Return of BROADWAY and Live Theatre

[mamaleh]

Update: I took advantage of FUNNY GIRL's new rush policy and finally caught Beanie Feldstein's performance. She was neither great nor horrible, meandering somewhere in between but registering less of an impact than I'd hoped she would. Her comedic timing was fine, though slightly less sharp than I thought it would be. Her voice is serviceable but should be more than just OK for such a major role iconic role as Fanny Brice. She sometimes left the impression that she was singing words rather than projecting the feeling behind the lyrics. Beanie still exudes great personal appeal on stage, however. Unfortunately, that's not enough to get her through the first Broadway revival of FG in nearly 6 decades. I hope she gets another chance to start in (preferably) a comedy on Broadway.

Ellen

[ruby]

Jul 19, 2022 18:57:35 GMT -5 mamaleh said:

Update: I took advantage of FUNNY GIRL's new rush policy and finally caught Beanie Feldstein's performance. She was neither great nor horrible, meandering somewhere in between but registering less of an impact than I'd hoped she would. Her comedic timing was fine, though slightly less sharp than I thought it would be. Her voice is serviceable but should be more than just OK for such a major role iconic role as Fanny Brice. She sometimes left the impression that she was singing words rather than projecting the feeling behind the lyrics. Beanie still exudes great personal appeal on stage, however. Unfortunately, that's not enough to get her through the first Broadway revival of FG in nearly 6 decades. I hope she gets another chance to start in (preferably) a comedy on Broadway.

Ellen

Thanks Ellen for the review on Beanie’s Fanny performance. I have been following along with the controversies and value your opinion.

[mamaleh]

I caught a recent performance of POTUS, a wild, frenetic political comedy at the Shubert theater. It’s 90 minutes of sheer fun, full of outrageous farce, slapstick and, if you’re in the mood for a play with those elements—which I was—loads of laughs. In fact I haven’t laughed so much during a show since THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG and ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS. The seven-woman cast, notably starring Julie White, Vanessa Williams and Rachel Dratch, are adept farceurs as various White House staff—and objects—whirl around the Oval Office amid the women’s desperate attempts to shore up a bumbling president. Recommended.

Ellen

[njr]

Ellen, I saw One Man, Two Guvnors on TV (PBS) starring James Corden. Was he in the production you saw? (Loved it when he mentioned The Beatles!)

Nancy

[jo]

From the NYTimes --

Live Performance Is Back. But Audiences Have Been Slow to Return.


Attendance lagged in the comeback season, as the challenges posed by the coronavirus persisted. Presenters hope it was just a blip.




“It wasn’t a season of opening post-pandemic, but during a pandemic, and of course, attendance was weak,” said Adam Siegel, the managing director of Lincoln Center Theater, a New York nonprofit.
“It wasn’t a season of opening post-pandemic, but during a pandemic, and of course, attendance was weak,” said Adam Siegel, the managing director of Lincoln Center Theater, a New York nonprofit.Credit...Charlie Rubin for The New York Times

Michael PaulsonJavier C. Hernández
By Michael Paulson and Javier C. Hernández
Aug. 21, 2022, 3:21 p.m. ET
Patti LuPone, Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig came back to Broadway. The Norwegian diva-in-the-making Lise Davidsen brought her penetrating voice to the Metropolitan Opera. Dancers filled stages, symphonies reverberated in concert halls and international theater companies returned to American stages.

The resumption of live performance after the long pandemic shutdown brought plenty to cheer about over the past year. But far fewer people are showing up to join those cheers than presenters had hoped.

Around New York, and across the country, audiences remain well below prepandemic levels. From regional theaters to Broadway, and from local orchestras to grand opera houses, performing arts organizations are reporting persistent — and worrisome — drops in attendance.





Fewer than half as many people saw a Broadway show during the season that recently ended than did so during the last full season before the coronavirus pandemic. The Met Opera saw its paid attendance fall to 61 percent of capacity, down from 75 percent before the pandemic. Many regional theaters say ticket sales are down significantly.

