Tickets for “Othello” are selling for $921, even as far back as Row M, which helped the Shakespeare play starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal gross a record-breaking $2.8 million last week, “more than any nonmusical has ever made in a single week on Broadway.” (NY Times)
“’Othello’ is one of several limited-run, celebrity-fueled plays this spring that are charging obscene prices — exacerbating Broadway’s reputation of being only for the wealthy and debt-prone….The producers of these shows will surely make a tidy profit off their greed.” (NY Post.)
As Broadway theatergoers ready for the final stretch — 18 plays and musicals opening over the next six weeks, finishing up the Broadway 2024-2025 season — they are ponying up almost as much for George Clooney in “Good Night and Good Luck,” and Kieran Culkin, Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr, and Michael McKean in “Glengarry Glen Ross,” as well as relatively high ($400+) Off-Broadway in Andrew Scott’s one-man “Vanya” and Paul Mescal in “Streetcar Named Desire.”
These shows are a beneficiary of the “Taylor Swift effect, meaning that consumers are getting used to paying top dollar for live entertainment.”
A reminder that all Broadway shows, even “Othello,” offer the chance at discount tickets in the form of lottery and/or rush tickets. Broadway Rush and Lottery Policies
The Week in New York Theater Reviews
The public in 19th century Norway was so scandalized by “Ghosts” because it touched on such taboo subjects as adultery, alcoholism, syphilis, incest and euthanasia.,,,It was the savage pile-on against Ibsen because of “Ghosts” that inspired him to write “An Enemy of the People” the following year… A century and a half later, “Ghosts” is certainly more accepted, often ranked among Ibsen’s half dozen greatest plays (although never at the top.). But it seems more challenging than the others to stage well, judging from the productions I’ve seen of it, including this one. Directed by the usually reliable 85-year-old veteran Jack O’Brien, this “Ghosts” is undercut by a lack of clarity exacerbated by a vague translation and uneven acting.
Donald Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center mirrors the attack nine decades ago by the House Un-American Activities Committee on the Federal Theater Project in an arresting way: Like the current President, the Congressmen had never attended the theater that they assailed….“The Playbook” was published in a different era – ten months ago, before the reelection of Donald Trump – but its central insight makes it even more relevant these days. That insight is a dispiriting twist on the long connection between theater and democracy. ..”The Playbook” makes clear, both explicitly and implicitly, how much theater has been intertwined with politics in complicated and often unsavory ways.
It Happened At the Palace: A History of New York’s Iconic Broadway Theater
This is a coffee table book put together by a landlord to promote his property. It’s also a history of a 112-year-old Broadway theater with a glamorous and complicated past, written by a Tony-winning producer and author of several well-regarded books of theater history…Stewart F. Lane traces the story of the Palace from a vaudeville house to a movie house to a showcase for Broadway musicals, highlighting the many headliners who could boast of “playing the Palace,” from Sarah Bernhardt to Bob Hope; Josephine Baker to Lauren Bacall, and of course Judy Garland to Liza Minnelli. But the history of the Palace is also undeniably a story of New York real estate. It is timed to the reopening of The Palace, after a six-year, $80-million dollar renovation…
The Week in New York Theater News
Five years ago today, the then-Governor of New York ordered all Broadway theaters closed because of Covid-19, which within days spawned a pioneering era of digital theater. The shut-down lasted 18 months. Digital theater continues to this day.
Sure, the experimenting is less evident, certainly less publicized than during the height of the pandemic. But digital theater persists, albeit in less splashy ways. The four I’ve selected to honor this year have incorporated digital theater largely in such a way as to make it routine, which is arguably an accomplishment in itself….
The solution to the marquee dimming dilemma from the Broadway in Memoriam Committee: Four times a year on the 2nd Tuesday of Sept, Dec, March and June, all 41 theaters will be dimmed to recognize multiple honorees, Want someone honored? Fill out this form
In the war on culture:
Trump Seeks More Sway in Picking Kennedy Center Honorees (NY Times)
Trump’s next agency cuts include US-backed global media, library and museum grants (Politico)
A warm send-off to the National Symphony Orchestra starts with a frigid welcome to JD Vance (Washington Post)
On Thursday night, the Kennedy Center concert hall was awash in nearly a minute of howling, passionate booing…The cause of the … audible outrage was the emergence onto the box tier of Vice President JD Vance, second lady (and recently appointed Kennedy Center board member) Usha Vance and a small entourage, nearly a half-hour after the concert was scheduled to begin.”
