To preface, I think there is an element of survivor bias in this conversation. We are more aware of this year's current flops than of the flops of ten years ago, let alone twenty or fifty. The unremarkable shows of the past are forgotten, and by comparison the past seems to have produced more gems on average. But when each Tony season gives us 8-10 new musicals, how many of those have withstanded the test of time? One a year at most? We see the past in rose-tinted glasses, and the celebrity stunt-casting and jukebox musical were just as midly sucessful cash grabs in the 70's.

But I am not ignoring the real issues we are seeing now.

Are we so quick to forget we are still in the aftermath of a worldwide pandemic? I have heard many people complain about a lack of new plays in the last five years specifically, but there's a two-year black hole in the middle there. Broadway went completely dark for a year, and it took a long time for audiences to feel comfortable in a large group of people. For many, it was a wake-up on the lack of public health concern, and they would still feel safer notsitting with a crowd of unmasked strangers in a small confined space. In response, Broadway producers have felt the need to make safer and safer decisions, going for known entities instead of taking risks.

It is always the fault of the money, not the artists. Broadway at this point is owned by three major producers and Disney. they have the power to decide which shows get produced and to demand change from shows that do get produced. The artists are there who have incredible work, but the producers see BIPOC and queer stories as "risky".

Even these "safe" shows struggle. No one is going to see theater anymore. The pandemic or the internet didn't kill theater, it has been a downward slope since home video. The issue isn't that people who like theater are only seeing the popular shows, when no one is seeing the popular shows either. In Broadway as well as across the country in smaller theaters. The average person has become comfortable experiencing entertainment in their own home, and the energy and cost of seeing a show is more than many can afford. Tt doesn't matter if they're producing new artistic groundbreaking work or the Music Man for the 30th time, it just isnt on someone's radar to even check. The culture of seeing live performance is dissapearing for the average Joe.

For a counterexample, here are some of my favorite shows that opened in the past five years! No jukebox musicals, and the only IP musicals on here are ones that I consider unique enough from their source material.

• 2025 - Operation Mincemeat
• 2025 - Dead Outlaw
• 2024 - Death Becomes Her
• 2024 - Maybe Happy Ending (the book is good but the album lackluster)
• 2023 - The Witches (West End)
• 2022 - A Strange Loop

Beetlejuice is unapoligetically an IP musical, but I cannot deny its popularity. While the nostaliga definitely gets people's attention, I argue that the demographic it has found sucess in - teenagers - only have a little nostalgia for the original movie. The show stands on its own for a large portion of its audience who know it better than the movie. So while it isn't my favorite, I give it kudos for not just appealing to a crowd but getting people engaged and excited about theater.

I have met many a Broadway fan that is quick to jump on the people who enjoy "safe" musicals. Shows based on popular IP, with famous actors, shows that have cast albums, large fandoms, and bootlegs on YouTube. But for many people, that is only a gateway into the world of theater, that easily acessible show will lead them to more and more that they enjoy. There was a time I only knew about Hamilton, Newsies, and anything by Starkid.

But even if people's tastes don't change, support for the "safe" shows is support for the industry. As I said before, theater suffers from a lack of all audiences, the average Joe, not just the artsy audience. A rising tide raises all boats, and keeping companies afloat gives more people the ability to support themselves in the industry and move on to producing their passion projects. Many small theater companies depend on a few crowd-pleasers each season, knowing that the overflow from those ticket sales allows them to take risks on new, local, and bold material. That safety net is built into the budgeting of every small theater, it's a necessary evil, and without major grant funding there will always be companies that depend on the safety of doing popular shows. When even these "safe" shows see very few ticket sales, it doesn't matter what you consider high ir low art, the artists suffer.

The devide between what is art and what is commercial on Broadway is a myth. Everything is commercial. It would not have reached Broadway if it was not considered a commercial investment worth making. And I'm not saying there is no difference in what shows you support. Supporting shows led by woman, by people of color, by queer artists will always be important, but these groups are making crowd pleasers too! Are their jukebox musicals less "artsy" than a deep introspecive confusing show by a cis white man? By being obsessed with Broadway and Broadway alone, you are partaking in the smallest sliver of the most commercially viable theater, regardless of the content.

Which brings me to my next point!

The question I pose: how do you expect producers to take risks on new pieces of art, if you are not willing to yourself?

Many iconic shows started off-broadway. Little Shop, Avenue Q. Many start at fringe festivals and out of town tryouts. These shows deserved to be supported at this level, or they never would have made it to Broadway. There is a Little Shop of Horrors of today, a small indue show at off-Broadway or off-off levels that just hasn't picked up steam and support yet. In 10 years, we'll be looking back at the history of these shows and wondering where we were.

Incredible shows like Bat Boy are still picking up steam. If all of your attention is on Broadway, you are failing to support upcoming shows when they really need it, and you will only find shows with the money (and as we've seen, corporate IP backing) to make that leap blindly. Even if Broadway isn't the goal of these shows, audiences are failing to support the places where the groundbreaking art is being made. Where these artists and creators are building their careers. Where the next Sondheim or Lin-Manuel is struggling to get a show funded because it isn't getting audiences. People are too busy looking at Broadway wondering why they don't see new talent and bickering.

