The Future of Entertainment, Part 2: What’s the Matter With Broadway?

Summary

---

Plain English with Derek Thompson

Episode: The Future of Entertainment, Part 2: What’s the Matter With Broadway?

Date: October 14, 2025

Guest: John Johnson, Broadway Producer

---

Brief Overview

In this episode, Derek Thompson interviews Broadway producer John Johnson about the state of Broadway in 2025. They explore Broadway’s current economic challenges, demographic shifts in its audience, the impact of COVID-19, the rise of celebrity casting, and why the "middle class" of Broadway is struggling. The conversation reflects on what it takes to produce hits, the venture-capital-like risk profile of producing theater, and the broader context of entertainment’s evolution in America.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Broadway’s Recent History and the “Golden Decade”

• [07:26] How the Past Two Decades Were Boom Years
  • Johnson charts out a Broadway “tech boom” from the 2000s to the 2010s, highlighted by consistent hits:
    • “The Producers,” “Wicked,” “Jersey Boys” (2000s)
    • “Book of Mormon,” “Hamilton,” “Dear Evan Hansen,” “Come From Away,” “Waitress,” and “School of Rock” (2010s)
  • The pattern: One giant hit per year, accompanied by multiple strong shows, national tours, London transfers, and cast albums.
  • “Almost every year you had a hit, and not only did you have one hit, but you had at least two or three others that would sort of follow in its wake.” — John Johnson [07:52]
• [09:42] Pre-COVID Broadway
  • Broadway shows generated returns from multiple streams: primary NYC runs, London, national tours, cast recordings, and licensing for high school/community theaters.
  • The economics resembled venture capital: bets on risky projects, with a few blockbusters covering losses elsewhere.

2. Understanding Broadway's Economics

• [10:32] Broadway Economics Explained
  • Each show is a standalone business with high startup costs and large payrolls.
  • Recoupment triggers profits for investors and creatives, then spinoffs and downstream revenue streams begin.
  • “When a show hits recoupment, that's when it's profitable. And by that point...you say, ‘Hey, come on in on London. Come on in on the national tour.’” — John Johnson [11:10]
• [13:30] Comparisons to Venture Capital
  • Producers rely on rare, high-earning hits to cover multiple other investments.
  • “For the most part, with these shows that we're talking about, they are. And so then you have things like the cast album recording... licensing is a big part of the Broadway industry.” — John Johnson [11:34]

3. COVID-19’s Seismic Disruption

• [14:32] What Changed Post-Pandemic
  • Rising costs became universal: materials, labor, security, HR, and mental health support.
  • Audience demographics shifted dramatically — suburban “matinee ladies” (predominately women 60+) cut back on attendance, replaced by city-living Gen X and elder millennials eager for live events post-lockdown.
  • “Instead of coming six to eight times a year, they started coming twice a year post Covid. And so that was a big seismic shift.” — John Johnson [16:55]
  • Zip code data revealed heat maps shifting from suburbs to financial district, Brooklyn, and Manhattan strongholds.

4. Demographic and Content Evolution

• [18:53] Impact on Content and Theaters
  • Younger, urban audiences favor Off Broadway, intimate venues—especially for shows starring celebrities.
  • “Shows that are starting out in 200 seat theaters down in the West Village are actually more attractive to that new core audience...” — John Johnson [19:34]
• [21:06] The Growth of Celebrity Casting
  • The flood of Hollywood talent on Broadway has accelerated, driven by shorter TV contracts and more flexible film schedules post-streaming boom.
  • Both established “theater creatures” and bucket-list seekers like George Clooney are drawn to Broadway, with shows turning into full-on celebrity experiences.

5. The Central Crisis: Costs Up, Risk Aversion Up

• [23:17] Analyzing the “Crisis” Narrative
  • Costs are up everywhere due to inflation and new protocols; competition for attention is fiercer thanks to streaming and social media.
  • Musicals, in particular, are pressured: expensive to develop, requiring larger staffs, and a minimum five- to seven-year development period.
  • “Musicals take longer to develop... shows that are even landing this season on Broadway started their journey in 2018, 2017, at a time at which... the audience has shifted.” — John Johnson [24:53]
• [27:45] Criticisms About “Weird,” “Woke,” or Avant Garde Content
  • Johnson: Critique is overblown—producers are trying to push forms and capture new audiences, but hits are inherently hard to time and many projects began before the pandemic changed the audience profile.
  • “Every show isn't for everyone. But ultimately Hadestown... is not exactly like a Rodgers and Hammerstein South Pacific... but yet that show has been able to continue to be a hit five years later.” — John Johnson [28:18]

6. The Economics Solution: Rethinking the Model

• [31:14 & 32:41] Can the Model Be Fixed?
  • Discussion about the viability of dynamic ticket pricing: charging more for wealthy attendees in prime seats, subsidizing cheaper tickets for others.
  • “How to build shows smarter, how to build shows in a more strategic way... is by having them be sustainable for a run.” — John Johnson [33:22]
  • The recent realization: Can’t just assume audiences & revenues will return to pre-pandemic levels.

7. The Death of the “Middle”: American Entertainment's Parallel

• [34:28 & 35:28] The Struggling Middle Class of Broadway
  • The “event” megahits (Hamilton, Wicked, Lion King) are stronger than ever, but shows without brand recognition or massive scale, especially new musicals and plays, face financial hardship.
  • Hollywood faces the same challenge: major blockbusters thrive, but mid-range films struggle.
  • “These events, these capital E event shows…have the effect of someone going, you know what, I'll pay $250 to see Hamilton instead of $120 to take a risk.” — John Johnson [36:03]
• Surprises Still Happen
  • Breakout successes like “Omar” and “Stereophonic” prove that hits can still emerge from unexpected places.

