NYT: The Broadway Musical Is in Trouble — Page 2

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Updated On: 10/7/25 at 12:03 PM

I was under the impression that when there is a Big Star in a show and there is a week that a show underperforms, usually the difference comes out of their salary? Maybe that’s only when they’re also a producer.

Sutton Ross said: "Is it just possiblethey’re green lighting things nobody actually wants?


That seems to be the case these days. I'm glad there are less musicals this season, last season was overstuffed and mostly doomed to fall. Still bizarre they brought Smash to Broadway 12 years too late and thought it was going to be huge. Wild.
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Updated On: 10/7/25 at 12:48 PM

A mentor of mine recently told me "you need a good sentence-fragment elevator pitch for your show, if the title isn't going to sell it on name recognition alone. Something that tells someone very quickly what your show is and makes it sound appealing. (Case in point: "quirky dark-carnival satire" was tentatively the one I had for mine.)

Maybe Happy Endings can tell you in two words what it is and why people will enjoy it. "Musical Kdrama." On the other hand, Boop has no clear elevator pitch besides "Betty Boop" to make a case for itself. And I liked Boop!

Sutton Ross said: "Is it just possiblethey’re green lighting things nobody actually wants?


That seems to be the case these days. I'm glad there are less musicals this season, last season was overstuffed and mostly doomed to fall. Still bizarre they brought Smash to Broadway 12 years too late and thought it was going to be huge. Wild.
"

the crazy thing to me was that the fans weren't asking for a stage version of Smash - the fans wanted a stage version of Bombshell. I don't know what would have happened if they had put that on stage - but would it have had any less "success"?

"I don’t think lead-time is the issue. Audiences buy later nowadays."

While this is probably true, I'd like to point out that I can no longer afford to buy tickets in advance. For the majority of my life, I'd come to New York twice a year with all my tickets bought way in advance. Tickets bought in advance were always much more affordable, either because tickets were priced lower to generate interest and word of mouth or because there were discount codes offered before a show opened. With notable exception, the trend for a few years seems to have been to price tickets as high as possible and only lower them closer to the performance date.

I don't know if this new pricing model is a response to audience habits or a driver of them. Regardless, I can no longer secure affordable tickets in advance so I can't continue to make these bi-yearly trips centered on New York theater. While admittedly, I'm a weirdo... I can't help but imagine I'm not the only one. If I lived in New York, or close, this wouldn't be a problem. However, as an out of town tourist who wants to fit as many shows as possible into a trip I have been completely priced out. With the price of everything else in New York, it's not worth it to me to only see one or two shows.

KJisgroovy said: ""For the majority of my life, I'd come to New York twice a year with all my tickets bought way in advance. Tickets bought in advance were always much more affordable, either because tickets were priced lower to generate interest and word of mouth or because there were discount codes offered before a show opened. With notable exception, the trend for a few years seems to have been to price tickets as high as possible and only lower them closer to the performance date."

I also used to buy all my tickets way in advance to get the best seats at the best prices, but this is no longer an effective strategy. My visit in July for the Sunset Blvd finale was the first time I ever went to NY without pre-purchasing all of my show tickets. I currently have another visit planned for November, and I've only bought tickets for Chess (and I almost wish I hadn't bought this show ahead of time) and Masquerade; all of my other slots will be filled post-arrival, based on available good seats at reasonable prices.

Greed kills. Extortionate prices = short term gain, long term loss. An average person might use up their whole annual theater budget to see Hamilton or Denzel, to the detriment of the rest of the theater industry as a whole.

Jay Lerner-Z said: "An average person might use up their whole annual theater budget to see Hamilton or Denzel, to the detriment of the rest of the theater industry as a whole."

Yes. This is how freedom of choice works.

Some people save up all year for an expensive vacation to the detriment of every other city they chose not to visit by making more trips.

Updated On: 9/22/25 at 03:12 PM

Jay Lerner-Z said: "Nobody chose this."

You know darn well I was commenting on people choosing to only attend one more expensive show, something you lamented in the post I responded to.

Jay Lerner-Z said: "Greed kills. Extortionate prices = short term gain, long term loss. An average person might use up their whole annual theater budget to see Hamilton or Denzel, to the detriment of the rest of the theater industry as a whole."

If somebody uses their whole theater budget up to buy one ticket to see a star, that’s not a systemic problem. That person could very easily not see Denzel for $800 and instead see 10 shows at $80, but they chose not to.

Jay:

You have this habit of consistently shifting the goalpost of the point you try to make.

You asserted that when people opt to buy expensive tickets to one show they do so to the detriment of all others shows.

Several of us pointed out that is free will. If they wanted to see more shows, presumably they would buy tickets to more shows, but they did not.

And yes, I am fortunate to see a lot of theater when I am working in London because I spend almost all my discretionary dollars there to do so .. to the detriment of all the restaurants where I will not be having nice meals.

Updated On: 9/22/25 at 03:31 PM

"It's free will"

So is everything. This is not an interesting or unique observation. And it's not relevant to what the poster was saying.

When there are shows that costs 900$, people aren't going to see as many shows. Of course, this is their choice. However, if there weren't shows that cost 900$ a ticket they would not have to make this choice. Folks would have plenty of money to see other shows.

Jay has made this same point everytime he's posted. Whether you think this is a valid point or not, fine. However, you seem more interested in getting digs in than understanding what the OP meant.