Coming out of the pandemic, Broadway was awash in new musicals. Fourteen opened during the 2024-25 season, and 15 the season before that.
But almost all of them were flops, and the industry took note. This past season, only six new musicals opened, two of which (“The Queen of Versailles” and “Beaches”) quickly imploded.
The anemic stretch seems likely to continue. Just two new musicals have announced Broadway runs before the end of the year: “Wanted,” about a pair of outlaw sisters, and “Galileo,” about the astronomer accused of heresy.
It didn’t have to be this way. Circling Broadway, hoping for a place to land, are musicals featuring the songbooks of Prince and Dolly Parton; musicals about murder and mythology and urinary incontinence; musicals encouraged by runs Off Broadway, at regional theaters or in London.
So what happened? How did the new musical — long Broadway’s fundamental building block — become so scarce that the New York Drama Critics’ Circle opted to forgo an award this year for best musical, and two of the five Tony nominations for best score went to music composed for plays?
Opening any show on Broadway requires three basic elements:
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art (a script and, for musicals, a score that are both more or less ready to go)
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money (mounting a play or musical costs millions of dollars)
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real estate (Broadway has 41 theaters, operated by a small coterie of landlords, and new musicals must compete with starry play productions, as well as revivals, to land a home)
The number of shows that satisfy all three of those requirements is dwindling.
“It’s not as if Broadway has ever been an easy place to crack, but the usual mismatch between expenses and income has never been greater,” said John Breglio, a longtime entertainment lawyer and sometime producer.
Some producers theorize that this skimpy period is essentially a fluke — that the high-volume stretches from 2023 to 2025 were the result of a pandemic backlog, and the recent dip reflects a natural rebalancing.
Others point to signs that next year, the pace of openings could pick up. Both “Warriors,” Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first full-fledged post-“Hamilton” stage show (written with Eisa Davis), and “Paddington: The Musical,” a big-brand, big-budget show that has been a hit in London, are planning Broadway openings for next April. And further down the line, several dozen musicals are in development, from well-known titles like “The Greatest Showman,” “La La Land” and “The Princess Bride” to a wide array of smaller-scale shows.
“This is an optimistic industry,” said Erik Piecuch, the head of Broadway banking at City National Bank. “Nothing makes sense on Broadway — none of it pencils out — but despite that, we still see bank accounts being opened for shows that could be six months down the line or five years down the line, which shows there is a pipeline of shows being developed.”
Optimistic or not, systemic challenges are reshaping the path for new musicals from page to stage. Here’s a look at what’s happening.
Bumpy Roads Lead to Detours
“Dolly: A True Original Musical,” about the life of Dolly Parton, and “Purple Rain,” an adaptation of Prince’s 1984 rock-romance film, had considered opening on Broadway this past season. But both hit unexpected turbulence during pre-Broadway runs in the musicians’ home states. So in each case, the producers took a step that happens too rarely in musical theater: They slowed down to make changes.
“Purple Rain,” with an eye-popping initial budget of $29.5 million, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, had a run last fall at the State Theater in Minneapolis and the early reviews were not encouraging. Since then, the production has been overhauling the script and the creative team. The show now has a new director, Saheem Ali (who directed “Buena Vista Social Club” and “Fat Ham” on Broadway, and succeeds Lileana Blain-Cruz), and a new book writer, Peter Duchan (who wrote the book for “Dogfight,” and succeeds Branden Jacobs-Jenkins). The revised show is planning to open on Broadway next spring.
“Dolly,” which ran last summer at the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts in Nashville, received supportive reviews from local critics. But industry insiders, including the show’s own team, thought it needed retooling.
“I am spending a lot of time writing and reworking,” Parton said last month on Instagram, adding that it’s “going to be opening later in New York this fall or early winter.” It appears that she was still too optimistic, and the show is now hoping for an early 2027 opening.
Some smaller shows also opted to take time to revise, including “Revolution(s),” a musical about resistance, featuring songs by Tom Morello, an alumnus of Rage Against the Machine. A well-received run last year at the Goodman Theater in Chicago led to talk of a quick transfer to Broadway, but the show’s backers held off. “The piece is phenomenal, but unfortunately, it will remain relevant for a bit longer, and there was some work we wanted to do,” said Lia Vollack, a lead producer. “We’re still figuring out if there is an additional step before the commercial buzz saw of Broadway.”
