February 12, 2013
Located in the Theatre District of mid-town Manhattan, Broadway has been widely acknowledged as the pinnacle of commercial theatre since its inception in the mid-18th century. Responsible for introducing the concept of the musical, spawning a new wave of American playwrights, from Tennessee Williams to Arthur Miller, and launching the careers of many Hollywood stars, its influence on modern culture is unquestionable. And when it comes to Broadway tickets, they’re always a hot commodity for New Yorkers and tourists alike.
Attracting people from all over the world, its forty 500-seater professional theatres grossed over a billion dollars in 2012 alone thanks to a wide variety of rock operas, musical comedies and dramatic plays, many of which were recognized by the industry’s highest honor, the Tony Awards. And with productions ranging from superhero adaptations to revivals of Pulitzer Prize winners to Greatest Hits tours, the 2013 line-up is expected to be equally as popular.
Written by the team behind South Park and Avenue Q, religious satire musical The Book Of Mormon has unsurprisingly become one of Broadway’s most controversial shows since its opening in 2011. But its tale of two young Mormon missionaries sent to a remote Northern Ugandan village to spread the word has also achieved unprecedented success, scooping nine Tony Awards, a Grammy and the highest-charting Broadway cast album in over four decades. Staged at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre, there are plenty of The Book Of Mormon tickets still available with an average price of $366. Recently, the cheapest day to go see Mormon was on Super Bowl Sunday, when tickets were $244/seat.
Other productions relatively new to the Broadway stage include Foxwoods Theatre’s Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark, notable for being the most expensive musical of all time and its Bono/The Edge-penned soundtrack, with tickets currently priced at an average of $205; the stage adaptation of the 2006 naturalistic Irish drama, Once, which won eight Tony Awards last year following its transfer from the New York Theatre Workshop to the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre (average price $190); and easy-listening legend Barry Manilow’s comeback concert series, Manilow on Broadway, at the St. James Theatre ($267).
While proving just how much of a boom period the last decade was for new musicals, The Wizard Of Oz retooling, Wicked ($238), Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons biopic, Jersey Boys ($193) and feel-good 80s metal homage, Rock Of Ages ($231), continue to attract large audiences at the Gershwin Theatre, August Wilson Theatre and Helen Hayes Theatre respectively.
For those wanting something a little more traditional, Phantom Of The Opera tickets ($187) are still as in demand now as much as they were during its 1986 opening. The longest-running show in Broadway history, Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s iconic reworking of Gaston Leroux’s novel recently celebrated its astonishing 10,000th performance and has grossed over $845 million to date.
Elsewhere, the longest-running American musical, Chicago, is still going strong at the Ambassador Theatre with tickets for its prohibition-set satire of ‘celebrity criminals’. Tickets for Phantom are currently averaging $208/seat. The most successful jukebox musical, Mamma Mia ($182), continues its run at the Winter Garden Theatre; while The Roundabout Theatre Company staged their new production of Charles Dickens’ unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, at Studio 54. Tickets for Edwin Drood are currently averaging $257/seat.
But if all-singing, all-dancing affairs aren’t your thing, then there are a whole range of more dramatic works on offer. Ciaran Hinds, Debra Monk and Scarlett Johansson star in the brand new revival of Tennessee Williams classic, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, at the Richard Rodgers Theatre ($288). A similarly impressive all-star cast of Jessica Chastain, David Strathairn and Dan Stevens take to the Walter Kerr Theatre stage for the period drama, The Heiress ($257). While the critically-acclaimed new production of Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf ($221) continues to wow audiences at the Booth Theatre.
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