Times are changing on Broadway, including when the curtain goes up

It wasn’t so long ago that theatregoers could expect the curtain to go up every night at 8 p.m. – a practice that originated in the 1970s when the Broadway League sought to get audiences into theatres before dark due to worries about rising crime in the Times Square area where most Tony-eligible venues are located. Before that, shows in New York and London generally started at 8:30 p.m. In the stage version of the 1930s-set backstage musical 42^nd Street, prima donna Dorothy Brock and chorus girl Peggy Sawyer even sing: “I know I won’t be late / ‘Cause at half past eight / I’m gonna be there.” And it’s no accident that Noël Coward titled his 1936 cycle of one-act plays Tonight at 8:30.

These days, a musical’s big 11 o’clock number is more likely to percolate closer to 9 p.m., making it easier for suburban audiences who have been Broadway’s bread and butter for decades to take a car or train home at a more-decent hour. “We’re not seeing the same night-owl behavior that we were pre-COVID,” explains Micah Hollingworth, a former exec with the Jujamcyn theatre group who specializes in theatre pricing and inventory management. Many consumers are still working remotely, or coming into the city less frequently.

Forget about consistency in scheduling. While Hamilton and The Book of Mormon begin all evening shows at 7 p.m., most shows have two or even three different starting times, depending on the day of the week. This fall, the performance schedule for The Outsiders, Hell’s Kitchen and The Notebook even vary from week to week. If you don’t keep your digital calendar up to date, you may struggle to get yourself to the room where it happens.

“For every stakeholder on Broadway, the word is flexibility,” says Kevin McCollum, a veteran Tony-winning producer whose current shows, The Notebook, Six, and Oh, Mary!, are at the bleeding edge of the new trend. “Theater is about showing up. We have to listen to when the culture wants to be entertained.”

Read my full piece in the November issue of U.K.-based Musicals magazine.