Are Broadway Showtimes Getting Earlier?

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This time, the reader question was: What is the deal with alternative show times on Broadway, like Oh, Mary!’s 5pm Saturday performance?

Broadway show times have changed over the years and adjusted according to needs and patterns of ticket buyers.

In the past few years, there has been an interesting trend where a few Broadway productions have bucked typical show schedules and instituted offbeat playing times. This has been received extremely well by audience members, largely because it allows those who are visiting from out of town to pack more performances into their time in New York City.

Right now, the uproarious hit comedy Oh, Mary! has a 5pm performance on Saturdays, which is a very rare occurrence on Broadway. The show at the Lyceum plays at 7:30pm Tuesday- Friday, and then has a four show weekend with Saturday at 5pm and 8:30pm and Sunday at 2pm and 6pm. This schedule allows theatergoers to pack three Broadway shows into their Saturday viewing schedule if they see Oh, Mary! at 5pm. It also gives the actors and crew shorter down time between performances on two-show days. The 5pm performance I saw of the show was sold out to the rafters, with the audience losing their minds laughing at the brilliance of Cole Escola and the entire shockingly and hilariously irreverent play. Saturday night is prime theatergoing time for most demographics, including those who want to see the must-see Oh, Mary! so it makes sense that they’ve maximized Saturday night ticket sales with two shows.

When A Beautiful Noise was on Broadway, at the Broadhurst Theatre, the show adjusted its running schedule to include a Thursday matinee. The Neil Diamond jukebox musical was thus able to have four matinees each week, adding Thursday to the regular Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday matinee run. This enabled them to give their target demographic more opportunities to see the show, and Thursday matinees proved more popular in multiple ways than the Wednesday night performances that they were swapped out for. Older theatergoers, large groups, and tourists especially flocked to the Thursday matinee show where they could sing along to “Sweet Caroline”.

Throughout the 2010s, other Broadway shows experimented with Thursday or Friday matinee performances, often during summer months. Among these productions were The Phantom of the Opera, Mamma Mia! and Cinderella. Long-running shows and musicals that are well-known properties are a perfect fit for an extra weekday matinee as the crowds who frequent those performances are looking for just that kind of entertainment. A few less Popular Productions, although still aimed at the same main demographic, such as Baby It’s You!, tried out extra weekday matinees as well.

Currently, the new musical from last season The Great Gatsby is the only production on Broadway with a Thursday matinee. Based on a well known property and with an audience populated by tourists including those from international locations, Gatsby is right in the sweet spot to test out this performance time. If you are visiting New York from Thursday to Sunday, you can currently see eight shows in four days, if you include Gatsby’s Thursday matinee and Oh, Mary!’s 5pm Saturday show! Soon, after opening, the new Broadway play The Roommate, starring Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone, will be adding Thursday matinees to their schedule and swapping out Wednesday night performances.

Sunday night and Monday night performances used to also be more of a rarity in a Broadway show schedule, unless a show was in previews. These days, Cabaret, Chicago, and Six all have Monday night performances. Being the only Broadway show options on that night yields positive results as far as ticket sales for the well-known hits. On Sunday nights, theatergoers can attend & Juliet, Aladdin, The Book of Mormon, Chicago, Hamilton, The Lion King, Moulin Rouge!, Oh, Mary!, Six, and Wicked. Many of the shows with Sunday and/ or Monday night performances choose to forgo their Wednesday matinee or night performance in order to replace them with a better performance time for their production.

It was only in the 21st century that 7pm curtain times began occurring. In the post-9/11 New York City environment, there was a push for Tuesdays to have a 7pm start time instead of 8pm. This would hopefully allow for family audiences to more easily see a show, and push ticket buyers to one of the least popular show times of the week. The campaign was definitely successful. Since 2002, when Boneau/Bryan-Brown and Serino Coyne fought for Tuesdays at 7, Broadway has seen many shows adjust multiple weekday curtain times earlier, to 7pm instead of 8pm. Currently, every single show that’s opened on Broadway has a Tuesday start time of either 7pm or 7:30pm.

Until the 1970s, most Broadway shows had start times of 8:30pm, and 2:30pm for matinees. This is how the 11 o’clock number got its name, because when musicals started at 8:30, their penultimate songs typically occurred at about 11. Curtain times have evolved based on audience behavior, including how ticket buyers interact with their commute to the show and their dinner times and dining out patterns.

The variety in the current Broadway show schedule allows for both audiences and productions to maximize their theatre experience. It gives productions the opportunity to sell tickets where they can be most successful, rather than conforming to a standard schedule and gives audiences the chance to include more shows in their theatre itinerary.