8. Why Invest in Risk?

• [38:10] The Producer’s Motivation
  • Johnson values the magic and mission of finding shows that wouldn’t otherwise exist.
  • “If we don't bring this play to Broadway, what are we doing here?” — John Johnson [39:24]
  • Willing to risk on passion projects, knowing even a financial miss on Broadway can ripple outward in licensing and future adaptations.

9. The Art and Science of Taste

• [40:56] On Picking Hits: Art, Science, or Gut?
  • Johnson: Success requires balancing personal taste with a sharp sense of public mood—a “projected taste” for audiences who aren’t you.
  • “You have to lean a little bit more towards what you think others will, but you can't get too far away from your gut. So maybe it's 70, 30, maybe it's 65, 35.” — John Johnson [45:10]
  • Using friends, family, and casual conversations as a kind of ongoing focus group.

10. What’s Changed Most in Producing?

• [45:59] Comparing 2003 to Now
  • “I didn't think [producing] was that aspect of it, but I think having learned it, especially post pandemic, you just always have to be on your toes and you can't take anything for granted in that way.” — John Johnson [46:43]

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On COVID’s audience shift:
  “Instead of coming six to eight times a year, they started coming twice a year post Covid.” — John Johnson [16:55]

• On venture capital parallels:
  “It’s like walking into a casino, hitting big in one table and then going, this table over here and this table over here, start doubling down your money.” — John Johnson [12:10]

• On the enduring power of mega-hits:
  “Hamilton is as big as ever. Wicked is as big as ever. Lion King…these titles are getting stronger every day. What seems to be weaker, though, is this middle class on Broadway.” — Derek Thompson [34:43]

• On risking for passion projects:
  “If we don’t bring this play to Broadway, what are we doing here?” — John Johnson [39:24]

• On balancing gut and public taste:
  “You do have to lean a little bit more towards what you think others will, but you can’t get too far away from your gut. So maybe it’s 70, 30, maybe it’s 65, 35.” — John Johnson [45:10]

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [06:08] — Who is John Johnson? Background & connection to Derek
• [07:26] — The “golden age” of Broadway: tech boom analogy
• [10:32] — Economics of a Broadway show demystified
• [14:32] — COVID-19: impact on costs, security, audience behavior
• [18:53] — The new, younger city-dwelling Broadway audience
• [21:06] — Rise of celebrities on Broadway
• [24:39] — Are things “dire”? Deeper look at the NYT’s alarmism
• [27:45] — “Weird”/avant garde musicals and the shifting tastes critique
• [31:14] — Can Broadway’s economic model be fixed?
• [34:28] — The trouble with Broadway’s “middle class”
• [38:10] — Why stick with high-risk, high-reward producing?
• [40:56] — Taste, intuition, and how to pick hits
• [45:59] — How the job of producing has changed since 2003

---

Episode Takeaways

• Broadway faces a crossroads: surging costs, shifting demographics, and the evaporation of its reliable “middle class” of shows.
• Hits still burst forth, often from unexpected quarters, but most investors are forced to swing big or stay safe.
• The industry’s resilience is rooted in both a love for the art form and a willingness to adapt and experiment.
• The nostalgia for Broadway’s recent “boom years” is real, but Johnson remains optimistic about the cycle swinging back.

---

Final Reflection

This conversation captures both a sober assessment of Broadway’s challenges and a passionate defense of its enduring relevance. Johnson’s venture-capital metaphor, insider economics, and stories from the trenches—all delivered in a direct, conversational tone—make this a must-listen for anyone curious about theater, risk, and cultural change.

---

Transcript

[A]

What's up? It's Todd McShay, host of the McShay show at the Ringer and Spotify. We're building this thing up and I couldn't be more excited to be back talking college football and everything. NFL draft with the most informed audience out there. That's you, my co host Steve mentioned. I will be with you three times a week throughout the football season with all the latest news, analysis and scouting intel from around the league. For even more insight, see. Subscribe to my newsletter the McShay Report to access my mock drafts, big boards, tape breakdowns and other exclusive scouting content you can't get anywhere else. It's going to be a great season and I hope you'll be with us at the McShay show every step of the way.

[B]