“There was a greater magnetic force of people’s couches than I, as a producer, anticipated,” said Jeremy Blocker, the managing director at New York Theater Workshop, the Off Broadway theater that developed “Rent” and “Hadestown.” “People got used to not going places during the pandemic, and we’re going to struggle with that for a few years.”

Many presenters anticipate that the softer box office will extend into the upcoming season and perhaps beyond. And some fear that the virus is accelerating long-term trends that have troubled arts organizations for years, including softer ticket sales for many classical music events, the decline of the subscription model for selling tickets at many performing arts organizations, and the increasing tendency among consumers to purchase tickets at the last minute.

A few institutions are already making adjustments for the new season: The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra has cut 10 concerts, after seeing its average attendance fall to 40 percent of capacity last season, down from 62 percent in 2018-19.




Many Broadway shows have struggled to match prepandemic sales
Percent change in weekly gross sales in 2021 and 2022, compared with the same week in 2019

Small multiples bar chart showing the percent change in weekly gross sales by in 2021 and 2022, compared with an equivalent week in 2019, for 15 shows that were running prepandemic as well as post-shutdown. Several shows have experienced a shortfall in sales compared with prepandemic levels, due to fewer performances and Covid-related cancellations, and many have closed early.
Weeks in which some or all performances were canceled
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>
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(Jo's note :Some stats for individual shows are omitted here ( takes too much space) )



Notes: This chart compares weekly box office grosses since Broadway reopened with the comparable weeks in 2019, the last full calendar year before the shutdown (e.g., data from Oct. 2021 is compared with Oct. 2019, and data from May 2022 is compared with May 2019). The grosses, which are not inflation-adjusted, are affected by multiple factors, including variations in the number of performances per week, and, in the case of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” a consolidation of that show from two parts to one.Sources: Broadway League; Internet Broadway Database; Playbill.comBy Christine Zhang


Even as much of the nation tries to move past the pandemic, it continues to disrupt audience behavior — putting a crimp in a Broadway that had been booming and adding to the woes of orchestras and opera companies that had been struggling.



Some arts leaders note the ongoing apprehension among some potential ticket buyers about catching the coronavirus. “There are sizable pockets of people, and some of those overlap with our core audience, who are still wary about being in public spaces,” said Oskar Eustis, the artistic director of the Public Theater in New York.




The slower-than-expected return of office workers to city centers, where many entertainment venues are located, has not helped, either. “We don’t yet see everybody who we used to see coming to see a show after work,” said Aidan Connolly, the executive director of the Irish Arts Center, which presents music, dance and theater at a long-in-the-works Midtown Manhattan venue that finally opened in the middle of the pandemic.

There are exceptions, though, showing that a hot property can still draw audiences.

Some Broadway revivals have done boffo business at the box office, including Neil Simon’s marital comedy “Plaza Suite,” which offered fans a rare opportunity to see the spouses Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick working together onstage; “The Music Man,” starring Jackman, a huge draw; and “Into the Woods,” the Stephen Sondheim musical that is playing to rhapsodic crowds. “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” the first work by a Black composer to be presented by the Metropolitan Opera, played to sold-out houses as word of mouth spread.

And the concert industry, which attracts younger patrons than many other performing arts sectors, has been a real bright spot. Live Nation, the global concert giant, recently reported that it had sold 100 million tickets for the full year, more than in 2019.

But scattered hits and crowded concerts can distract from the reality that, for most classical and theatrical institutions and shows, attendance is down, ticket prices are depressed, productions are fewer, and memberships or subscriptions have fallen. The initial post-shutdown optimism — bolstered by pent-up demand — was tempered by wave after wave of new virus variants that raised health concerns and led to numerous performer absences and performance cancellations.