Waiting for a theater
Real estate is a perennial limiting factor on Broadway. About a quarter of the theaters are occupied by long-running shows that opened before the pandemic; turnover happens at unpredictable times; and not every theater works for every production (the buildings vary considerably in capacity, from 600 to 1,900 seats, and producers must decide if an available house will serve their show, artistically and financially).
“Going into the wrong theater can expedite the death of a show,” said Hal Luftig, a lead producer of “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” which had a well-received run in 2024 at the Goodman. A plan to open on Broadway in 2025 was foiled by the lack of an available, and appropriate, theater; now Luftig aims to open next year. “Hopefully in the fall we’ll put together another reading, introduce it to theater owners, and then it’s all about the real estate.”
Other shows are also waiting, particularly for the midsize theaters that are often in short supply.
“It’s frustrating, because I have a really wonderful, well-received, popular musical that is ready for prime time, and it’s been very difficult to get the right house, and keeping a team together is challenging,” said Tom Kirdahy, a lead producer of “The Bedwetter,” a Sarah Silverman musical that has had productions at Atlantic Theater Company in New York and Arena Stage in Washington, and has been waiting about a year for a theater. “But I trust that we will get there.”
For some shows, the waiting list does work. “Wanted,” about Black sisters who pass as white and become outlaws, will open in November at the James Earl Jones Theater, later than first hoped, but the delay got the show “a very long runway, which is more valuable,” said Ben Holtzman, one of that show’s lead producers, “because it takes a lot of time to build a marketing campaign, to raise money, and to build a fan base.”
Pivoting to Off Broadway
Some artistically promising but commercially challenging shows, at least as an interim step, have opted for productions at Off Broadway nonprofits, where they can fine-tune their material, build word-of-mouth, and test the New York waters with lower financial risk.
“The Heart,” which last year had a run at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, is the story of a heart transplant, set primarily in a hospital and scored with electronic music. The director, Christopher Ashley, moved from the artistic director position in La Jolla to the same role at New York’s Roundabout Theater Company, and has decided to keep working on “The Heart” with an Off Broadway production at his new company this fall. The musical has the backing of the producers who turned “Come From Away” into a surprise hit, and they like the go-slow approach.
“It has tricky subject material,” said Sue Frost, one of the lead producers, “and needs time to find its feet and its audience.”
Similarly, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” a musical based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story about a man who ages backward, considered a Broadway transfer after an Olivier-winning run in London, but instead has opted first for an Off Broadway production at the Public Theater, which has a lot of experience nurturing musicals.
“The good thing is, you put a musical here and we’re not talking about it making money,” said Oskar Eustis, the Public’s artistic director, “we’re talking about making it work.”
Skittish Investors and Landlords
Producers say that raising money to finance shows has become increasingly difficult because investors are spooked by the number of failures in an era of rising production costs. Also, they say, it’s hard to raise money for a show that does not yet have the promise of a theater.
“Musicals are expensive, and original musicals are harder than IP musicals — it’s harder to get people’s attention for them,” said Robyn Goodman, a lead producer of “Regency Girls,” a musical comedy set in 1810 that she describes as “‘Bridesmaids’ meets ‘Bridgerton.’” The show had a run at the Old Globe in San Diego, and is now waiting for a shot at Broadway. “We needed time to raise money,” Goodman said.
A lot of the industry’s focus has shifted from new musicals toward plays featuring well-known film or television actors; those productions are generally less costly to produce and more likely to make money.
“The theaters did get booked up with a lot of plays this year,” said Flody Suarez, a lead producer of a new musical comedy, “What’s New Pussycat?,” which is waiting for a theater following a 2021 run in Birmingham, England.
“Goddess,” a contemporary Afro-jazz take on a West African myth, is also in line for a theater following two nonprofit runs, at Berkeley Repertory Theater and the Public Theater.
“There are plenty of producers who have original musicals they feel are ready to go, but that has not been the priority of those who are programming the venues,” said a “Goddess” lead producer, Mara Isaacs. “I get it, because there’s a lot of really great plays with high-profile performers that move tickets in the short-term.”
But, she added, “as an industry, we have to invest in the thing we do better than anyone else, and that is the original American musical. It’s higher risk, but it’s also potentially higher reward.”
Robert E. Wankel, the chairman and chief executive of the Shubert Organization, which is the largest Broadway theater owner, makes no apologies for choosing plays. “Let’s be real,” he said, “plays have been very important this season.”
But he also said there is, and will be, plenty of room for musicals too.
“Musicals are expensive, and we have to work hard to keep the economics in check,” Wankel said. “But don’t worry — musicals are not over. They will never be over. After all, we’re made up of musicals.”
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