This episode is brought to you by McAfee. Your data is worth more than gold. Two hackers who sell it to the highest bidder. So you need McAfee, the gold standard in all in one online security. McAfee Secure VPN lets you browse, shop and bank safely, and its scam detector automatically identifies threats. Plans start at just $39.99 for your first year. Find out more at mcafee.com keepitreal Cancel anytime terms apply. This episode is brought to you by Zendesk, introducing the next generation of AI agents built to deliver resolutions for everyone with an easy setup that can be completed in minutes, not months, Zendesk AI agents resolve 30% of interactions instantly, quickly giving your customers what they need. Loved by over 10,000 companies, Zendesk AI makes service teams more efficient, businesses run better, and your customers happier. That's the Zendesk AI effect. Find out more at zendesk.com today Broadway before I was a writer, I was an actor. I was good enough to be in some professional shows in the Washington, D.C. area when I was a kid at the Folger Shakespeare Theater Arena Stage, but never quite good enough to turn it into a career. Perhaps like many people who've played in a band or maybe excelled in a sport in high school or college for years I entertained a persistent daydream of what my life would have been like if I'd gotten my break and turned my childhood passion into my adult career. Anyway, this is my way of saying that I am very much rooting for live theater, even in an age where everything else is turning into short form video on small screens, podcasts turning into YouTube shows, social media turning into waterfalls of video. So I read the following headline in the New York Times with A considerable amount of the Broadway musical is in trouble. With the cost of staging song and dance spectacles skyrocketing and audiences drawn to older hits. None of the musicals that opened last season have made a profit. None of the musicals that opened last season have made a profit. I thought that sounds incredibly dire and when I posted about the article last week, I was flooded with feedback from folks in the industry. Some Broadway producers reached out to tell me that the problem was simple, prices were too high. Some Broadway producers reached out to tell me that the problem was simple, prices were too low. Some accused me of assisting the New York Times in trying to hurt union workers in New York City during a negotiation period. One of the producers that reached my inbox was an old friend from my long gone theater days, John Johnson. John's resume is pretty incredible. He produced George Clooney's Goodnight and Good Luck which is now the highest grossing play of all time. He produced Stereophonic, which came to Broadway in 2024 and received 13 nominations, breaking the all time record on the way to becoming best new Play. John is today's guest. We talk about why Broadway is at a crossroads and what it takes to pick hits as a producer. This is the second part of a two part miniseries on the future of entertainment in America and I'd really encourage people to listen to both parts to hear how the two episodes echo and how the problems of Hollywood and the problems of Broadway share a lot in common. In both cases, on both coasts, you're dealing with the death of the middle, the extraordinary success of some huge hits, while many things in the sort of middle class entertainment continue to languish. In both cases you're dealing with macroeconomics, inflation driving up costs on Broadway and high interest rates forcing entertainment companies in Los Angeles to shift their emphasis from subscription growth to profit. And then in both cases, you're dealing with an interesting case of demographic change. Ben Fritz explained to us last week that Hollywood is dealing with a transition out of an era where it could rely on lots of tickets for Marvel and other superhero movies being bought from China and Russia and Japan. And now that the global box office is declining a little bit, Hollywood has to change its strategy. The same thing is happening in Broadway. You're about to hear how a subtle demographic shift among the people most likely to attend Broadway musicals is forcing the industry to rethink what makes a hit in the first place. I'm Derek Thompson. This is plain English, John Johnson. Welcome to the show.

[C]

Thanks for having me Derek. I appreciate it.

[B]

To get us kicked Off. Who are you? What do you do? And this is a rare question for a guest. Why? Do we know each other?

[C]

Absolutely. So my name is John Johnson. I run a Broadway production and management company, Wagner Johnson Productions. I've been a Broadway producer and in this business for over 25 years, and I produce and manage Broadway shows, both here on Broadway, in New York, in London, on the West End, and across the country as well. And you and I know each other because I taught you at the National High School Institute for the Arts Cherub program at Northwestern back in 2003. So we've known each other a very long time.

[B]

We've known each other a very long time. Remind me what you taught in 2003 at Northwestern.

[C]

I think I taught, like, a mini producing class to, like, introduce what it's like to be a producer, even though at the time I was an assistant in New York. But I would spend my summers at Northwestern teaching, and that was quite a summer.

[B]

And here we are. It's lovely to see you again, even via Zoom. I want you to help me tell the story of Broadway chronologically. You explained in the email exchange that we had that the 2010s were kind of like a tech boom for Broadway, an era where you basically couldn't go wrong, where you had Book of Mormon soar and Hamilton was launched. Remind us, what were the hits that defined the 2010s? And why do you think that decade was so special for Broadway?

[C]

For sure, yeah. I think it's a fascinating example. And really what a lot of Broadway, either scholars or members of the press talk about is you have the sort of 2001 entry of the Producers. The Producers comes to Broadway, becomes this massive hit, introduces dynamic pricing to Broadway, which really had kind of just been not even touching that. It was, you know, you hear four prices. That's what that is. We go through all of the 2000s, and you have things like the Producers and Jersey Boys that are becoming hits on Broadway. But it doesn't really kick up to the next level until we get to Book of Mormon right at the start of the 2010s decade. And then almost every year you had a hit, and not only did you have one hit, but you had at least two or three others that would sort of follow in its wake. And you could easily say that that show would run on Broadway from anywhere for two to four years. You would have a London West End transfer, and you would most importantly, have a national tour that would run at least in upwards of two years, but possibly even longer than that. And so again, it was fueled by the. And I left out wicked in the 2000s as well. So producers, Wicked, Jersey Boys sort of fuel us into that 2010s moment where almost at that point every single year, and then you hit Hamilton and we almost reach this sort of crossover. You know, it's rare that something crosses so much over into the cultural consciousness. And by that point, all eyes are on Broadway. You can't get a ticket to Hamilton. And so therefore, Dear Evan Hansen, come from away Waitress, School of Rock, all these other shows sort of. It makes the, the rising tide, lifting all boats metaphor seem quaint because it just absolutely juiced up everything in that regard. And we get into, even as we head into 2019, a small scrappy show like Hadestown, which went from Edmonton to London to Off Broadway, ends up being a multi Tony Award winning hit up until the point of, of course, the world shutting down in March of 2020 and Broadway being one of the first things that shuts down because of the nature of the intimacy of watch Broadway shows.

[B]

And we have to get to the way that Covid changed Broadway. But before we do, your description made me think that I don't have a great mental model of how Broadway economics work. Like, if you take a show like Dear Evan Hansen before it became a movie, to what extent was Dear Evan Hansen considered successful or in fact profitable because of its ticket selling on Broadway versus all of the national tours that it's sprouting, versus some other income stream that I can't think of, like maybe licensing the rights for high schools to put on. Dear Evan Hansen, is there a pie chart model that you can sort of describe to us about how a typical Broadway show, a typical Broadway hit at that level actually makes money?

