The Broadway theatergoer liked “Ragtime,” disliked “Queen of Versailles,” and wished “Boop” had been better. That’s the results so far of my annual poll.
But who is “the Broadway theatergoer”? The latest report from the Broadway League:
The average Broadway theatergoer is female, white, about 41 years old, a resident of the United States and a college graduate with a household income of $276,465 a year. (Deadline)
While Broadway had its second-highest attendance on record in the 2024-25 season, only 13 percent were from the suburbs, the lowest percentage in thirty years. (The Hollywood Reporter)
Some things did not change: 62 percent of the Broadway audience are tourists, and 63 percent are female. But the audience got younger (41, down from 44), there were more BIPOC (34 percent, the highest in the 30 years that this has been tracked), the average ticket price went down ($145, down from $154) (Ken Davenport)
The Week in New York Theater Reviews
Michelle Williams portrays a former prostitute in a play that was so bold when Eugene O’Neill wrote it that critics objected on moral grounds when it won the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, but it is now so dated that her scandalous past is couched in vague euphemism….It is hard to deny the creaky aura that hangs over “Anna Christie,” which is probably still best known for the play’s adaptation as silent screen star Greta Garbo’s first “talking picture” (“Garbo Talks” was the now legendary marketing slogan) – and that movie was released a full decade after the stage debut. But director Thomas Kail smartly leans into the expressionism from that same era in his production of “Anna Christie” at St. Ann’s Warehouse; the results are a bracingly muscular stagecraft that helps create electrifying moments. If the acting is uneven, sometimes even indecipherable because of the characters heavy Swedish and Irish accents, the actors are always watchable.
Marjorie Prime,” has turned even more uncanny in the ten years since its Off-Broadway run, when the 85-year-old Lois Smith gave a lustrous performance as the 85-year-old Marjorie, a widow whose family had bought her an artificial companion who looks precisely like her dead husband. In the new production of Jordan Harrison’s play on Broadway, the 96-year-old June Squibb gives her own lustrous performance as Marjorie in a play set in the near future that is eerily nearer now than it was a decade ago. Squibb’s Marjorie, like Smith’s, is alternately confused, indignant, embarrassed, clever, whimsical, flirtatious, wise, steely — a full-fledged human being, rare for a character who is elderly.
What’s most uncanny for me about “Marjorie Prime,” though, is that the new production, especially the ending, struck me as having been revised, not necessarily for the better. Yet it turns out that the script is exactly the same (I still have the old one; I went back and checked it.) The director and most of the design team are the same as well. The show is being billed as a look at “memory, loss and AI” — I didn’t realize it would be a look at my memory too. There is still much in the play that I find clever and thought-provoking. The starry four-member cast keeps us engaged. Harrison is nothing if not prescient in the world he imagined, but perhaps some of the novelty has worn off, because the characterizations seem less sharp and the vibe more “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” unsettling than I remember feeling before.
“Oklahoma Samovar” spans a century in the lives of one Jewish family. Inspired by the stories that playwright Alice Eve Cohen heard about her own ancestors, the play promises a fresh angle on a familiar story of Jewish immigrants in America. Despite some tantalizing moments, though, “Oklahoma Samovar” fully delivers neither the breadth of a sweeping epic nor the depth of a moving family drama.
Books: The Future of Storytelling and Acting the Part
Netflix is not just a streaming video platform anymore. It is now yet another example of immersive theater. There are new “Netflix Houses” – in Philadelphia, Dallas, and soon in Las Vegas — where theatergoers participate in person in theatrical re-creations of Netflix series, including “Bridgerton” and “Stranger Things.” It is one of the surprising examples in “The Future of Storytelling: How Immersive Experiences Are Transforming Our World” (Artisan, 320 pages) a book by Charles Melcher that overwhelms us with the innovations in storytelling that are already out there. Even the dust jacket is innovative and overwhelming: There are twelve different cover designs to choose from (including the four above.)…
In something of a companion book, “Acting the Part: Audience Participation in Performance,” (University of Michigan Press, 266 pages), author E.M. Hunter explains how she produced Shakespeare’s “Henry V” in an abandoned 20-acre industrial site in Birmingham, Alabama that had been turned into a public attraction but was still in a dilapidated state. The audience was so inspired that, unbidden, they joined the professional actors in the charge of the English army against the French. Hunter’s book, she writes, is her effort to try to understand what it was about the production that got the audience to engage so fully. She devotes a chapter each to Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More, the new Globe playhouse in London, social virtual reality and augmented reality.
The Week in New York Theater News
Two more shows announced for Broadway:
“Titanique,” the spoof jukebox musical featuring the songs of Celine Dion, will open April 12t at the St. James Theater.
“The Balusters,” by David Lindsay-Abaire, directed by Kenny Leon and featuring a starry cast that includes Marylouise Burke, Rene Elise Goldsberry and Richard Thomas, will open at MCC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theater April 21st.
This now means there are 15 shows scheduled for the Broadway Spring 2026 Season: The Broadway Spring season promises familiar stars in familiar shows, although both some of the stars and some of the shows are making their Broadway debuts.
Little Bear Ridge Road and The Queen of Versailles are both closing on December 21 – next Sunday! — earlier than scheduled. Samuel D. Hunter’s play was rapturously reviewed; Stephen Schwartz’s musical was…not.
Emily Nussbaum, a staff writer for the New Yorker since 2011 who received a Pulitzer Prize for her television criticism, has been named theater critic for the New Yorker, replacing Helen Shaw, who has been appointed chief theater critic at The New York Times, replacing Jesse Green, who is now a cultural correspondent at the Times. Nussbaum’s background in theater is unclear, but she says: “In the words of Nahum from the brilliant TV show Slings and Arrows, ‘I must confess, I love drama.’”
Holiday Gifts for Theater Lovers 2025
In Memoriam
Donald “D.L.” Coburn, 87, playwright of The Gin Game, which won the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for drama, ran for 517 performances on Broadway, and has been performed all over the world ever since, including two on Broadway, the latest in 2015-16 starring James Earl Jones and Cecily Tyson.
The Week’s Theater Video
10 Most Watched Broadway* Videos† in 2025
