Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 7/13/26 — Page 2

PipingHotPiccolo said: "quizking101 said: "merle57 said: "Thank God for quality productions like Salesman and Ragtime. Thank God for Lincoln Center and Scott Rudin for producing quality. Those are Broadway quality shows, not off-Broadway shows being produced on the main stem where they do not belong.

Thank you for your absolutely useless contribution to the discourse. You’re confusing quality with size and star power."



Feels pretty rich for YOU to be policing the discourse, given your complete and utter obsession with CATS, but its WILD to suggest that Salesman and Ragtime are examples of "star power" or "size" driving sales?

Ragtime has NO "stars" attached to it that drove sales outside the immediate Broadway core fans, and Salesman was THANK GOD put on featuring somewhat well known but Bway legends and incredible actors who more than rose to the occasion.

I cant think of anything less gracious than pretending that Ragtime and Salesman were runaway hits for illegitimate reasons, when both were simply exquisite productions of classics that audiences (and critics) love, whereas CATS was a brilliant spin on IP that most people find ridiculous."

Most people find CATS ridiculous? It only ran for 18 years on Broadway and has been produced around the world ever since. I guess you speak only for yourself and not “most people”.

Yeah, I feel like most are able to recognize that it was once very popular, but that its a truly bizarre plot-less waste of time, and that without the original 80s spectacle it flops (see revival 2016, the movie, etc.). The genius of this revival was that is turned the underlying slop into something new and worthwhile (and i still struggled to care, but i know im in the minority on that).

to each their own, but i think the post 1999 track record on CATS is pretty clear.

WANTED will be the show of the season. First rate musical, everybody should be excited for it.

It's my understanding that a large part of the reason CATS was able to run 18 years was because non-English speaking tourists could watch the dancing and costumes without having to follow much of a plot. Big seller among that crowd.

Fred Mason said: "WANTED will be the show of the season. First rate musical, everybody should be excited for it."

That’s quite a plug! Are you affiliated with this show or have friends, family etc connected to the show?

Legit question for the group...coming off the heels of ALW's comments regarding the Cats closure. Was there a recent change that caused Broadway operating costs to skyrocket? I get inflation, but it seems like not too long ago the nut for most shows was $500-$600K and anything making over a million was impressive.

It feels like the operating costs, expected box office, and time it takes to recoup have all doubled in the last decade instead of just slowly rising over time...

ALW makes it sound like The West End isn't seeing this - so what gives? Is it really just unions? Do West End professionals not make a living wage? Are the NYC theaters greedy? What am I missing?

No but I saw it at Paper Mill and know that it’s a first rate musical. When people see it, I KNOW they will love it. Nobody believed me when I said Fallen Angels was the show of last season and it was. And WANTED is the show of 2026-2027 season.

theatregoer said: "SkidRow82 said: "It feels like the operating costs, expected box office, and time it takes to recoup have all doubled in the last decade instead of just slowly rising over time...

It's not necessarily incompatible with "slowly" rising over time though (depending on how you define slowly). Let's say you're right that costs have increased by 100% over last ten years. ~38% of that is just inflation. To get the rest, you only need an additional 3.7% cost increases per year over and above inflation. This occurs because it compounds over time."

Exactly. And if costs are up 30+%, sales are definitely not. There is indeed blame to go around. Not blame as in greed, but in that everyone has advocated for themselves and untangling the whole business model isn't done by one group unilaterally disarming.

TheGingerBreadMan said: "It's my understanding that a large part of the reason CATS was able to run 18 years was because non-English speaking tourists could watch the dancing and costumeswithout having to follow much of a plot. Big seller among that crowd."

This comment is a typical ignorant American POV on language. It is far more common in the rest of the world, especially with foreign tourists who have enough disposable income to fly to New York to see Broadway shows, to speak and understand more than one language. We as Americans overwhelmingly speak just one language so when we hear tourists speaking in Italian or Portuguese before the show starts, we assume oh yeah, they must not speak or understand English. That's a ridiculous way to think. Yes tourists do flock to musicals for the spectacle, but not beause they don't understand English.

So let's see. You're repeating an anecdote that you have no idea is true or not, but you want me to substantiate a counterclaim against it? Girl, sit down.

And if you want to google the percentage of overseas tourists who speak more than one language, feel free, but I'm certainly not doing it for you. But at least I can say that international tourists are quite often, in fact, at least bilingual if not trilingual. And I'm not relying on random anecdotes I've heard. If you want to continue your ad hominem fact free argument, have at it.

Could it be possible that there are plenty of tourists who are bilingual AND the old spectacle warhorses like Cats (OG), Phantom, Lion King, Wicked, etc appeal to international tourists because they are a spectacle that can be enjoyed even if you don't speak the language?

RippedMan said: "I’d totally agree to that. But also as a betting man, I would have thought this revival would have run much longer. I think they needed to tap into the Drag Race franchise and tie the two together."

They had many Drag Race queens as the judges throughout the run. Ballroom has its own identity and Drag Race is decidedly not that, at least hasn’t been in 10 years. The real reason this show didn’t take off is because they didn’t bring it in at the height of its momentum, they instead pissed away 2 years of hype. When a show is having a moment like jellicle ball did at PAC, you don’t waste time and you get it in as soon as possible.


Also the keyboard warrior language discourse is absolutely bonkers and yall look crazy. It’s not new to say that shows are more palatable to international tourists. To make this into some xenophobic anti-tourist nonsense is just silly. It’s been a fact for decades upon decades. Chicago and Phantom (before it closed) run almost exclusively on international tourists. The titles are often well known overseas (China was the single biggest source of Phantom’s audience pre-COVID).


Mike Bosner is the lead producer on Cats and he seems to have a recent record of hesitating to bring his shows in when the opportunity is prime. See: Boop which he held off for a season as well and ultimately got drowned out in the stronger season that followed despite being thoroughly enjoyable and having good word of mouth.


Timing is everything.

Although I agree that one needs to strike while the iron is hot in transferring to Broadway, Jellicle Ball's wait to transfer didn't seem to be deliberate. They had to figure out the question of venue and also defer to ALW's reluctance in having it transfer while Sunset was running.