“I believe our audience is there — just some of them are in hibernation,” said Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera

“We were optimistic last summer, when the vaccine first came along, and everyone was feeling, ‘This is great!’ and “Let’s go!’” said Adam Siegel, the managing director of Lincoln Center Theater, a New York nonprofit. “As it turned out, Covid wasn’t quite done with us. It wasn’t a season of opening post-pandemic, but during a pandemic, and of course, attendance was weak.”

A recent study of 143 performing arts organizations in North America by TRG Arts, an analytics firm, found that the number of tickets sold was down by 40 percent in the 2021-22 season, compared with before the pandemic, and ticket revenues were down by 31 percent. The firm attributed the decline to a variety of factors, including ongoing unease about the coronavirus and changing habits around attending live performances. Another factor noted by the TRG Arts study: aging audiences for classical music.

“The biggest problem is that we haven’t finished with the pandemic,” said Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, which never had to cancel last season. “I believe our audience is there — just some of them are in hibernation.”

Carnegie Hall ended the season with an average attendance level of 88 percent, compared with 93 percent before the pandemic, but achieved that in part by presenting fewer concerts: about 115, compared with about 170 before the pandemic. The New York Philharmonic, similarly, finished the season with an average of 90 percent capacity, but that was with a pared-down season of about 80 concerts, compared with 120 in a normal year, and many of the concerts were staged at smaller halls because its longtime home, David Geffen Hall, is under renovation. With the new Geffen Hall slated to open this fall, the Philharmonic said it was seeing an uptick in subscription sales.

It is not just the performing arts that have seen a drop-off. Movie theaters have yet to recover their prepandemic audiences: With fewer releases, domestic box office revenues so far this year are down 31.2 percent compared to the same period in 2019, according to Comscore. Major League Baseball has been drawing fewer fans than it did before the pandemic.




For performing arts organizations, diminished attendance comes at a cost.

“Artistically it was a great year,” said Barry Grove, the executive producer of Manhattan Theater Club, noting that that nonprofit’s three Broadway shows were critical successes. “Financially, it was a different story: Despite all of the success artistically, both subscriptions and single tickets were off by almost a third, and that’s a significant shortfall.”


There are scattered hits, but many presenters say attendance, average ticket prices and the number of productions being mounted are all down from prepandemic levels.


Broadway offers the most obvious (and stark) evidence of diminished attendance and its economic consequences. During the 2021-22 season, which started slow and late as the industry gradually reopened, there were 6,860 performances seen by 6.7 million people, grossing $845 million. By contrast, during the 2018-19 season, the last full season before the pandemic, there were 13,590 performances seen by 14.8 million people, grossing $1.8 billion.

“There are fewer tourists, fewer older people, and very few groups, and the other thing that can’t be underestimated is that people are still working remotely,” said Sue Frost, a lead producer of “Come From Away,” an improbable feel-good Sept. 11 musical that opened in 2017. “I don’t know when that changes,” she added.

“Come From Away,” which had been doing well before the pandemic, plans to close in October — shortly after the closing of “Dear Evan Hansen,” which also faced a post-shutdown reversal of fortunes.

Even far from Broadway, numbers are mostly down.

“I’d be a liar if I said I was happy,” said Brian Kelsey, the managing director of Peninsula Players Theater in Door County, Wis., an area that is a popular Midwest vacation destination. “I don’t know if people are out of the habit, or unaware, or if the clientele that had come is now more interested in outdoor beer gardens, I just know that we’re definitely seeing a downturn.”



The financial damage is real — a few nonprofits have failed — but also contained, because many organizations, both commercial and nonprofit, received significant amounts of financial assistance from the federal government, and donors, often enriched by a stock market that was soaring at the height of the pandemic, stepped up to sustain arts organizations. But now the federal money has dried up, Wall Street has been volatile, inflation is high, and there is political instability domestically and overseas.

All causes for worry.


