Category: theatre

“Phantom of the Opera” has played longer than any show in Broadway history. It “is a record breaker in many respects, having grossed nearly $600 million since opening in 1988, the most ever for a Broadway show. When you add in the original London production, numerous foreign productions and three United States tours, the worldwide box office exceeds a whopping $3.2 billion, surpassing every other stage production and even the world’s highest-grossing film, “Titanic” ($1.8 billion).”

2005 was a blockbuster year for Broadway, and it wrapped up with a record-setting performance in the biggest week of the year. The week between Christmas and New Year’s nearly always racks up the biggest box-office gross of the season, and this time around, 28 shows took in more than $25 million over the week, making it the highest-grossing seven day period in Broadway history.

There was a time when, if a musical was a smash hit on London’s West End, it was soon to be a similar hit on Broadway, and no one bothered asking whether the action and staging would “translate” well to an American audience. But increasingly, the biggest hits in London are falling flat in America’s leading theatre cities. Part of the problem is simply the London audience’s affection for a specific style of theatre from which American audiences long ago moved on. But the larger issue may be the incredible specificity of recent London productions: shows which require an offhand knowledge of recent UK political and social history are likely to meet with blank stares across the pond.

“The planned £100m transformation of Stratford-upon-Avon’s Royal Shakespeare Theatre is to get a £20m grant from the regional development agency, Advantage West Midlands. The project has already secured £50m from the Arts Council of England.”

David Ian, chairman of Live Nation’s global theatrical division has topped the annual Stage 100 list of most influential theatre people. He replaces Andrew Lloyd Webber who led the list the past 5 years. “Theatre impresario Cameron Mackintosh is listed in second place this year, with Lloyd Webber slipping down to third equal with Howard Panter and Rosemary Squire, founders of the Ambassador Theatre Group.”

The Producers may be a global box-office smash, but there are still certain places you just wouldn’t expect a musical centered around a fictional work of theatre called “Springtime for Hitler” to show up. Israel, for instance. But there it is on the marquee: The Producers will be making its Tel Aviv debut this month – in Hebrew, no less. “In a nation created out of the Holocaust, where at least a quarter-million survivors of the catastrophe still live, it is — to say the least — a bold artistic and commercial move.” The artistic director of the theatre where the show will be staged says that Israelis are a “mature” audience with a good sense of humor, and doesn’t expect any problems.

“On the surface, British theatre is in its healthiest state in years. But is this buzz of activity hiding a creative slump, in which celebrity and ‘ticking boxes’ are prized over innovation?”

This month, Phantom of the Opera will have played continuously on Broadway longer than any other show in history – 18 years. And three of the original cast members are still performing in the show. “After a special gala performance on Jan. 9, “Phantom” will have been performed 7,486 times, one more than “Cats,” which closed five years ago.”

The League of American Theaters and Producers reports that paid attendance on Broadway this year ‘was the highest since 1985 – just shy of 12 million people, an increase of almost 6 percent from last year. And those theatergoers paid an average of $68.86 a ticket, about $2.75 more than last year. Gross sales reached $825 million for Broadway’s 39 theaters, a jump of more than 10 percent from 2004. The total number of performances, another indicator of the industry’s health, increased by about 4 percent, and attendance per performance was up, too, by about 1.5 percent.”