Whats the fix? To make going to see theater a common practise for everyday people. Theater communities are very insular, we keep passing around the same 100$ going to each other's shows and funding each other's kickstarters. The same people who are doing the shows make up most of the people seeing them, and it puts the funding in a downward spiral begging for gratn money. If more people even just went to see the popular shows, the companies would have enough in savings to take risks on new artists.

I think some people don’t realize that shows go through years of development and public performances before Broadway. I think we need to make it cool to be a bit of a theater hipster. We need to go around saying “I saw this show before it was on Broadway” or “I saw this small theater company you’ve probably never heard of it” people cannot wait until someone else tells them what is good and what isn’t. You can’t have this high bar that something has to have a lot of money, a lot of famous names, a lot of reviews from big newspapers for you to even consider it, and then complain that there are no indie artists. You have to support the artists who don't yet have that national fame, so they can get there. You have to take risks.

It is as simple as looking up theaters on your area, taking a look at their season, subscribing to their email. If money is an issue, look for volunteer opportunities, rush tickets, student and youth discounts (these can go up to 30 y/o). Even four tickets a season, from a few more people, could make a difference. You will have wonderful experiences meeting people, seeing art, and who knows, maybe you can look back one day and get to say you liked something before it was cool.

I see about two shows a month, sometimes more if there is a festival going on. Sure, I see a lot of less-than-polished pieces of art. But I have never considered my money wasted.

This is an abdendum. I am in the process of taking a show through establishing licensing, so I have had many discussions about it. This is still all speculation on my part, take it all with many grains of salt.

The expanding couch problem is what I call a piece of expensive set, prop, or costume design which ultimately has no large bearing on the story. But, because it is done in the Broadway production, it has now been solidified in the script avaliable for licensing, and now every company that performs the show will need to come up with a way to recreate or cheese around that design aspect. So named after the expanding couch from the Spongebob Musical, which is a cute but ultimately meaningless bit I have seen many small theater companies struggle to re-create. Musicals, especially new ones, will have in the text of the license agreement not just a dedication to the original book and score, but a legal requirement to stay true to the design and aesthetic of a piece.

This leads me to an issue I find affecting community and regional theaters, a lack of popular acessible material. We are in a period where we are scrutinizing the politics of older materials, which is wonderful and important. But as these pieces of the canon are phased out, we have less and less to take their place. The pieces of the canon were solidified when musical theater songs were still played on the radio, sold in record shops, turned into movies, they have fully seeped into the public consciousness of that older generation.

The popular shows of the 50's and 60's were more grounded in the kinda of people and settings, budgets even on Broadway were lower then, and even if you had to massively cut down on the scale of your local production you could still tell the story. After home video gained ground, Broadway's response in the 80's was to turn to spectacle. To mimic what you could see on TV, or provide such an awe-inpiring experience that you had to be there just to see it happen. But not every theater company can do Cats or Les Mis or Phantom, and as the years went on and it was time for these shows to move into licensing, they are not able to be done.

I suspect a growing gap between what shows become household names and what shows are actually possible for a smaller theater to perform. What is the most popular thing right now? Wicked. From the sets to the costumes to the level of singing ability, Wicked isn't a show that you can imagine a community theater pulling off. But these elements of spectacle are so baked into the identity of the show, you can't do it without them. Frozen is avaliable for licensing right now, so is Shrek, and I think it's incredibly rude to judge a show with a smaller budget when they are trying to tackle such a huge design goal. Yes, these shows look cheap, but they cannot depend on audiences (and sometimes, actors) if they are not producing the current crowd pleasers. We just don't have many crowd pleasers that are able to be scaled down.

Theaters are left with three choices. 1) To do the older popular shows despite aging politics. 2) To do the current shows with megamusical budgets and risk looking cheap in comparison. Or 3) To do new shows build for the budget and modern sensibility, but no one will have heard of.

Not to mention that the most popular shows right now aren't even avaliable for licensing. Wicked isn't even avaliable, Hamilton and Hadestown are still in early limited stages, so is Beetlejuice. With how quickly trends come and go, the producers are going to hold on to that exclusivity of the Broadway and touring productions for as long as they can, and after that who knows if a show will still pull the same crowd?

Despite not having a Broadway run, this is why I think Ride the Cyclone has done so well. It had its fame, and it's a small enough show that it was able to capitalize on it immidiately by being avaliable for community theaters. Companies that now have the benifit of a viral musical right in or after its heyday. (Though, if you ask me, they should have taken a little more time to iron out the script and get a disability advocate on the team.)

With shows like Come From Away, Great Comet, and Operation Mincemeat making their way from Broadway to the licensing stage, I think we are finally digging ourselves out of this hole. But we're still going to need more support for these smaller shows throughout the years. As much as I love Little Shop of Horrors for the 6th time, there is so much more out there. I want to be sure we are not just supporting the big stuff now, but investing in the future of the indie aritsts AND the crowd pleasers that allow the industry to exist.