www.ticketnews.com: It’s officially 2020, which means a handful of shows are heading to Broadway this year.
Over the past year, dozens of records were broken on the Great White Way. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child hit the stage, dominating sales with over $2 million and becoming the top-grossing play in Broadway history, while To Kill A Mockingbird returned to offer a new perspective led by Scott Rudin, taking the lead for the highest-grossing American play in history with over $40 million in sales in just 27 weeks
5 comments:
I wish that I had been able to see Harry Potter and the cursed child (but those tickets are expensive) and I got to see To Kill a Mocking Bird on a school trip and I loved that production! To Kill a Mocking Bird was my introduction to plays (I know a little surprising that it took 18 years, but my school mainly focused on Musicals) I also got to see Kong and I can see why it didn’t do very well. The tech was amazing but everything else was pretty subpar (there was also a very strange EDM soundtrack that went along with some of Kong’s greatest moments and it just didn’t work.)
As for the new shows… I've heard of Six before (duh) but I think that I’m most excited about the girl from the north country and Caroline, Or Change. I would love to look at what designers are involved in each of these productions and I can’t wait to read reviews once these shows hit the broadway stage
I am not surprised at all that To Kill A Mockingbird did so well in just 27 weeks. I was able to see it last week and I loved it, I thought it was so well done. My brother who generally hates all theatre also really liked it so clearly it plays to a range of audience members. For the most part, I am very excited for the shows opening in 2020, and I hope I will get to see a lot of them. After studying Caroline, Or Change for so long in Design for the Stage I would love to see this show live and see what the designers do with the revival of it, as well as the rest of the production team. I am very interested to see what changes, if any have been made to the script for this new version. Mrs. Doubtfire is coming to Broadway after it’s run in Seattle, which I was able to see over winter break. I did really enjoy the show and thought the music was good, and Rob McClure was amazing, I just don’t really know why there was a need to make this old movie into a musical. I really wish we were seeing more original works coming to the Broadway stage this year.
Honestly, I am a bit shocked Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has become the top grossing play in broadway history, but at the same time, im not? It is surely a spectacle production, and the Harry Potter franchise is a worldwide phenomenon, and therefore already had a wide audience to draw upon. I have some friends who saw the production, and I have received mixed reviews. I am interested in the princess diana play, and would like to go see it, as well as “company” and “plaza suite”.
I was not super familiar with six the show, but had heard the songs all over the internet. It also seems like a spectacle-pop-concert-y production, but everyone has said it is incredibly fun. I admire how diverse the cast is, because we all know all of these women, in real life, were definitely white. It felt really nice to see an asian woman front and center stage.
Despite the fact that many of these shows are new to me, I am not surprised that they will be featured on Broadway. Many are revivals or remakes, which I hope are presented with a fresh perspective. I noticed this being implemented in Company, which changes the lead role from a male into a female character. I also noticed that famous actors and actresses are featured, but they do not seem to be the major draw for any of the productions. The fact that so many revivals are being produced reveals that those stories are either very well crafted, or the same issues are present today, or both. Personally, I am drawn to all of the shows featured because they seem interesting and are dynamic, even if they are not all specifically my taste. Regarding the intro about this year's productions, I am not surprised that "Harry Potter" yielded the most ticket sales because of its strong commercial appeal and elaborate technical elements.
I think many people are impressed with the amount of box-office record-breaking hits there were this season on Broadway, but I think people don’t realize that those records only look at monetary intake, not number of seats filled. The reason current Broadway shows are able to break these records is because tickets have become wildly expensive. It’s not that more people are necessarily coming to see more shows, it's simply that shows take in more money now, from tickets priced at hundreds of dollars. But I am not trying to downplay the amazing work that was showcased on the stages this past year, I am only trying to say that I was unable to see any of those works because the tickets were so expensive. Good theatre should not be inaccessible to the general public. Theatre is meant for everyone, rich to poor, young to old, and yet the audiences are looking richer and older everyday. I just hope the lineup for this year can do better by making their shows accessible to the general public.
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