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I think the important thing to remember is that each individual Broadway show, when it starts out, is essentially, and it's a new small business, whether it's a play that costs $5 million or a musical that costs 15 or 20 or beyond, the producer has to raise that amount of money. And then you're running a small business, you have a payroll of. If it's a play, it's probably close to 100 people. If it's a musical, it could go well beyond 200 people. And when a show hits recoupments, that's when it's profitable. And by that point, then the investors start sharing and the producers and certain creatives are making money on one side and the investors are making money on another. In that heyday of the 2000 and tens when a show became profitable on Broadway and reached that hit status and continued to run and have great word of mouth and all that, then you turn to the investors in that first MOTHER company, as we call it, llc, and you say, hey, come on in on London. Come on in on the national tour. And it's almost like it's not every time it's this way, but it's almost like walking into a casino, hitting big in one table and then going, this table over here and this table over here, start doubling down your money, and it's probably going to hit. And there are certain examples of where London doesn't work out or a tour doesn't work out, et cetera. But for the most part, with these shows that we're talking about, they are. And so then you have things like the cast album recording, which even though the music industry has gone through an evolution with Spotify and Apple Music and everything that way there are cast albums and again, for the hits, your Hamiltons, your dear Evan Hansen's, et cetera, that are. You are making money that flows into that MOTHER company. And so, not to mention the licensing aspect, like you talked about, licensing is a big part of the Broadway industry. That happens after the fact. But if you are a part of a show from the beginning, because of the deals that you make with the authors on any given show, you have a cut in every production that happens around the world for the next 12 to 18 years after the show closes on Broadway.

[B]

That makes me think that. Tell me if this interpretation is wrong. It makes me think that you're in a business that's not dissimilar from venture capital, where you're spreading your bets across a lot of different small businesses. Some of them, maybe a lot of them, are going to fail. And if they fail, they'll fail in one arena, they'll fail off Broadway, they'll fail in D.C. before they even make it to New York. But if they succeed, it's not just a home run that scores four runs, it's a home run that scores 20 runs. Because you go to London, you go to Los Angeles, you have a national tour, you have the cast recording, you're licensing the libretto or the songs to high schools. There's all these different income streams that materialize once the show passes some threshold of popularity. And you rely, you, as the producers and your investors rely on these shows to almost pay for, to a certain extent, other bets that you are making throughout the theater industry. Is that a fair summary or have I gotten something wrong in my Attempt to describe it.

[C]

Totally fair. No, it's funny you say that, because there have been a lot of conversations I've had with colleagues. We talk about when you start up a Broadway show, you end up hiring so many different people. And we compare ourselves to venture capital or for startups that venture capital invest in and go. If you're a startup, you don't start with 50 employees, you start with five, and then you grow. But because of the nature of how Broadway works with any player musical that you do, you can't start with 5. The lowest payroll for a Broadway show is probably anywhere from 50 to 60 people.

[B]

So I appreciate that. Little Broadway Microeconomics 101 aside, I learned a lot. I want to get back to the chronology. So you brought us up to 2019, early 2020. Covid hits, as you said. Obviously one of the first businesses to shut all the way down has to be Broadway. You're right there. People are spitting on you in the front row. You can't do that show during the pandemic. Tell me how Covid changed Broadway in terms of maybe both audience demographics and economics.

[C]

Yeah, so, I mean, I think economics, and this is something you talk about a lot over the last couple of years on your pod that, you know, the costs go up. You know, the cost of materials, the cost of labor, the cost of every single aspect of it. Things that you normally wouldn't have ever thought would cost more end up costing more. Also, the world has changed in certain ways of. And Broadway would admit this for it. You know, did we need. We didn't have security. There were a lot of times where it was like, oh, we'll just have one guy stand outside. We didn't have metal detectors, didn't have that. We probably should have been doing that back in 2010. The nature of hiring larger support systems in terms of HR and mental health and all of that, that was something that usually Broadway shows added when they hit standpoint, not when they were right, starting right away. And so there were certain things that we had to catch up to, and those things cost money. So that's the big thing from the cost aspect. But that's happened everywhere. That happens for your local restaurant. That happens for, you know, your. Whatever business that you're in. Everyone is having to deal with that. I think the biggest thing that is the shift is the nature of the core demographic of Broadway ticket buyers. The 2000s and 2010s was fueled by women, 65 plus, women 60 plus, usually suburbanites, Westchester, Long island, northern Jersey. A generation of people that were essentially raised on the husband takes the Long Island Railroad into New York, they work from nine to five, the wife's home raising the kids, the wife takes the train in, they get dinner, they go see a show, they get on the train, they go back. Or the matinee lady trope of the Wednesday matinees. They would take the train in, they would get lunch, they would see a show, they'd be home in time for dinner. And that was something that fueled all of that. And so the producer, all the shows that I mentioned before, producers, Jersey Jersey Boys was like core Dead Ringer, Baby Boomer, and even Greatest Generation type of show that just fueled it. Beautiful. The Carole King musical, the same one, which was a couple of years later. Even Book of Mormon, even with the south park guys doing it. It's essentially a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical done by the guys from South Park. It lives. Its threads are from the golden age Broadway musical. So that's what fueled all of that. Yes, there were other people seeing other things. Things like spring awakening, things like hair, younger audiences, et cetera. Obviously, HA Hamilton hit not only four quadrants, but eight quadrants in that way. But again, our core was that we hit the pandemic. Everyone's life changes, but particularly in a lot of those suburban towns. And I grew up in one, so I know and have aunts and uncles and parents who have done this. Everyone got used to their small town. Everyone got used to their suburban town. The thought of going to the local playhouse and seeing a community theater production kind of seems nice because I can be home in 15 minutes. People were. They were still coming to Broadway, but instead of coming six to eight times a year, they started coming twice a year post Covid. And so that was a big seismic shift. However, it was replaced by a ton of people who stayed in the city, Elder millennials, Gen X, who live in Brooklyn, downtown Manhattan, even some the more closer suburbs like Maplewood, New Jersey, people call it Brooklyn West. These are the audience that replace that in that they got trapped in their houses with their kids for 18 months. And then when the pandemic ended or started to end, they said, get me out of here. I want to go to every live event. And so that's what ended up being a huge replacement aspect to it. And we had data to show it. One of the shows that we worked on both pre pandemic and post pandemic, and it was the first show that we brought back was the Lehman trilogy, and it sold great both times. But the. The sort of heat map of the zip codes pre pandemic looked like Rye, New York and Westchester, Long Island, Northern Jersey, et cetera. Post pandemic, those were still there, but it was a lot lighter. But it was financial district, Brooklyn, Upper west side, Upper east side, which has always been strong. But it was even stronger now of people essentially saying, I'm coming out in the city and I'm going to do things multiple times a year, as opposed to the suburban audience which was supporting it before.

