Ask Michael Arden what it’s like to mount a new Broadway musical and the “Lost Boys” director will take a beat, then methodically deliver a wry response.
“You might as well say, like, ‘Start a new civilization.’”
There’s a big reason it takes years for a fresh musical to land on Broadway. Cracking any story is a painstaking process. The same goes for crafting a songbook. Getting the two to coalesce? It’s a delicate alchemy. And that goes without getting into the design, casting and economics of it all.
Take the nominees for best musical at this year’s Tony Awards. Cinco Paul got the idea for the Golden Age homage “Schmigadoon!” a quarter-century ago. “Titaníque,” a delirious “Titanic” parody, was first staged in 2017. “The Lost Boys,” a soaring adaptation of the 1987 movie, followed a six-year development path to Broadway. British writers Kit Buchan and Jim Barne started collaborating on the delightful two-hander “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)” a decade ago.
“You could complain about that being a very arduous process,” Buchan says. “But you also have to recognize that’s the only way it could possibly have happened.”
When the Tony Awards crown the best of the 2025-26 Broadway season Sunday at Radio City Music Hall, in a ceremony hosted by Pink and broadcast on CBS, only four nominees — not the typical five — will compete for best musical. That’s because only six new musicals hit Broadway this season, after more than a dozen premiered in each of the past two campaigns.
It’s not unheard of: The 2017-18 season, for example, featured just seven new musicals. But this lighter season is a condition of the economic headwinds blowing in Broadway’s face.
Most new musicals don’t break even nowadays, and the ones that do often take years to recoup their capitalization (the money raised to get a show off the ground). The Bobby Darin jukebox musical “Just in Time” announced just last month that it had recouped its $12.5 million capitalization; it was the first musical from the 2024-25 season to do so. “The Outsiders,” capitalized for $22 million, is the only musical from the 2023-24 season to have announced recoupment.
“The economics of it are really tough right now, and I think in some ways the musical theater world is in crisis mode a bit,” Paul says. “But to me, that’s happened throughout the history of the genre, and history has shown that it always bounces back. And I think it will.”
The pandemic contributed to the imbalance. Broadway’s hiatus from March 2020 to September 2021 created a backlog of new musicals that flooded recent seasons. When that crowded landscape created too much competition and accelerated several shows’ closing dates, some producers shied away from investing for the 2025-26 season. The comparatively safe bet that is investing in star vehicles — such as Daniel Radcliffe’s “Every Brilliant Thing” or John Lithgow’s “Giant,” both of which recouped within two months of opening — has also kept many of Broadway’s 41 theaters occupied by celebrity-driven plays instead of musicals.
“Since so many of those musicals weren’t financially successful, at least on Broadway, I think a lot of folks are a little more cautious now,” says Anant Das, a Tony-nominated producer whose credits include the musicals “Smash,” “How to Dance in Ohio” and “New York, New York.” “They’re thinking, ‘Is Broadway even the right step for my musical? Is off-Broadway a better bet? Do we even need to go to New York? Maybe we go to London first?’”
Yet the 2025-26 season — thin as it may be — still produced an acclaimed crop of best musical nominees from artists hoping to buck that financial trend.
Each of the four contenders gleaned positive critical reviews. “The Lost Boys,” “Schmigadoon!” and “Titaníque” have shown enough box office promise to announce new blocks of tickets, and “Two Strangers” joined those shows in recently planning North American tours. “The Lost Boys” has proven particularly popular, earning more than $1 million a week, at times outpacing the likes of Broadway stalwarts “Wicked” and “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.” And the shows contributed to Broadway’s cumulative attendance of 14.57 million this season — not far off the all-time high of 14.77 million from 2018-19 (the last full pre-pandemic season).
“You’re dealing in an industry where the margins are so tricky to make something happen, and everything is so expensive in the most expensive city in the world,” Arden says of “The Lost Boys.” “So I’m shocked that musicals, especially musicals on Broadway, ever even happen — much less bring out audiences every night like we’re seeing.”
It helps that this season’s offerings have scratched decidedly different itches. The rockin’ scale of “The Lost Boys,” the charming intimacy of “Two Strangers,” the gleeful camp of “Titaníque,” the heart and humor of “Schmigadoon!” — the variety speaks to the form’s enduring malleability.
“Musicals operate at an elevated emotional level,” says Dane Laffrey, the “Lost Boys” scenic designer. “So you can — if you’re delivering it correctly — really bring people in and just deeply immerse them in story, in sound, in mythology, in a thrilling visual language, and get a beautiful message across.”
The four shows embarked on wildly different paths to Broadway. “The Lost Boys,” an ambitious production boasting a 26-actor company, a sprawling set and high-wire vampire stunts, debuted on Broadway after skipping a pricey out-of-town tryout. “Schmigadoon!” began as an Apple TV series and premiered onstage last year at the Kennedy Center. “Titaníque” was an underground darling that had embarked on a long off-Broadway run and spawned productions around the world. “Two Strangers” premiered at small English venues, then evolved over two runs in London and another in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“We’d never written a musical before, we didn’t know anyone in the industry and we just didn’t know how it would happen,” says “Two Strangers” composer Barne. “But we just nevertheless wrote a musical, and then every single step of the way it was just this wonderful, unexpected gift.”
Tye Blue, the director and co-creator of “Titaníque,” recalls repeatedly hearing that the unabashedly bonkers spoof would never cut it on a Broadway stage. But the St. James Theatre was vacant after “The Queen of Versailles” flopped in the fall, and the thin season opened the door for a late-breaking entry into the Tonys race. Although “Titaníque” bolstered its cast with the star power necessary to recruit Broadway investors — adding actors Jim Parsons and Melissa Barrera — the production reportedly kept its capitalization at a modest $9.5 million.
“Those parameters force you to think more economically and with a more resourceful mindset,” Blue says. “We would like to help turn this narrative around that new musicals on Broadway are only going to lose money and are not a wise investment, and I’m optimistic that the tide is turning.”
Originally scheduled to run through July 12, “Titaníque” has been extended to Sept. 20 and has announced a North American tour. Even if the show doesn’t break even on Broadway, the tour and licensing for regional and community theater productions could ultimately pave a road to profitability. Case in point: “Kimberly Akimbo,” the 2023 winner for best musical, recouped its $7 million capitalization this April on the strength of its tour — two years after the Broadway production closed.
“Broadway is only one part of the journey,” says Das, the producer.
The Tony Awards are also a critical factor. A best musical win can propel a show to longevity. A shutout can hasten a closing notice. In a reminder of such stakes, this season’s ABBA-fueled musical, “Chess,” recently announced a June 21 closing date — nearly three months early — after it was shut out of the best revival category at the Tonys.
That’s the game. Each of the best musical nominees, of course, could still end up in the red. But whatever the financial outcome, they’re all impressing critics, connecting with theatergoers and working to change Broadway’s downbeat tune.
“I love musicals,” says Paul, the “Schmigadoon!” writer. “I will keep writing musicals. I want more musicals out there for me to watch and for me to create for other people to watch. I do believe that, ultimately, if you just tell something that’s honest and truthful, people will seek it out and laugh and cry and give a standing ovation at the end.”
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