The Broadway Musical In "Dire Danger"

[PeterRS2]

I have enjoyed so many musicals since my first aged 17 and would hate to think that the genre is dying. Although I have to admit that when I saw one of the most popular - Wicked in New York - I disliked it so much I walked out at the intermission.

A composer who has warned that the Broadway musical is in "dire danger" is none other than one who has made tens if not hundreds of millions of $$ from his shows worldwide - Andrew Lloyd Webber. His reasoning? 

“The painful truth is that, with things as they are, bringing almost any new show to Broadway makes little financial sense,” said Lloyd Webber.

“The costs are immense. Creators, writers and directors are often forced to accept minimal royalties simply to get work staged . . . The situation is scarcely better for investors. Many count themselves fortunate if they recover even part of their money. Without investors willing to take risks, and artists able to make a living, where will Broadway’s next generation of shows come from?”

Well, Lloyd Webber has always had a tendency to imbide a little more wine than perhaps he should, and perhaps his comments resulted from the fact that his latest musical is closing after only 5 months on Broadway. I suppose he's more than a bit miffed considering Phantom of the Opera ran of Broadway for 35 years and CATS for 18 years. His royalties from these productions alone made him a gazillionaire.

Mind you, the show that is closing had a lot going against it. First being named Cats: The Jellicle Ball will likely have put off the millions who had seen the original CATS productions. However, far more likely was the ghastly more recent movie version of the show which got some of the worst reviews ever for any movie.

And then there is the fact that in December 2013, in an interview with Paybill he is quoted as saying, "I haven't had a hit on 20 years . . . I've written six musicals in that time." Following Phantom his next big blockbuster was supposed to be Sunset Boulevard in the early 1990s. Despite running for three years, he kept the show open despite its losing around US$6 million and the investors losing all of their cash. (USTV interviewer Barbara Walters lost all her investment of $250,000 on that one!) This was not helped by compensation he had to pay out when taken to court by actors Patti Lupone and Faye Dunaway.

Broadway has always had its ups and downs. Rodgers and Hammerstein had a lengthy run of popularity, as did Lloyd Webber and his producer Cameron Macintosh in the last quarter of the last century. Others will arise and, as when the Sonheim musicals were in vogue, these will not need the massive Phantom-type scenery and such massive budgets. And Lloyd Webber might be wise to recall that his show's recent $18 million loss is almost peanuts against the $75 million loss on Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark!

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jul/14/andrew-lloyd-webber-cats-jellice-ball-broadway

[PeterRS2]

Some additional background. Mention of Lloyd Webber inevitably brings up two issues: his fortune and his losses. After Evita, CATS and Phantom, it was assumed he could do nothing wrong. That nothing proved to be Sunset Boulevard. Frank Rich, theatre critic of The New York Times estimated its total losses incuding the various touring productions in the USA at $20 million.

I saw one of the previews in London. These were delayed by several weeks due to the scenery. The main set was a vast drawing room with a large semi-circular Gothic staircase in LA where Norma Desmond, the famous silent movie star, lived. This weighed a massive 60 tons! During the show this entire set then had to be raised and lowered several times in view of the audience to reveal the car park underneath and then the swimming pool at the end. In London some computer glitch resulted in the set having a life of its own. When a certain taxi rank was called, the set would move of its own accord. The glitch took 3 weeks to fix at considerable expense.

But casting was an additional costly problem. The show had 3 openings. Being based on the famous Billy Wilder movie, Lloyd Webber wanted it to open in Los Angeles. There, with Glenn Close (no mean singer) as Norma Desmond, it was a big hit. At the same time, the London and subsequent New York premieres were being planned. He engaged the reigning Queen of Broadway Patti Lupone to open in London. She agreed provided she also opened in New York. But when the show opened in the UK, Lloyd Webber was unhappy with Lupone and fired her from opening on Broadway. That was lawsuit #1 which saw Lupone walk away with a $1 million settlement.