[B]

So you've got this shift from the center of the heat map being 60 plus female ticket buyers from the suburbs to 35 to 55 year olds who tend to live in the city or just outside the city. I get that. Can you explain to me how that demographic shift might have contributed to a content shift? I mean, those demographics have different priorities, they have different tastes, they want very different things. How has the demographic shift become a shift in content and substance?

[C]

So a lot of it has been driven by the nature of where you see something Before 2000s, especially 2010s, Off Broadway was struggling and or couldn't really break through because it was. If it's not on Broadway, it's not a level, it's not top notch. We've had a bit of an off Broadway renaissance for shows that we've done as well as many others, where shows that are starting out in 200 seat theaters down in the West Village are actually more attractive to that new core audience because they're going, I don't have to go to Times Square. It's closer to where I live, whether it's downtown or in Brooklyn. And oh, look, Aubrey Plaza's doing Danny and the Deep Blue sea in a 200 seat theater. I'd love to see Aubrey Plaza that up close. Adam Driver's doing a play and the same thing. I'd love to see that up close. And so that's been a big part of that shift. And so the idea of someone spending $150, $200 on a Broadway musical when they can see a celebrity like that. We also had Andrew Scott this past spring in the Lortel as well. They're sitting there going, oh, well, the restaurants are better in the West Village. It's closer to my house and I get to be in a more intimate setting. Sign me up.

[B]

You mentioned a lot of celebrities there. You know, Aubrey Plaza, Andrew Scott, Adam Driver. When I was in New York launching Abundance, I believe Othello had just had its opening night. So that was Denzel and Jake Gyllenhaal. I mean, it seems to me, as an outsider, like Broadway has been celebrity ified. What is that about? Like, what is driving that demand for and even supply of celebrities in Broadway? Because it seems like. It seems different than I remember from 20 years ago.

[C]

It's always been. There has always been the nature of a Star play every year, of big actors coming and being. Julia Roberts in the mid 2000s came into three days of rain. And so there's always been that. It has definitely been more juiced up, in a way. And I think there are a number of factors of it. I think it's driven by the nature of the change of how Hollywood does things. In the mid 2000s and early 2010s, you would have killed to have any of the folks on Friends to be in your Broadway show, but they were on a contract basically for the entire life of that show. And also, everything within that Hollywood system was driven on. You had to get on a sitcom so you could have 10 years of paychecks, and then whoever knows how many years of residuals after that you had folks wanting. You had to get into a Star wars movie or a Marvel movie or anything in that way. And then you were also going to be jammed up in all of those things now with the sort of streaming revolution, the nature that even the biggest hit Netflix show doesn't do 10 seasons, they do three. It allows for more time. And so I think you have. You have those theater creatures like the Denzels, like the Adam drivers, who are like, get me back on stage. It scratches an itch that I need to scratch. And then you also end up. And obviously, we had an amazing time working and partnering with George Clooney on Broadway in Goodnight and Good Luck. And then you have the George Clooneys who kind of go, you know what? Let's do it, bucket list. Like, I want to take it all in. And so he came and we did an incredible show up at the Winter Garden, but he also did the stage door, and he played on the Broadway softball team. And he was all about the entire experience of it. He was sitting front row with the Tonys. Every aspect of it he wanted to take in. And so I think that's also a big driver of it, because people, I think you're seeing a lot of folks know that this is how they can. In a world where every celebrity has a podcast and in a world where every celebrity does advertising in a way that they don't do, I think Broadway is now a part of that. And so it's Streaming, it's movies, it's Broadway, it's podcast, it's doing promotions, and it's all part of the sort of celebrity culture.

[B]

Now, I finally want to hit this New York Times piece that you and I were emailing about. But one way of summarizing everything that you said is that we're going through a period of demographic change on Broadway at the same time that the product is becoming more expensive. It's becoming more expensive, number one, for the reason that everything else is becoming more expensive. Just inflation. Number two, there are additional costs, as you said, security, mental health for the cast and the crew. You're bringing more celebrities to Broadway maybe, to recognize that. Look, people have a ton of options right now between streaming and TikTok or just absolutely doing nothing on their couches. So maybe you need that big name on the marquee in order to pull people out of their homes. You add this all up, right? Costs are going up at the same time that the demographics are changing. And the New York Times is basically saying that this is creating a problem for Broadway. And I'll quote directly from the Times deck quote. With the cost of staging song and dance spectacles skyrocketing, an audience is drawn to older hits. None of the musicals that opened last season have made a profit, end quote. I want us to focus our analysis here on musicals, because musicals take longer to develop, as you said. They're more expensive, have larger crews, larger casts than plays. What is your take on what? I interpret it as severe alarmism from the New York Times about the state of the Broadway musical. How dire is this?

