{"id":1601404,"date":"2025-11-20T14:00:36","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T19:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/observer.com\/?p=1601404"},"modified":"2025-11-21T22:40:54","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T03:40:54","slug":"myth-of-broadway-decline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/observer.com\/2025\/11\/myth-of-broadway-decline\/","title":{"rendered":"The Broadway Musical Isn’t Dying\u2014It’s Just Changing Keys"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Despite headlines, the musical is not fading but flourishing across cultures, generations and mediums. Photo: Rebecca J. Michelson<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A recent New York Times piece suggested that <\/span>\u201cthe Broadway musical is in trouble.\u201d<\/span><\/a> Much of the context in that reporting is fair: capitalization costs have soared, risk tolerance has shrunk and post-pandemic economics have forced shows to fight harder than ever to find their audience. But from my perspective as president and CEO of the American Theatre Wing, the suggestion that the Broadway musical faces an existential crisis misses the point. Broadway isn\u2019t dying. It is evolving.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is hardly the first time someone has sounded the alarm. Broadway\u2019s doom has been predicted for more than half a century. In 1969,\u00a0The Times\u00a0asked, <\/span>\u201cHas Broadway Had It?\u201d<\/span><\/a> In 1995,\u00a0New York Magazine\u00a0devoted a cover story to the ominous question, \u201cCan Broadway Be Saved?\u201d In 2005,\u00a0<\/span>The New Yorker<\/span>\u00a0chronicled Michael John LaChiusa declaring that <\/span>\u201cthe Broadway musical is dead.\u201d<\/span><\/a> And for decades, Michael Riedel made a sport of declaring the art form on life support. The headlines keep coming. Broadway keeps going.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is truth to the argument that rising costs are squeezing the commercial musical. When a new production can cost $25 million to mount and hundreds of thousands a week to run, even a critically embraced musical can close before it finds its audience. But the deeper issue is not the musical itself. It is the financial framework built around one narrow barometer of success: recoupment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Recoupment was never a perfect metric. Today, it is a deeply incomplete one. It does not account for the multiple lives a show now leads, nor does it reflect who gets paid and when. Many shows deemed \u201cfinancial disappointments\u201d still employ hundreds at union wages, pay out royalties, seed tours, sustain licensing income, launch international productions and enjoy long afterlives in cast recordings, classrooms and regional productions. Lead producers generate income from their productions even when investors do not. None of this is nefarious. Measuring the health of the American musical solely by first-run Broadway recoupment is like judging a river only by its narrowest point. By more nuanced measures, it\u2019s fair to argue the musical is thriving. It\u2019s easy to find the green shoots if you know where to look.<\/span><\/p>\n

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