With the 2024-25 theater season now complete, a new rule has been added to the old Broadway playbook.
Consider some of the most-nominated shows vying for Tony Awards in a ceremony set for June 8.
“There are so many shows this season that don’t follow anyone else’s rules.
They’re making their own.” To be sure, the 2024-25 season has its share of productions that hew closer to convention.
Nobody was doing plays on Broadway.” This year, to say that plays are “worth it” is an understatement.
Now that the 2024–25 theater season is over, the classic Broadway playbook has been updated with a new rule.
The playbook? Throw out that rule.
Broadway sales have finally surpassed their pre-pandemic peak in a banner year, but many of the most popular shows don’t resemble the conventional definition of a typical hit.
Imagine a ceremony on June 8 where some of the most nominated shows compete for Tony Awards. One of the three films to receive ten nominations is “Maybe Happy Ending,” a quirky near-future romance about robots that debuted in Korean and quickly gained popularity in Seoul before making its English Broadway debut in the fall. One more, “Buena Vista Social Club,” has no English-language supertitles and is entirely in Spanish. Audible originally commissioned and produced the highly unconventional “Dead Outlaw” (seven nominations), a third-best musical candidate, off Broadway with the intention of releasing it as an audio drama. The main character is a corpse for half of the show, as the title implies.
Among the leading contenders for the best play awards, “Oh, Mary!” (five nominations) is a gleefully camp and knowingly ramshackle comedy that, until it moved to midtown last summer, most critics would have said had no place on Broadway.
Mara Isaacs (“Hadestown”), a lead producer of the current revival of “Gypsy” (five nods), in which Audra McDonald plays the first Black Momma Rose in Broadway history, believes that people frequently isolate certain works and declare, “This is Broadway, this is commercial; this isn’t.”. “So many shows this season don’t adhere to anyone else’s guidelines. People are creating their own. “.”.
Indeed, there are a number of productions that lean more toward convention in the 2024–25 season. Another film to receive ten nominations, “Death Becomes Her,” is a classic razzle-dazzle comedy that followed a well-traveled route from screen to stage. Furthermore, well-known celebrities served as a consistent box office draw for the season’s best-selling plays.
Contrary to long-standing conventions, however, the highest-grossing shows over the last few weeks have not been well-known musicals like “Wicked” or “The Lion King.”. A-list actors have fueled these plays: Kieran Culkin, Sarah Snook in “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal in “Othello,” George Clooney in “Good Night, and Good Luck,” and others. within Glengarry Glen Ross. “”.
The author of the recent Pulitzer Prize-winning work “Purpose,” which is now nominated for six Tony Awards, including best play, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, says, “It’s like the secret is out that plays are worth it.”. That wasn’t the situation prior to COVID-19. There were no Broadway plays being performed. “.”.
To say that this year’s plays are “worth it” would be an understatement. Among the factors propelling the 2024–25 season’s record-breaking sales of $1.89 billion were the incredible grosses for megahit nonmusicals, such as “Good Night,” the first play to earn over $4 million in a single week. This finally surpassed the $1.83 billion recorded in 2018–19 (the final full season before the pandemic lockdown). Although capacity reached a high of 91.2 percent, season attendance (14point 66 million) was only marginally less than the record set by 2018–19 (14point 77 million).
At the same time, some of the most well-known nonmusical hits in New York, such as “Hold On to Me Darling” with Adam Driver and “Vanya” with Andrew Scott, made money off Broadway. The pattern emphasizes how producers are experimenting with new models during this turbulent time for the commercial theater industry’s economics.
“There’s nothing like these 10 blocks in midtown, and Broadway will always be Broadway,” says producer Greg Nobile (“Romeo + Juliet,” nominated for best play revival), who has just started presenting work at an Off Broadway venue in midtown that he recently took over. The distinction between Broadway and Off Broadway, however, is, in my opinion, becoming somewhat hazy in theatergoers’ minds as the world grows increasingly virtual.”. “.”.
That is undoubtedly the case from an aesthetic standpoint: this season’s iconoclastic production of “Sunset Blvd. One that forgoes elaborate costumes and props in favor of large screens and mobile camera crews is a strong candidate, receiving nominations for both lead actress in a musical and musical revival (Nicole Scherzinger). Both in the West End and on Broadway, the show’s director Jamie Lloyd has created a minimalist, celebrity-focused aesthetic that has been incredibly popular.
“We always think we have to cater to the people who have been going to the theater for decades, and that means being traditional or making a safer choice,” says Tony Award-winning director Lloyd of a musical. However, when you stop to think about it, regular theatergoers don’t want to see the same thing over and over again. They want to see the theater take new turns. “”.
Alongside “Maybe Happy Ending” and “Buena Vista Social Club,” “Oh, Mary!” is broadening the conventional notion of what is successful on Broadway. The absurdist portrayal of Mary Todd Lincoln as a hard-drinking, would-be cabaret singer who is desperate to escape her confining marriage is at the heart of the wild comedy.
Lead producer Lucas McMahon of “Oh, Mary!” says, “Obviously, it was a risk to bring the show to Broadway because it felt like its DNA lived in a downtown aesthetic.” However, the idea was further enhanced by placing this purposefully shambolic production in the ostentatious beauty of Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre. Big dreams and big ideas are the focus of the show, which also explores unconventional ways to find a larger space. “.”.