[C]

I wouldn't say that it's dire, but I think that it is going through a very tough time of systemic change. And I think that's the big thing that everyone is trying to figure out. And we've learned something every single season we've been back. We're currently in the fifth season. The Broadway season is September to June, when the Tonys are. And this is the fifth year of it. And so instead of taking 70 years of Broadway data, we can't take that. We can't even take 25 years of data, because the 2000s and 2010s throw that entirely off. And so we have four years of it. I think the inherent problem for musicals is that any Broadway musical, on average, takes five to seven years to develop. And so shows that are even landing this season on Broadway started their journey in 2018, 2017, at a time at which the people were putting together, whether we're a creative team or A producing team going, this show is going to be amazing for the 65 plus female audience. And now that's shifted. But as it goes with almost any Broadway show, especially a musical, you get down the road, you make commitments to your creative team, make commitments to investors to raise the early money. You're not going to sit there and go, well, we don't know that the audience really wants us, so we're going to stop the ship mid journey and turn around. That can't happen. And so you have to see it through in that way. And there are still a ton of shows that won't get on. For every Broadway musical that happens this season, there will be seven that wanted to take that same theater. And it won't get that theater, and maybe it'll get one next year, but it may just fade into oblivion. So I think that's, I think the nature of the demographic shift at the same time that these things take longer. And then you add in to the point we were just making before this sort of. It may not be triple the amount celebrities on Broadway like it was 10, 20 years ago, but it's certainly more. If it's 1, even if it's 1.5 or 1.7x of that, that means that there's more other things happening that are distracting the customer.

[B]

When I posted the New York Times piece on Twitter, you know, I got a lot of reactions. I heard from a lot of producers. I want to share some of those reactions with you to get your reactions to them. You know, some folks said, you know, I think that, you know, Broadway doesn't make musicals for everyone the same way they used to. I feel like the musicals on Broadway are just. They're weirder. Like sometimes I heard about, like, they're too woke. I don't know how much stock I put into the whole woke thing, because we're talking fundamentally about musical theater here. It's not exactly the most like, you know, conservative art form in human history. But how would you honestly appraise the idea that today's musicals are more purposefully avant garde than they used to be, more purposefully edgy than they used to be, trying to do something different with the form in a way that might skip over the musical and theatrical tastes of a median American? How do you deal with that general criticism?

[C]

I think it's a little. I think it misses the mark a bit. Because at the end of the day, what's trying to be done is people are trying to push the art form forward. And ultimately, when you have something like Hamilton. That's what does it for kids from 1 to 92. That's what does it for them in that way. But I think that what people are at least missing a little bit for it is just that every show isn't for everyone. But ultimately Hadestown, which was a Show, yes, granted, 2019, but is still running now, five years later. It's a very. It is. I wouldn't say it's avant garde, but it definitely embraces a ton of forms from that world. And it's a Greek folktale with jazz folk music in it. And so it's not exactly like a Rodgers and Hammerstein South Pacific sort of down the middle. You know, it's not Julie Andrews singing Do Re Mi, but yet that show has been able to continue to be a hit five years later, even without any sort of recognizable ip and the tour successful and London's successful. So I think that that's an easy. That's like an easy answer out into sort of saying, I think the more fundamental thing is the nature that the Broadway shows that are landing right now, they're being developed five, six years ago. And so in this world where all culture is being churned so much quicker, whether it be movies, whether it be what's on the top 10 on Netflix, whether it be anything, it gets chewed up and spit out in a much more quicker way. And so therefore, by saying, like, oh, I want it to be this or I want it to be that, there was a musical three years ago called K Pop that was unfortunately not a success. But if they had done that now, in the midst of K Pop demon hunters, would they be considered geniuses? Like, we don't know the answer to that, but it's all kind of wrapped up in. And that's always what Broadway's been like. It's a timing thing.

[B]

This episode is brought to you by Canva. We've all got big ideas that refuse to be small. But often time is against us. That's why you need Canva. Canva brings all your ideas together in one design. Start with a presentation, add a whiteboard, drop in a a video, all without changing programs or even tabs. Plus, Canva AI helps you realize your vision even faster. Generate a video, a doc, and more with a single prompt. Canva lets you bring your big ideas to life as fast as you can think of them. Put imagination to [e-mail].

[D]

When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together Use polls to settle dinner plans. Send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more at WhatsApp.com Imagine fast hydration combined with balanced energy. Perfectly flavored with zero artificial sweeteners. Introducing Liquid Ivy's new energy multiplier, Sugar free. Unlike other energy drinks, you know the ones that make you feel like you're glitching. It's made with natural caffeine and electrolytes so you get the boost without the burnout. Liquid IV's new energy multiplier, Sugar free hydrating energy. Tap the banner to learn more.

[B]

There's two categories of reaction that I saw to the piece were number one, that that the content today just isn't as popular. The plays and the musicals just don't appeal to as big of an audience as they used to. That's one that you just responded to. I think the other bucket was the economics just don't work. There was an economic model that worked for Broadway and it lasted until circa 2019. And given the cost structure of musicals in particular, the same kind of popular content that's not as big as Hamilton but is as big as something that would maybe win a Tony for best musical. It just doesn't work anymore because you can't raise ticket prices enough to overcome the cost structure of putting on a musical that, as you said, can take seven years to go from inception to opening night. How do you feel about that line of critique that we need, that the industry needs to find some way to either reduce costs or go the next mile with dynamic ticket pricing. Raise ticket prices dramatically for the front row seats in order to soak money from the millionaires and billionaires that we know are in New York City so that we can reduce the prices for the back row seats so that we can still fill theaters. How do you feel about this general idea that we need to think about bigger, about the economic model here?

