"The Phantom of the Opera’s" Closing Signals Changes for a New Era of Broadway
| Photo By Eli Johnson
The opinions reflected in this OpEd are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of staff, faculty and students of The King's College.
Hell has frozen over. “The Phantom of the Opera,” the longest-running show in Broadway history, shocked theater-goers last month by announcing it would play its final performance at the Majestic Theatre on Feb. 18, 2023.
By the time of its closing, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical will have played nearly 14,000 performances over the span of 35 years. Until the announcement of the show’s closing, many fans assumed “The Phantom of the Opera” had become a permanent fixture of the Great White Way, leading theater-goers to ask: How did we get here?
“There are three certainties in life: death, taxes and “The Phantom of the Opera,” read an online Broadway forum this past June.
Regardless, the show’s closing is not a complete surprise. The weekly grosses and attendance data for “The Phantom of the Opera” have indicated financial trouble for the last year. Last month, the New York Post reported that the show has lost over $1 million per month since returning from the COVID-19 shutdown. These challenges are not unique, they represent a pattern of financial difficulties for New York theaters and productions since the spring of 2020.
Consider “Dear Evan Hansen” and “Come From Away,” two Tony Award-winning musicals that opened in the 2016-2017 theater season. Until the pandemic, both shows played to sold-out houses for nearly four years, with their monthly attendance averages never falling below 99%. Within six months of their return from the pandemic hiatus, both shows announced closing dates before the end of the year. “Dear Evan Hansen” closed at the Music Box Theatre in September, and “Come From Away” concluded its run earlier this week on Oct. 2 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.
Broadway is ultimately an industry driven by business, not art. Cash is the leading actor in New York, not artistic pursuits. To stay on Broadway, shows must either make a profit or be projected to make a profit in the near future. This requires them to sell over 70% of their tickets to merely break even. The Broadway League estimates that 63% of those audience members are out-of-town tourists, suggesting that New York’s Broadway shows heavily depend on the tourism industry to stay alive.
In 2020, New York City’s tourism dropped by 67% when compared to 2019, according to the Office of the New York State Comptroller. Although tourism has begun to recover, theater-goers are slow to return at pre-pandemic numbers due to a weakened economy and recent inflation. The average price of a ticket this fall is $120 compared to $108 in the season leading up to the pandemic. During the week of Sept. 11, shows occupied only half of the theaters on Broadway and brought in a total audience of 176,777. This represents only two-thirds of the audience present during the same week in 2019. This data represents one of the stronger weeks at Broadway since shows reopened last fall.
Here we must ask a critical question: Is Broadway-caliber theater sustainable in a post-COVID economy? Some shows have proven the answer is a “yes”.
“Hamilton,” “The Music Man,” “MJ,” “Funny Girl” and “Wicked” are experiencing healthy levels of ticket sales that frequently match pre-COVID sales numbers. These shows are trendy musicals with broader family-friendly appeal or shows using celebrities including Hugh Jackman, Lea Michelle and Michael Jackson’s music to lure in tourists and New Yorkers alike. With fewer theater-goers to go around, other shows, who previously fared well in a strong, pre-COVID economy now face the pressure of being without an audience. Many of these shows have been forced to close in the past 12 months, including the previously mentioned “Come From Away,” “Dear Evan Hansen,” and, now, “The Phantom of the Opera.”
Shows close. Audiences eventually want to move on to the next big thing. That is the nature of the theater business.
“As a producer you dream that a show will run forever… But all shows do finally close,” Cameron Mackintosh, producer of “The Phantom of the Opera,” stated in the show’s closing announcement.
For every show that closes, a new production will take its place. This fall, over 20 new productions will open in Broadway theaters. Many of these new shows will employ cheaper sets or smaller casts to lower production costs and enable them to remain financially viable despite lower attendance.
“The Phantom of the Opera’s” imminent closing absolutely represents a fundamental change for Broadway. But does it indicate that Broadway is decaying as an industry? It will likely be some time before we return to the opulent, financially extravagant productions of previous eras of New York theater, but Broadway is here to stay.
It may not be long until the Phantom himself returns to New York.
The New York Times recently quoted Mackintosh saying that the show “may be disappearing for now, but there is no doubt that Andrew Lloyd Webber’s masterpiece will continue to enchant audiences… and one day will return to Broadway.”
Eli Johnson is the Theatre Columnist for the Empire State Tribune. He is a freshman at The King's College majoring in Business. He is an avid theatre-goer and always enjoys a game of chess.