“I’m confident that it will return,” said Barry Grove, the executive producer of Manhattan Theater Club. “I’m just no longer pretending I’m prophetic enough to know when.”
“I’m confident that it will return,” said Barry Grove, the executive producer of Manhattan Theater Club. “I’m just no longer pretending I’m prophetic enough to know when.”Credit...Charlie Rubin for The New York Times

There are upsides. Cultural institutions say they are proud of the work they produced during the past season, and also to have produced work at all. And they have been forced to experiment with — and try to develop — new ways of finding audiences.

“It would be a mistake to simply focus on trying to restore what perhaps existed before the pandemic, because our world has changed in fundamental ways,” said Mark C. Hanson, the president and chief executive of the Baltimore Symphony.

So what happens next? Arts leaders say they are making peace with not knowing. The risk of serious illness seems to be far lower than at the beginning of the pandemic, but the danger of business interruption remains high, as infections continue to prompt periodic cancellations. And it’s not clear when — or if — arts audiences will return to prepandemic levels.

“I have no illusion that we can just snap our fingers,” said Siegel, the managing director of Lincoln Center Theater. “It’s going to take however long it takes.”

Grove, the executive producer of Manhattan Theater Club, agreed.

“I’m confident that it will return,” he said. “I’m just no longer pretending I’m prophetic enough to know when.”

Michael Paulson is the theater reporter. He previously covered religion, and was part of the Boston Globe team whose coverage of clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. @michaelpaulson

Javier C. Hernández is a Culture reporter for The New York Times covering the world of classical music and dance in New York City and beyond. He joined The Times in 2008 and previously worked as a correspondent in Beijing and New York. @hernandezjavier

[jo]

[jo]

The Hollywood Reporter reports on the status of the Broadway comeback.

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Rising Costs, Changing Audience Behavior Hold Back Broadway’s Rebound
Producers are facing a "nerve-racking" environment this fall, as they seek to regain audience confidence and cut down on COVID-19 show disruptions.

BY CAITLIN HUSTON
NOVEMBER 10, 2022 11:04AM PST

Leopoldstadt Broadway Opening Night
The new play ‘Leopoldstadt’ opened on Broadway this fall.

ROY ROCHLIN/GETTY IMAGES
As Broadway moves through its first full season since the pandemic began, new content is pouring in and the industry continues to hope for a rebound.

But amid the spate of new shows, producers are also facing higher costs due to inflation and extra understudies, as well as the added stressors of unpredictable and changing audience behavior. There’s optimism that the industry will move past this moment, if audiences return in greater numbers, but the timeline and the exact method for getting there isn’t yet clear.


“If the productions are roughly 15 percent to 20 percent down, and they’re costing 10 percent more, you can see that we’re not out of this yet by any means,” said Sonia Friedman, a producer on many West End and Broadway productions, including Funny Girl, new play Leopoldstadt and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.


While big event or star-studded shows such as The Music Man are performing well, many newer productions are still challenged at the box office. There’s been momentum in the industry, as seen in the most recent week of grosses, when The Music Man brought in close to $3 million, helping bring up industry totals, alongside other standouts such as Hamilton and MJ the Musical, but nine of the 32 running productions made less than $500,000.

This trend is not atypical, but is felt more acutely this year, as tourism, a key segment of the Broadway audience, is still down (with 56.7 million tourists predicted to visit New York City in 2022, compared to 66.6 million in 2019, according to NYC & Company). And productions no longer have the use of $10 million in federal funding that was available last year to help buffer any losses.


The pandemic also interrupted the habit of theatergoing, and there’s a feeling among producers that some segments may still be nervous to return or wary of the prices. In that environment, it can be challenging to attract early audiences to new or unknown shows, said Joey Parnes, producer of the new musical KPOP.

