Profile for mikem

Even taking into account comps for Titanique for opening week, the new musicals' grosses are horrible.  The 7 Broadway shows with the lowest average ticket price are the 5 new musicals and two shows playing at the non-profits (The Balusters and Becky Shaw), and for the non-profits, subscription ticket prices sharply decrease the average ticket price.  The new musicals have no such excuse.  The new musicals' average ticket price ranges from $60.89 to

Jordan Catalano said: "As much praise as I can put on those two, equal praise needs to be given to Christopher Abbott who, in that last scene, broke my heart more than any actor has done in quite a while. I don't think I've ever cried like that during that scene (or this play) but he broke me. In fact, when I talk about this production to people 10, 15 years from now, that might be the first thing I'll remember about it, I just know it's going to live in my head for t

As Ermengarde pointed out, Benanti has appeared in 13 different Broadway or Encores productions and been nominated for 5 Tony awards.  Unlike most performers, she got promoted to lead in her first Broadway show, so she never did that "years in the ensemble" thing, and she had prominent roles in all 13 shows.  Anyone who was a regular Broadway theatergoer from the late 90s through the next two decades knows who she is.

That being sai

This is very sad news.  He was truly one of the greats.

Does anyone remember back in 2007 when Coast of Utopia was getting so much (deserved) awards attention, and someone on a TV program pronounced his name as "stahpard" (which is how he pronounces it)?  I had heard his name pronounced as "STAHP-erd" my whole life before that, and I remember there was a flurry of activity online where people were asking each other, "Is that how his name is suppo

I went to the first preview of The Queen of Versailles, and the stage door was the most chaotic stage door I have ever experienced, because there were multiple things going on at the same time, there were probably a couple hundred fans crowded together (the barricades were set up vertically rather than horizontally in relation to the sidewalk, if you know what I mean, so the front row of the barricades was short and people were kind of pressed together to be closer to the front), an

In this case, I can understand why investors are frustrated.  Within a couple of weeks of Billy Porter and Marisha Wallace starting, it was clear that they weren't going to increase the box office enough to have any breakeven weeks between that point and the end of their run two months later.  Billy Porter being out made it worse, but even if he had stayed, the fiscally responsible thing to have done would have been to close the show by Labor Day at the latest.

The s

Sadly, there are a lot of people like this stalker.  It sounds like McDonald is staying close enough that she probably walked to the hotel, but I'm guessing she's going to start getting into a car to be driven a couple of blocks to make it harder to be followed.  She shouldn't have to do something like that, but there are other stalkers.

I may be misremembering, but I believe Gypsy is the first Broadway show McDonald has done where she hasn't do

I think some of the premium center orchestra tickets were held back, but otherwise, I believe all of the orchestra was on sale today except for the last couple of seats on the sides, which I imagine will be held back until they know how obstructed the view is from those seats.  So I don't think there will be cheaper options available next week.  If anything, prices will be higher.  Dynamic pricing happened just in the first 90 minutes of the pre-sale today, where some ticke

The opening number was really weird.  It didn't sound or look "Broadway" at all.

In Hell's Kitchen, I'm pretty sure the actors drumming on stage aren't actually drumming.  It was weird they did a close-up there to emphasize that the drumming sound was coming from someplace else.

Jay-Z and Alicia Keys haven't performed that song together for probably 13 or 14 years.  That part was fantastic and sold a lot of tickets, but the audience m

The rules for principal vocalists change quite a bit pretty often, but the current rule is that there can be no more than four principal vocalists.  They are designated on the entry form as those with "significant contributing performance(s), defined as a lead performance by a featured vocalist."  The winning principal vocalists get a statuette and are considered to be Grammy winners.  If there are no principal vocalists, then it's considered to be an "ensemb