Tagged As: Broadway, Theater, Wicked, Shrek, South Pacific, Jersey Boys, West Side Story

Not too long ago Broadway’s struggle was so noteworthy that Saturday Night Live lampooned the entire situation.

The skit attacks, comically of course, the very nature of Broadway’s problem- high ticket prices brought on by large theaters, elaborate set designs, and pretty much a larger than life everything that is oddly appropriate for a craft that revels in odd and quirky characters on and off stage. Months later, it is almost anything but true that those big shows have been the hardest hit.

Off-Broadway productions and new shows have been the most compelling victims of the industry recession. While small stage shows like American Buffalo have faltered and closed despite having star power like Haley Joel Osment, John Leguizamo, and Cedric the Entertainer, Wicked tickets have continued to sell well enough that Playbill reports that the show still has 97.7 percent of the seats filled nearly every performance.

Wicked is not alone in bucking these dire predictions. Just take a look at the weekly grosses. Jersey Boys continues to reach near capacity audiences at August Wilson Theatre and bring in $974,724. Meanwhile August: Osage County, the 2008 Tony Award winning play, can barely draw enough of an audience at the Music Box to fill half the seats. It is not like these are two similarly priced shows either. Jersey Boys cost $102.91 plus whatever surcharges, taxes, and fees the theater and ticket providers add on, but Osage only costs $61.13 plus whatever additional costs.

Want another example. Billy Elliot the Musical manages to consistently breach the million-dollar mark at the Imperial Theatre while another 2008 Tony Award-nominated play, The 39 Steps, struggles to even reach the $200,000 plateau.

It is not a case of pure loud, flashy escapism either. There seems to be a cut off date for success. Shrek the Musical opened in December 2008, at the height of our collective economic freak out, and has failed to gain the traction of past Disney productions like the Lion King, which still manages to draw relatively large audiences (88.9 percent) and bring in big money ($1,048,053 for the week of March 30-April 5).

Some people may say that these shows like Shrek and the other struggling Disney Theatrical productions, the Little Mermaid and Marry Poppins, are simply not great productions. All have received mixed reviews, with the Little Mermaid drawing more criticism than the singing ogre and the original British nanny. However, famous critically lambasted shows like the Phantom of the Opera, have been able to play before strong audiences at the Majestic Theatre (96.7 percent).

It seems rather that in this time of financial strife big productions that have been lauded in rather recent years, like Wicked and Jersey Boys, and musicals that carry some sort of established nostalgia, like Phantom of the Opera, which are the very shows whose characters are paraded in front of the live studio audience at SNL, are the shows that are surviving.

There is no doubt that Broadway has suffered as the domestic tourist industry has disappeared for New York and the international tourists have stopped coming since our economic owes have crossed the oceans. It is great that some sort of stage shows can survive, but it is distressing that so much of the new blood and the captivating smaller productions that truly rely on the characters rather than a blitz of glamour and ballads must be the first and hardest-hit casualties.

That is not to say that there is not hope. West Side Story tickets at the Palace Theatre are the best selling tickets on Broadway right now. This may be an undeniably big production, but it is a rather bare-bones, character-oriented story. Also, the European-import God of Carnage has managed to resuscitate the monetary appreciation for gritty small theater.

I implore anybody who appreciates theater, whether they prefer small dramas or big bonanza musicals, to try and find some time, and maybe skip the movies for a week or two, and look for a seat to a Broadway show. It would terrible to see the revival of the stage brought upon by Wicked and a new age of productions that do not take themselves too seriously be lost for another decade.

If you want to find great seats to these shows, especially the sold out shows, feel free to visit us at the TicketSpecialists. We have seats to every Broadway and Off-Broadway production at a price that is affordable and upfront, without three or four lines of taxes and fees. So come out and see a classic show like South Pacific or a guilty pleasure like Mamma Mia!