Posted: 8/17/26 at 9:39am
Opening cold on Broadway with inexperienced writers. Should be fun!
https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/10-THINGS-I-HATE-ABOUT-YOU-to-Open-on-Broadway-in-2027-20260817
Updated On: 8/17/26 at 09:39 AM
Posted: 8/17/26 at 9:41am
This has a Nederlander-owned house.
Posted: 8/17/26 at 9:48am
Wheeldon feels like such an odd choice for this.
Hope this fares better for Mike Bosner than Cats, Shucked, and Proof.
Posted: 8/17/26 at 10:02am
Opening cold on Broadway seems a little crazy…And Lena Dunham? Can a writer be “box office poison?”
Updated On: 8/17/26 at 10:02 AM
Posted: 8/17/26 at 10:05am
Posted: 8/17/26 at 10:05am
Posted: 8/17/26 at 10:21am
The Distinctive Baritone said: "Opening cold on Broadway seems a little crazy…AndLena Dunham? Can awriter be “box office poison?”"
Lena is fantastic and just went number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Hardly poison, she is a very successful writer.
But this will still flop. These movie-to-stage adaptations just don't work. They are so tired.
Posted: 8/17/26 at 10:30am
Posted: 8/17/26 at 10:33am
TotallyEffed said: "The Distinctive Baritone said: "Opening cold on Broadway seems a little crazy…AndLena Dunham? Can awriter be “box office poison?”"
Lena is fantastic and just went number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Hardly poison, she is a very successful writer."
Yeah, GIRLS is still a sacred text to a certain subset of millennial women in New York.
I don't know how it will fare, creatively or financially, but Dunham probably won't be the problem.
Posted: 8/17/26 at 10:42am
ACL2006 said: "They really couldn't do an out of town tryout somewhere before arriving on Broadway next August? Not a good sign."
Fewer and fewer shows are doing out-of-town tryouts to save money, potentially risking artistic quality in the process. This is the new normal.
Posted: 8/17/26 at 10:45am
Posted: 8/17/26 at 11:56am
I’m a firm believer in the out of town process, but let’s be real: When was the last time a show was AWFUL out of town and improved enough for Broadway to get strong critical reviews and recoup?
Theatre tech nowadays makes it hard to safely make big changes when a show is up and running. Adding a song means taking time to write it, orchestrate it, teach it, design it, and re-tech it. Making changes in a rehearsal studio/workshop is easier.
With workshops for potential investors and focus groups, the team can get a pretty good sense of how people are going to react to a show. Whether the team actually makes those changes is a different matter. (see: SMASH and NEW YORK NEW YORK)
You open out of town to a mixed-negative response? Congrats, you're now damaged goods, and the producer has to twist into a pretzel to show investors how much it’s changed, while spending more money on more workshops. (See: PURPLE RAIN and DOLLY, and the aforementioned SUFFS, and a slew of shows that will never make it to NYC.)
Wheeldon opened MJ cold in New York, but that might be a fluke.
We’ll see this happening more and more. I don’t know that it will have a significant impact on quality and length of run in the grand scheme.
Posted: 8/17/26 at 1:25pm
Ermengarde, you make a good point. If out of town tryouts are no longer used as originally intended - that is, to work out a show's problems away from critics and with a more forgiving regional audience and then make substantial changes - then there's no point. Might a well just do a lot of workshops and hope for the best.
Posted: 8/17/26 at 1:47pm
Posted: 8/17/26 at 6:06pm
