Number of New Broadway Musicals Will Top Prior 21st Century High

Last season, grumbling in the industry was this season would have fewer musicals. Shows were taking longer to receive their full capitalization. Many musicals were losing hundreds of thousands of dollars per week. Attendance was down from pre-pandemic levels. Buying habits had changed such that reserves had to increase. In other words, it didn’t feel like a particularly hospitable time to launch a Broadway show without a bankable star or title, especially a musical, which typically has a higher running cost than a play. But instead of there being fewer musicals this season, we are about to have more new musicals than any season in this century.

If you include Melissa Etheridge: My Window, four musicals have already opened this season. (My Window might attract a musical-leaning audience, though come Tony time it should be a Special Tony recipient, rather than a musical eligible in a competitive category.) One of those closed quickly. Seven more have theaters and dates officially announced: Gutenberg! The Musical!, Harmony, How to Dance in Ohio, Days of Wine and Roses, The Notebook, Water for Elephants, and The Outsiders. (Water for Elephants had a table at the Broadway Flea Market and the people manning the booth were doing what they should—talking up the show, encouraging people to buy tickets.) That is eleven, which wouldn’t be a record breaker. But insiders know Lempicka, The Heart of Rock & Roll, and Suffs have theaters. We’re unlikely to see both BOOP! and Hell’s Kitchen this season, but we're likely to see one, with Hell’s Kitchen being the favorite with a theater on hold, pending reviews. (Michael Greif mania!) That makes fifteen.

For the sake of not muddying the waters, let’s remove My Window and say fourteen.  While shows can always drop out, fourteen is the minimum number of new musicals that I expect to be on Broadway this season. (Even if Gutenberg! The Musical! or Harmony end up in the Best Revival Tony category because the Tony Administration committee decides they are "classics"—either by itself or with nudging from producers—the Broadway League will still consider them "new" for its stats, because they have never been on Broadway.) And I say "minimum" because there are others that could come in, but we’re likely in for at least fourteen. That is more than any other season this century. The closest is the 2016-2017 season, which had thirteen. Usually, we’re in the eight to eleven range. In the last full season before the pandemic, the 2018-2019 season, which was the highest-grossing and best-attended season in recorded history, there were eleven new musicals and two musical revivals.

In addition to thirteen new musicals, the 2016-2017 season also had six revivals and the return engagement of Motown, so twenty musicals overall. We only have four announced revivals. Therefore, it’s possible we might not break the century record for musicals overall, but we still might. There are additional revivals likely. But revivals, while they attract a musical-leaning audience, are a different beast. It’s often more difficult to get investors for new musicals, so it’s particularly surprising that we have fourteen/fifteen of those on the schedule.

Is this good news? For musical fans, in the short term, it’s great news. And on its surface, the number appears to show the health of Broadway. But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. None of last season’s nine new musicals have been huge blockbusters. & Juliet has been the strongest, but it is softening a little in recent weeks. And this many new musicals means a lot of competition; competition that will likely crush the shows barely hanging on and will also make selling each of the new shows more difficult.

Now, you could say: it’s not a competition, we’re a community. Broadway producers are more likely to quote "a rising tide lifts all boats" than a coffeehouse owner would be. However, producers are not thrilled about this crowded a musical season. They fear with preview audiences spread so thin, shows will not be able to survive long enough to find their audience. They also fear that shows will open and close, which is bad for the long-term health of the theater. But then these are the same folks who expected fewer musicals this season, so only time will tell if their fears become reality.

Industry Trends Weekly is a short column that runs in the weekly Industry Pro Newsletter. To read past columns and subscribe here. If you have an idea for the column, you can reach the author at cara@broadwayworld.com.