[C]

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely something we discuss every day here in my office every day amidst colleagues about how to build shows smarter, how to build shows in a more strategic way for it. And again, I think that the nature of having it be the fifth season, if you get season one being sort of oh wow, we are back. Fantastic. Thank God. Few. And then as we go through season two and season three, the sort of expectation was, well, we can continue to build the shows like they were in the 2000 and tens, because the audience will come back and the income will come back. And I think last year was the first year that everyone kind of realized, oh no, we do need to evolve. We do need to not fix this, but need to figure something out into that startup model point that I made earlier. If a Broadway musical, do we need as many people from the very beginning being a part of it and having the development costs be that so early on, so that when we get and are actually putting the show on, do we need 4 to 6 to 8 million dollars of development costs to get to that point? I think it's made a lot of people to use the cliche like work smarter, not harder in that way of just sort of being like. Whereas I think in the 2010s especially, it was just sort of like, ah, it's an extra set piece. We'll make it up in year two when we're still running. Oh, it's an extra this. Oh, it's an extra that. I think that we kind of just took our foot off the gas a little bit on that part. Whereas now, I think last season and this season is the first time everyone, because I think the creatives from top to bottom are also realizing it as well. Is that the way that anybody, all of us make money, producers, investors, creatives, the cast and crews of these shows is by having them be sustainable for a run?

[B]

I think it's really important to say here that as long as we're discussing the weakness of musicals on Broadway, Hamilton is as big as ever. Wicked is as big as ever. Lion King, these titles are getting stronger every day. What seems to be weaker, though, is this middle class on Broadway. And that's a theme that you see resonating across entertainment. I mean, in Hollywood, they talk about the death of the middle, right? There's Barbie, there's Top Gun, there's Oppenheimer, the big sequels. But then that middle class of 80 to $100 million original scripts, those are very, very difficult to earn back your money on. And as a result, it's just become a lot harder to raise money for those kind of original scripts before we. I'd like to broaden this, the rest of entertainment in just a bit, but let's hold on Broadway for a second. Why do you think the middle is struggling on Broadway?

[C]

I think that it's partly because, again, these events, these capital E event shows, Wicked, Lion King, Hamilton, the nature of Wicked last year, going through the movie, coming out and you seeing Wicked literally everywhere you went, whether it was the subway in New York, a billboard on a highway, or the Mac and cheese aisle in your grocery store. So you're seeing you dump hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of saying Wicked over and over again. It's going to have an effect on the customer going, oh, yeah, I haven't seen that musical in a while. I'll go to that again. I also think that there's a lot of it of people similar to sequel culture in Hollywood, similar to the nature of a Barbie or an Oppenheimer in that way of it. Just kind of saying, if I'm going to spend the time and spend the money and go, I want to know that it's going to deliver. And I know that Wicked will deliver and Lion King will deliver and Hamilton will deliver. And so that has the effect of someone going, you know What? I'll pay $250 to see Hamilton tonight or see Wicked tonight. Instead of saying, well, let's spend $120 to go see this new show and take a risk on it. Because I think that's the inherent problem. And it's the same thing in movies too. Why would I? Oh, I'll just wait for that thing to come out on streaming and not spend the time going to the movie theater for it. But when it's top Maverick, we're going, I'm going, I'm sitting in a seat. And that's what we're doing. So I think that that's the aspect of it. I think the one glimmer that Broadway has, and certainly there are other aspects of this in music and movies, et cetera, is that there are surprises. One of the biggest hits post pandemic for Broadway is Omar, which started off Broadway, moved to Broadway. It's been running now for almost two years at this point, and it'll be in year two next year. And it's an 80 minute show that's a comedic farce about Mary Todd Lincoln. Telling anyone that two years ago that that was gonna be the biggest hit on Broadway, everyone would've thought you were crazy. We had the honor of producing Stereophonic last year. It was a three and a half hour play that was done as a sort of documentary style about a 1970s band performing. And it ended up being the most Tony nominated play of all time and ran for a year and. And now starts a national tour this week. So it's like the surprises are there, but I think similarly, it's so unique in that way of it being like, of course it's gonna be an 80 minute cola scholar show, of course it's Gonna be a three hour play about a 1970s band creating an amazing album like that. Those are gonna be the outliers. Just like when 824 has a movie pop off for, you know, that they made for 3 million, that makes 80 people still wanna be surprised in the.

[B]

Entertainment industry, it seems to me like it would be very convenient for you to become a low risk producer. Someone who says, you know what, I'm only going to invest in titles and IP that have a ton of what folks in Hollywood call pre awareness. Right. I'll do Shakespeare, I'll do adaptations of beloved children's fables. I'll do musical versions of movies that already earn $300 million at the box office. That's all I'm going to do. Why not just do that? Why do you continue to invest in the high risk stuff?

[C]

There are plenty of producers who either do it or try to do it. I think for us, and again, it depends on people's taste, it depends on people's business models. But for us, taking the swing and going for something in that way is the reason we get out of bed every morning for it is the fact that every day isn't the same in this business. The fact that going to see Stereophonic at playwrights and being like, I don't care that this show's three and a half hours. I don't care that, you know, it's a play, but it has Will Butler music. So it's kind of a musical, but it's really a play. And it confuses people when they try to talk about it and spread word of mouth about it. But it's like this play. If we don't bring this play to Broadway, what are we doing here? Same thing last year with John Proctor as the villain. We read the script by Kimberly Bellflow, we got Sadie Sink to star in it. We were like, we have to. It was not George Clooney and Goodnight and Good Luck. But we weren't expecting it to be that. And it ended up creating this sort of unbelievable response from Gen Z audiences in New York who came to it and were responding in a way that we never would have thought when we said that we wanted to do it. And while we came up just short financially on it, it will now be done probably in hundreds of theaters across the country and around the world. And hopefully that will then bring it over the hump in terms of it finally recouping. But us giving it that platform is the reason why we do what we do. I Think for me, to the point of what you're saying is it's not about low risk, it's about diversifying it. It's about sitting here and saying, we're going to do Off Broadway stuff at the same time as we do Broadway stuff at the same time as we do musicals. I mean, musicals are going to come back. That New York Times article has been written every single decade. New York magazine did one in the 90s talking about the death of Broadway and the death of the theater. And Cats and Les Mis and Phantom were gonna be the last hits Broadway ever saw. Three years later, the Producers hit and everyone forgot about that article. So we are developing musicals. We're developing musicals again, trying to be strategic about it and not doing it the same way like we think it is in the 2010s, but it is going to swing back.