“It’s not surprising that if they’re having to be discerning, they’re going to choose something that is more certain,” Parnes said. On KPOP, which has been at the low end of the industry’s box office, Parnes says he believes good reviews can help boost grosses and bring in a wider audience. The higher grossing shows demonstrate that there is demand, Parnes argued, and the next step is to get those consumers to see multiple shows.

Producers have also noticed a change in behavior among the audience that is there.

“The behavior of audiences is very different insofar as to how far in advance or how close to the performance they will or won’t have the confidence to book and that hasn’t changed much in the last few months,” Friedman said. “Therefore, it’s nerve-racking and nail biting for most producers as they head towards their opening because the advances aren’t where they should be.”


It’s worth noting that The Piano Lesson, a starry revival featuring Samuel L. Jackson and Danielle Brooks, has seen strong advance buying, according to producer Brian Moreland (Friedman is also a producer on this), even as that’s not the trend across the board. Leopoldstadt, the latest drama from renowned playwright Tom Stoppard, has also stood out from the pack as a high-grossing play, bringing in more than $1 million for the last few weeks after opening.

After the 18-month theatrical shutdown and the difficulties of last season, Friedman says the industry has already gotten through the “worst of it” and is now in a place of needing to rebuild the confidence of audiences. But with that, and an expanding list of tasks and new considerations, producers are facing a different kind of working environment.

“The anxiety and the levels of stress are like no other time in my working life,” Friedman said.

Many producers, particularly on new shows, are preparing for possible COVID-19 cases within the cast by increasing the number of understudies and covers, a lesson learned from last season when shows scrambled to find coverage.

After facing that last season, Moreland said understudies and covers on The Piano Lesson started rehearsing their roles on the first day of rehearsals, alongside the rest of the company, rather than waiting until the show moved into the theater, as has been the industry norm. This ensured those cast members would be ready to go on as early as needed.



Increasing the number of understudies is particularly important now that most insurers are not covering COVID-19-related performance cancellations at productions. “We have to effectively self-insure, and to self-insure, the only way we can do that is to have a cover for a cover,” Friedman said.

However, hiring more cast members, and outfitting them with costumes and mics, adds extra costs to budgets that were already growing due to the costs of COVID-19 testing for company members. The physical costs of the production have also gone up, Moreland said, as the cost of goods has risen and as behind-the-scenes shops have encountered labor shortages.

While extra costs may lengthen the time to a show’s recoupment, producers do have the use of an up to $3 million New York City Musical and Theatrical Production Tax Credit, which has been “fundamental” to “give investors confidence to continue investing in the work,” Friedman said.

The upcoming holiday season will likely provide a boost in grosses for many productions. And after getting through the winter, typically the lowest time for Broadway attendance and grosses, Friedman says there may be better visibility into the health of the industry and its trends. It also comes down to producing the right work to draw in those audience members.


“I’m choosing the work I’m doing carefully, on that basis, thinking ‘I think this has the potential to bring back or bring an audience into the theater that may not have come in every instance,’” Friedman said.

That work may need to include more known brands or entities in the short-term, Moreland said. (Among Friedman’s many projects, she hopes to transfer this fall’s Off-Broadway production of Merrily We Roll Along, starring Daniel Radcliffe, to Broadway). Or work that targets new audience segments, as Parnes aims to do with KPOP, which taps into the phenomenon of Korean pop groups.

The hope is that, with time, these productions can help make the industry whole again.

“We’re in a definite moment right now that I don’t think is permanent,” Parnes said. “I think it is going to pass. It will likely pass into something that isn’t quite identical to what things were like before the pandemic, but I do think there’s just too much great work that people do on Broadway and for an audience, there’s nothing like that direct, visceral in-person experience.”

Nothing much new in this article has contributed to the knowledge that Broadway is still struggling. Not much comment on whether the type of new material (being presented) is also an issue. Also, no kind of marketing research on what kind of shows are being patronized (consumer choices) - new or revivals? Any indications of repeat patronage? Also, why interview only one producer?




Jo