Good morning. It’s Thursday. Today we’ll look at why a mainstay of Broadway is in trouble. We’ll also get details on a judge’s reaction to comments by Justice Department officials calling Luigi Mangione a killer.
It has been a bumpy few weeks on Broadway. The revival of “Cabaret” closed on Sunday, and the revival of “Gypsy” closed last month, even though tickets had gone on sale through Oct. 5. “Gypsy” was the sixth musical to close (or announce a closing date) since the Tony Awards in June.
The rest of last season wasn’t much better for musicals. In all, 18 opened, and none has reported a profit, though “Just in Time,” a musical about Bobby Darin, is expected to move into the black. Looking further back, 46 new musicals have opened since the pandemic, which kept theaters closed for a year and a half, and only three are in the black. A lot of money went into staging those musicals: about $800 million. Three of the most recently departed musicals — “Tammy Faye,” “Boop!” and “Smash” — cost at least $20 million apiece and lost all the money that had been invested to put them on.
The Broadway musical is in trouble, as my colleague Michael Paulson wrote this week.
By contrast, plays are doing better. They are less expensive to produce, and with celebrity casts and limited runs, plays have packed theaters at high ticket prices. Last season both “Good Night, and Good Luck,” starring George Clooney, and “Othello,” starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal, broke box office records.
But Jason Laks, the president of the Broadway League, a theater industry trade group, noted that plays usually have limited runs. “Broadway is sustained by musicals that can run for a number of years and keep people employed,” he said.
The situation for musicals is serious enough for Andrew Lloyd Webber — who has composed more than 20 musicals, including long-running hits like “Cats” and “The Phantom of the Opera” — to declare that “the statistics are terrible.”
“I look at the economics of this,” he said, “and I just don’t see how it can sustain.”
There were worries that tourism might affect Broadway this year. The number of tourists, who filled seats night after night before the pandemic, has approached but not matched the total for 2019, the last full year before Covid-19 hit. The city’s tourism agency has revised its 2025 forecast downward from an initial estimate of 67.6 million visitors this year. The most recent projection, released after President Trump pushed ahead with punitive tariffs and an immigration crackdown, was for 67.4 million.
But there’s no conclusive evidence that tourism numbers are a big factor in what’s happening with musicals. The problems are more complicated than just rising costs, although producers say that everything involved in staging a musical has gotten more expensive in the last few years. There are salaries for the actors, musicians and stagehands, as well as other costs, like lumber and steel for the sets.
But the other side of the ledger has lagged. Ticket prices for musicals have not risen fast enough to offset the increased expenses. Last season the average ticket price for a musical was $127, or about 3.25 percent more than during the last full season before the pandemic. Of course, some megahits and stars attract far higher prices: When Leslie Odom Jr. returned to the cast of “Hamilton” on Sept. 9, the top ticket price was $1,200. The price will climb to $1,500 by the time he leaves again in November.
The three musicals that have made back their investments since the pandemic all had government help. Two got $10 million under a federal grant program designed to help producers make a comeback as restrictions on theaters eased — “Six,” an exuberant reimagining of the wives of King Henry VIII, which was shut down on opening night by the pandemic; and “MJ,” about Michael Jackson.
The third, “& Juliet,” received a $3 million state tax credit as one of more than 40 productions that benefited from a program created when theaters were preparing to reopen after being dark for a year and a half. Juggernauts like “The Lion King” and “Aladdin” also got $3 million, the maximum allowed.
Weather
Look for patchy fog this morning and showers and possibly a thunderstorm this afternoon with a high near 75. There’s a chance of more showers on a warm and muggy night with a low of 72.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until next Thursday (Yom Kippur).
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Judge rebukes Trump officials for saying Mangione is a killer
A federal judge rebuked Trump administration officials, demanding an explanation for why they had made comments that referred to Luigi Mangione as guilty of killing a health insurance executive despite her order to avoid commenting on the case.
Judge Margaret Garnett said the statements “appear to be in direct violation” of the order she issued in April warning Justice Department officials to refrain from talking about the case publicly, in order to ensure a fair trial. She told the government to submit a sworn declaration from a top official in either the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan or the Justice Department in Washington accounting for “how these violations occurred” and what is being done to see that “no future violations occur.” She said that any future violations could lead to sanctions.
Last week President Trump said on Fox News that Mangione had “shot someone in the back as clear as you’re looking at me,” comments that were amplified by Justice Department and White House officials on social media and elsewhere. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, referred to Mangione on Monday as a “left-wing assassin.” On Tuesday, Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff, told Fox News that the executive had been “brutally gunned down” by a “self-described so-called antifascist.”
The judge’s order comes as Trump continues to tear down barriers between the White House and the Justice Department that were intended to protect its tradition of independence. White House and Justice Department press representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the judge’s order. The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office and Mr. Mangione’s lawyers declined to comment.
Mangione’s lawyers, led by Karen Friedman Agnifilo, had complained to the judge that the comments by administration officials had “indelibly prejudiced Mr. Mangione.”
METROPOLITAN diary
Pausing
Dear Diary:
I was crossing a busy four-lane street in Brooklyn with my 14-month-old Norwich terrier, Danbi, at about 6:30 a.m. We were heading to the park.
An older man pulling a cart piled high with recyclables paused and looked at Danbi. I smiled and was about to pass, but then he spoke.
He told me he had once had a dog too, for 18 years.
“I still miss him so much,” he said. “I look at his pictures on my phone every day.”
Cars passed by. The city was waking up, but in that moment, his voice felt set apart, quiet but full.
I told him that I understood. I had said goodbye to my 22-year-old dog a year ago. Danbi came into my life not long after that.
The man looked at her again. I saw something in his face shift.
“Your dog must’ve been happy,” I said.
He didn’t answer right away, just nodded slowly. I nodded too, and we stood there in a brief silence that didn’t feel empty. Then we parted ways.
Danbi and I turned down a tree-lined side street. The morning felt a little heavier, but also more tender.
Sometimes all it takes is one pause to remind you that love, even after loss, has a way of crossing back over to you.
— Jungeun Lee
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
In a question-and-answer conversation on Sept. 24 with our City Hall bureau chief, Emma G. Fitzsimmons, I referred to the wrong political figure as the “happy warrior.” Franklin D. Roosevelt used the phrase to refer to Gov. Alfred E. Smith, not himself. — J.B.
P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.
Michael Paulson, Ama Sapormaa and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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James Barron writes the New York Today newsletter, a morning roundup of what’s happening in the city.
The post Why Musicals Are Struggling to Make Money on Broadway appeared first on New York Times.
