Adapted from my Broadway Bulletin column in the March issue of U.K.-based Musicals magazine.
New York theatre doesn’t just happen on Broadway. These days, there are plenty of commercial Off Broadway venues mounting long-running musical hits with no apparent plans to jump to the big time. Consider Titanique, the hilarious send-up of the James Cameron movie blockbuster remimagined as a vessel for a highly fictionalized Céline Dion and her earworm-heavy song catalog. The show has been delighting audiences for more than two years at the 300-seat Daryl Roth Theatre, a converted bank located 30 blocks south of Times Square.
Meanwhile, the Westside Theatre, a 270-seat auditorium situated a few blocks west of Broadway in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood where Alicia Keys grew up, has been home to a rollicking revival of Little Shop of Horrors that opened in pre-shutdown 2019 with a cast featuring Tony winners Jonathan Groff and Christian Borle (and replaced by an ever-cycling roster of stars familiar to TV and theater junkies).
Many producers prefer the less polished, Fringe-like vibe for certain shows, as well as the younger demographic that Off Broadway tends to attract. But the appeal is about more than just aesthetics. Production expenses are much, much lower. Oh, Mary!, Cole Escola’s hit comedy with just five actors, cost a modest $1.2 million to produce Off Broadway – but the capitalization leapt to $4.5 million when it graduated to Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre last summer (in November, it became the first Broadway show of the 2024-25 season to turn a profit). Audiences also benefit from this quirk of real estate: Tickets are less expensive and there are no nosebleed seats, providing an intimacy that brings you closer to the action.
Read my full column in the March issue of U.K.-based Musicals magazine.
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