As Close was such a success in LA, he offered her the premiere on Broadway. But since LA was still doing great business, he decided to keep it open and find someone to replace Close. Broadway had a substantial number of out of work stars, any one of whom could easily have taken over. Instead, he chose Faye Dunaway, an actor who had never sung a note in any movie and everyone said could hardly sing! The ever truculent Lloyd Webber disagreed. His team would teach her how to sing. He had her coached for two months. Right up to the final week of reherasals when it was obvious to everyone in the cast that she still could not sing the role, Lloyd Webber was praising her. A couple of days later he fired her and closed the Los Angeles production, even though it had advance ticket sales of $4 million. Lawsuit #2. Dunaway walked away with a settlement that must have been larger than Lupone's

Glenn Close opened on Broadway and received great reviews and a Tony Award. Lloyd Webber was left to rue his break with London producer Cameron Macintosh, producer of CATS and Phantom, simply because he wanted his own company to do future productions. Mackintosh was one of the legendary and most accomplished hands-on producers whose other successes included Les Miserables, Mamma Mia and Miss Saigon. Mackintosh, whose only desire as a child was to work backstage in musical theatre, is now worth an estimated £1.25 billion, whereas Lloyd Webber's net worth has reduced from its high of over £1 billion to £516 million.

[PeterRS2]

While on the subject of musicals, most readers will have seen some 'live' in the theatre or in their movie versions. I wonder what your favourite/s is/are?

For whatever reason, I am not a Lloyd Webber fan, although he has written some great tunes. I didn't like Phantom (very boring first 20 minutes), find CATS just a series of dance numbers, Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat pleasant but instantly forgettable etc. 

My favourites have almost always been Sondheim's musicals. The first I saw in London was Company with the incomparable Elaine Stritch. It was not instantly my favourite but as I have got to know the music I just love it. Then with a close friend we saw Little Night Music with its famous number "Send in the Clowns". Sweeney Todd on Broadway was amazing, particularly the collective "Aaarghh" when Todd cut his first throat. Then I have a very soft spot for Follies, about a group of ageing stars who used to take part in the Ziegfeld Follies in the 1930s paired with their younger selves.

But there have been others. I could not stop humming the tunes from Jerry Herman's La Cage Aux Folles with the wonderful George Hearn and Gene Barry. Crazy For You, the glorious updated adaptation of George Gershwin's Girl Crazy.  I flew to Singapore three times to see the Australian touring version of Mamma Mia. And then there was the quite excellent 2012 Thai version of Miss Saigon supervised by the Cameron Mackintosh team some years ago. The boy playing Chris was drop dead gorgeous!

[Olddaddy]

My Boyfriend luvs musicals 🎶🎵

My Lord it must be 30 years since I saw Andrew Lloyd weather's The CATS 🐱

Where in Bangkok are the big musical theatres ?

[PeterRS2]

6 hours ago, Olddaddy said:

My Boyfriend luvs musicals 🎶🎵

My Lord it must be 30 years since I saw Andrew Lloyd weather's The CATS 🐱

Where in Bangkok are the big musical theatres ?

There is only one theatre where musicals are usually presented - the Muangthai Rajadalai Theatre in the Esplanade Shopping Complex near the Thailand Cultural Centre MRT station. So quite central.

It is actually a fabulous theatre with 1,400 seats, probably the finest in Bangkok. And it was built specifically to house musicals. The driving force behind its construction was the son of a foreign minister. While studying in the USA he would get to New York to see a musical almost every weekend. He was determined to have some come to Bangkok but there was no big enough theatre apart from the Thailand Cultural Centre which can only be hired for a few days at a time. Musicals are so expensive to import or create they generally need four weeks of performances minimum. So I expect Daddy and his friends put up the cash to construct it. 

I have seen several touring productions. When I took my bf to see The Lion King he could not believe he was seeing real performers. He absolutely adored it!

https://www.rachadalai.com/en/about-us

The theatre also hosts a lot of locally produced musicals, including the excellent Thai version of Miss Saigon I mentioned in my earlier post, although that one was monitored over several months by a production team from Australia.

These are some of the other touring shows

https://www.scenario.co.th/en/touring-shows

[Olddaddy]

Thankyou Peter , if only the others on here were as intelligent as you we would have a great discussion board .

[stevenkesslar]

On 7/26/2026 at 9:48 PM, PeterRS2 said:

While on the subject of musicals, most readers will have seen some 'live' in the theatre or in their movie versions. I wonder what your favourite/s is/are?

 

On 7/27/2026 at 7:58 PM, Olddaddy said:

Thankyou Peter , if only the others on here were as intelligent as you we would have a great discussion board .

