Tag: 01.11.17

Why Did Broadway Have A Record Year? Diversity?

Alexis Solis makes a point today in The Guardian that the driver behind Broadway’s record year at the box office is its variety of shows appealing to all sorts of audiences.

Certainly even a casual look at current offerings indicates the variety. Someone who would never set foot in Aladdin might be enticed by Dear Evan Hansen. A ticket buyer who wouldn’t go for A Bronx Tale could have a fine night at Jitney. And vice versa. Everyone loves Hamilton. Some people have even enjoyed Paramour. And while the spring lineup is light on original works, there’s still plenty to choose from among the likes of Come from Away and Groundhog Day, The Play That Goes Wrong and The Price, Oslo and Hello, Dolly!

But it’s not just Broadway that’s seeing a boom in ticket sales:

The answer probably relies on both the type of entertainment Broadway has been offering and the new strategies it has found to price and sell its wares.

Theatres have got a lot better at variable pricing to maximize revenue. But success breeds success writes Solis. When a show becomes popular enough that it enters the consciousness of the broader culture, it boosts the whole art:

Though these upward trends were set in motion years before the appearance of Hamilton, that show has helped to return theater to a more prominent place in the cultural conversation. Those who can’t score tickets to that show may still feel they ought to see something in New York (it’s during tourist-heavy holiday weeks that Broadway scores its best numbers) or catch a show when it comes around on tour. And the success of Hamilton may steer producers toward independent, idiosyncratic art with which theater frequently revives and reinvents itself.

It’s not just about ticket revenue. It’s about relevancy of the art form. Transcendent art causes people to look at theatre differently. But these moments are rare. There’s only one Harry Potter. And only one Hamilton? Does Solis’s observation about Broadway’s variety suggest that there may be enough diversity to produce the next transcendent work?

August Wilson – He Could Put All Of America In A Room

“Is it crazy to think the younger black postmodernists — these interrogators of blackness, these satirists of race — have an intellectual luxury afforded them by Wilson’s dogged devotion to place and history? What made Wilson such an Olympian figure was that he could fit the whole country in an office or a backyard and make the bigness of his ideas seem life-size. As for what he would have had to say about this mutability matter? I’d like to think he’d probably have written a play about it.”

Report: Maria Balshaw To Be Named Tate Museum Director

“Balshaw has been director of the Whitworth Art Gallery since 2006. She became joint director of the Whitworth and the Manchester Art Gallery in 2011. In 2014, she in effect became Manchester’s cultural attache when she took on the role of strategic lead for culture at the city council. At the Whitworth, Balshaw has led the much-admired £15m redevelopment of the gallery, helping to breathe new life into the collections and dramatically increasing visitor numbers. It won the 2015 museum of the year prize.”

Geroge Lucas Selects LA As Home For His $1 Billion Museum

“Lucas’ personal collection of fine and popular art, including ephemera related to his “Star Wars” franchise, will fill a futuristic-looking new museum planned for L.A.’s Exposition Park, which beat out a competing design for Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. The rivalry had pitted the two cities in the competition not only for Lucas’ collection and the tourism it will bring, but also for the thousands of jobs that backers said the project will create.”