very female led. You also think about Redwood, you also think about Gypsy. And this is not a brush with which we can tar every single female led show of the Broadway season. But I am seeing a connection here and I'm going to continue talking about it because I do think that there is this underlying, I mean, call it what you will, I'm going to call it a cultural misogyny that is alienating A lot of audiences from female led and female centered musicals and I think it's something we should all be mindful of in the industry. Looking forwards, it's definitely something I'm going to be paying a lot of attention to. But finally then let's reflect on the future of the industry. And you know, after talking about so many early closings and making it sound like it's very difficult to mount a show successfully on Broadway and it is, make no mistake, I want to reassure you that the sky is not falling. We have seen a bunch of shows closing in succession. We have also seen a lot of shows enjoying great success and a lot of really encouraging stories about little shows that could like Operation Mincemeat, like maybe Happy Ending, certainly like oh Mary, look at o' Mary. And the way they're casting now, going from strength to strength, bringing in all of these great stars in order to maintain the Broadway life of this downtown quirky queer comedy from Cola Scola. That's a great thing to see. Maybe Happy Ending, like I said, was nearly not even going to open on Broadway with investors pulling out and a lot of initial challenges and it has become this huge thing. Death Becomes her is another audience delight. Buena Vista Social Club is doing very well and it seems like we potentially even even have more strong, long running shows that will last into the next season and perhaps even through next year's Tony Awards than we have done for the last few years. And this was on the rise already because the Outsiders and Hell's Kitchen and possibly one other that I'm forgetting, the Great Gatsby, There you go. Lasted beyond their Broadway seasons last year. But the year before there were almost no shows which did I spoke about and Juliet as being possibly the last one standing. From its season going back a few years. We've had Moulin Rouge and we've had six, but it's been a while since we've seen a Broadway season that has any kind of staying power. Almost all of the shows from each season were gone by the time the next was rolling around. This is what I'm talking about when I talk about significant turnover. And so while there have been conspicuous commercial disappointments this season on Broadway, there have also been a lot of surprising and rewarding successes that I think we should be celebrating. All of this to say Broadway is not doomed. Broadway is not in its flop era. I'm very intrigued to see what the next season looks like. But there's plenty from the last year year that we are still able to celebrate. And hell, once we separate ourselves from a commercial mindset and take that particular hat off. We should also celebrate all of these shows which did close early, which managed to make it to Broadway and entertain audiences, and all of which will go on hopefully to have some kind of a future life. The new shows at least. And in the spirit of that, if you had a fantastic experience at any of the shows which I have mentioned today, which sadly closed earlier than intended on Broadway, I would love it if you would share that experience in the comments section down below. Let's talk about how impactful these shows actually were were with audience members, which sometimes is the most important thing. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening to my thoughts about Broadway. I have been Mickey Jo, I hope that you've enjoyed make sure to subscribe to my theatre themed YouTube channel or follow me on podcast platforms if you did. And as always, I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day.
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Podcast Summary: MickeyJoTheatre Episode – "Why is everything closing on Broadway?"
Episode Information:
Introduction to Broadway Closures
In this episode, Mickey Jo delves into the unsettling trend of numerous Broadway shows closing earlier than anticipated. Highlighting recent closures, including renowned productions like Gypsy, Smash, Dead Outlaw, Real Women Have Curves, Redwood, and Boop, Mickey Jo seeks to unravel the underlying causes behind this phenomenon and explore the broader implications for the Broadway landscape.
Key Reasons for Early Closures
Reduction in International Tourism
Escalating Ticket Prices
Saturated Broadway Season
High Production Costs and Star Power
Lack of Strong Narrative and Word-of-Mouth
Cultural Misogyny and Gender Representation
Case Studies of Early Closures
Gypsy at the Majestic Theatre
Redwood at the Nederlander Theatre
Smash at [Unnamed Theatre]
Real Women Have Curves at the James Earl Jones Theatre
Dead Outlaw at the Longacre Theatre
Boop at the Broadhurst Theatre
Impact on the Broadway Community
Mickey Jo expresses empathy for the entire Broadway community, acknowledging the hardships faced by company members and crew due to these closures. He remarks:
Optimism for Broadway's Future
Despite the current challenges, Mickey Jo remains optimistic about Broadway's resilience and future prospects. He highlights the successes of shows like Happy Ending and Buena Vista Social Club as evidence that quality productions can still thrive.
Quote: "Broadway, like the world itself, is going to keep turning and by this time next year there will hopefully have been new tenants in all of these theatres and exciting new performances for us to enjoy and talk about." (18:30)
Additional Insights:
Conclusion and Call to Action
Mickey Jo wraps up the episode by encouraging listeners to engage with the content, share their experiences with the closed shows, and stay connected for future discussions on emerging Broadway productions.
Quote: "If you had a fantastic experience at any of the shows... I would love it if you would share that experience in the comments section down below." (31:10)
Final Remarks: Reiterates his commitment to providing insightful theatre criticism and fostering a supportive community for Broadway enthusiasts.
Notable Quotes:
On International Tourism:
On Ticket Prices:
On Cultural Misogyny:
On Broadway's Resilience:
Final Thoughts
This episode provides a comprehensive analysis of the recent downturn in Broadway show performances, meticulously dissecting various factors from economic to cultural that have contributed to the premature closures. Mickey Jo's balanced perspective offers both a critical examination of current challenges and a hopeful outlook for the future of Broadway, making it an invaluable listen for theater enthusiasts and industry stakeholders alike.
Note: Time stamps are indicative and correspond to the positions within the provided transcript.