[B]

For someone whose career is their taste, you have no formula to figure out whether a show is going to be good or bad. You. You listen to your feelings about it. You maybe watch people around you and the emotional reaction that they have to shows as you're watching them and deciding whether to invest in them. What advice do you have to other folks who are working across entertainment in theater, in music, in Hollywood? How do you listen to your taste and make decisions about what shows to invest in?

[C]

I think for us, it's a collaboration process. It's talking to the folks here in this office on almost every single show. We work with other producing partners and you sit there and you bat around the ideas and you're like, can you sit? I think for me, it's always thing of, is there an audience for this play, for this musical, for this Off Broadway show, et cetera, of seeing do we have an in for that? And it may not be for every single audience. Again, John Proctor took a long time. We had the young audience immediately, and it took a while. And once we got into the elder millennial audience, the Gen X audience, that's when it really caught on. But we knew that we had to start in one place. And so I think for any advice that I would give is just like, what's the in. What's the end in terms of who you think wants to see it? What's the end in terms of how you think the best way of promoting or selling it is? And also just listening to your gut of being like, wow, this thing moves me. I have to think it's going to move other people.

[B]

Yeah. There's a quote from Simon Cowell, I think, from like 20 years ago where someone once asked him, right when he, I suppose, was in his heyday of putting together One Direction and everything else, someone said, why are you so good at picking hits? And I think his answer was something along the lines of, because I know I have average taste. He's like, I know that if I like it, I'm at the center of those four quadrants and therefore other people are likely to like it. And to spin that back to you, I wonder, because I am so interested in this concept of taste, I'll say this. I don't trust my taste. My favorite movies, my favorite music is often not very popular. I think the best movie I've seen in the last five years is probably TAR. There is no way that if I saw TAR, I'd be like, yeah, no, let's definitely invest $100 million in TAR because that's going to be the biggest movie of the year. I know that my taste is weird and from a kind of bottom line perspective, bad. And so if I was in your job, I think I would have to be good at understanding the tastes of people who are not me. And I wonder to what extent is your model of taste listening to your gut versus developing this kind of projected taste of people who are not you?

[C]

Oh, that's a really good question. I think it's. I mean, it's hard to do a percentage basis aspect of it.

[B]

Yeah, but try.

[C]

But I. But I think that the. I think the hardest thing for a producer to do is rely on their taste too much because you end up drinking your own Kool Aid and like, just keep, you know, just like regurgitating it back to yourself in that way. And you can almost be drinking it too hard. Like, like the, the potion can be too strong. Because there are tons of times there were things that I was like, this is definitely going to pop off. This is going to be incredible, et cetera. And then. And it was just like, oh, and it's not. No one's showing up. And you just kind of have to be like, all right, you have to have a short memory. You have to have a short. You have to kind of have a postmortem of the nature of what went wrong and why things, certain things went against you, because that's what we have to do. And whether it's. There are plenty of things of people being like, well, we opened it in an election year, or we opened it at this, or, oh, we opened it in the seas. The classic thing is, oh, we opened it in the season of another hit happening but the fact of the matter is there are plenty of different audiences for it. But also there's other times where if you have a very sort of a female driven show or a male driven show and then another show comes on top of it and kind of is like, oh, no, this is the show that that audience is going to gravitate towards. You can kind of get left, you know, left in the. Left in the lurch a little bit. But I think that at the end of the day, you do have to lean a little bit more towards what you think others will, but you can't get too far away from your gut. So maybe it's 70, 30, maybe it's 65, 35. But it is a fascinating question because the nature of trying to sit there and say what you know and see, but also as a New Yorker and being someone who lives here and has lived here over half of his life, you kind of know what you're on the precipice for at any given moment and what people want to see. And using, whether it be your parents or your relatives or your neighbors or the people that you drop your kids off at school with, using them as a focus group in that way is an important thing to know and to see.

[B]

To end where we began. If you go back in your mind to the year 2003, how is this job different than you thought the job of Broadway producing would be?

[C]

Ooh, another good one. I would say it's different in that it is truly just a roller coaster. I think that when I started in this business, it was just sort of like, oh, it's gonna go like this and we're gonna do some shows and then one of them is gonna be a hit. And again, I started interning the Year of the Producers. So it's like the game, like, seeing it that way. It's like. And you just keep seeing it over and over again. I think the nature of always needing to pivot, I didn't think it was that aspect of it, but I think having learned it, especially post pandemic, you just always have to be on your toes and you can't take anything for granted in that way.

[B]

John Johnson, thank you very much.

[C]

Thank you for having me, Derek.

[B]

Thank you for listening. Listening Plain English is reported and hosted by me, Derek Thompson. This episode was produced by Devin beraldi and Kaia McMullen. If you like what we're doing here, please rate and subscribe. New episodes drop every Tuesday and Friday. Limu and I always tell you to customize your car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. But now we want you to feel it. Cue the emu music Limu Save yourself money today. Increase your wealth.

[C]

Customize and save.

[B]

We say that may have been too much feeling. Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings Very unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company affiliates excludes Massachusetts.