Echoing what @Olddaddy said.  It is fun to read your comments.  You have deeper knowledge and higher standards than I do.  As my answers to your question will reflect.

I loved the revival of 42nd Street.  I took my Mom to see it on her birthday.  It was her only trip to Broadway.  She hated Mamma Mia.  My bad.  Too modern.  But she loved the old time swag of 42nd Street.  She's passed away now.  But that evening will always be near and dear in my heart.

I loved the Producers, based on strange criteria.  I was sitting in the front row.  And at one point I think Nathan Lane spat on me.  By accident, of course.  Or maybe it was all a dream.  Regardless, that was all it took for me.  Jersey Boys falls in the same category.  Just fun to watch.  But nobody spat on me.

The musical that impacted me the most was Next To Normal.  It won the Pulitzer.  So I guess I have good taste.  Or maybe I have Mommy issues.  But it left me deeply moved.

You are one of the few people that was not impressed with Wicked.  Neither was I.  But I saw the stage musical three times.  Mostly because I had friends that wanted me to see it with them.  My best friend has seen the films I don't know how many times.  So eventually I figured out the best thing was just to smile and go along for the ride.  Which is of course easier when Jonathon Bailey is a fellow traveler.

[PeterRS2]

Thanks @stevenkesslar. I,too, loved 42nd Street. I managed to get two last minute tickets for the opening in London at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Of the others you saw, the only one I'd seen was The Producers at the same Theatre but sitting in one of the upper tiers. I loved parts of it, but having seen the movie a couple of times took some of the enjoyment away.

I forgot to mention another of the older musicals Guys and Dolls which I saw at London's National Theatre. It was a fabulous production but neither of us enjoyed it as much as we should for our tickets were for the day after the death of Princess Diana. Few in the theatre really wanted to enjoy themselves that evening.

Oh, and more keep popping into my mind. Cabaret is one of the great musicals. Even though I had seen the movie several times, the production at Studio 54 in New York with Alan Cumming as the EmCee was marvellous, perhaps because it was in more of a nightclub than a theatre.

Years earlier, friends took me to see Patti Lupone in Anything Goes in the Lincoln Center, the wonderful foot-tapping Cole Porter musical. And I can't end without what I consider Rodgers and Hammerstein's best work Carousel. Another National Theatre production where an actual circus carousel was assembled on stage during the overture. Dame Patrica Routledge was magnificent as Nellie Fowler who sings the show's show-stopper "You'll never walk alone". 

[stevenkesslar]

28 minutes ago, PeterRS2 said:

Thanks @stevenkesslar. I,too, loved 42nd Street. I managed to get two last minute tickets for the opening in London at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Of the others you saw, the only one I'd seen was The Producers at the same Theatre but sitting in one of the upper tiers. I loved parts of it, but having seen the movie a couple of times took some of the enjoyment away.

I forgot to mention another of the older musicals Guys and Dolls which I saw at London's National Theatre. It was a fabulous production but neither of us enjoyed it as much as we should for our tickets were for the day after the death of Princess Diana. Few in the theatre really wanted to enjoy themselves that evening.

Oh, and more keep popping into my mind. Cabaret is one of the great musicals. Even though I had seen the movie several times, the production at Studio 54 in New York with Alan Cumming as the EmCee was marvellous, perhaps because it was in more of a nightclub than a theatre.

Years earlier, friends took me to see Patti Lupone in Anything Goes in the Lincoln Center, the wonderful foot-tapping Cole Porter musical. And I can't end without what I consider Rodgers and Hammerstein's best work Carousel. Another National Theatre production where an actual circus carousel was assembled on stage during the overture. Dame Patrica Routledge was magnificent as Nellie Fowler who sings the show's show-stopper "You'll never walk alone". 

 

Well there ya go.

Like I said, my standards are lower than yours.  I did see Sweeney Todd with Patti Lupone.  I felt honored that she looked at me, just because I was sitting in one of the front rows.  It doesn't take much with me.

And I should have gone to see Cabaret with you.  I left that one out in my comments above.  I took my Mom to see it on the same trip.  And she hated it as well as Mamma Mia.  Again, my bad.  At least Mamma Mia was upbeat, but loud.  Cabaret, of course, was not upbeat at all.  Again, she loved 42nd Street.  1 out of 3 ain't bad.

But now that I think about it I should have listed Cabaret and Chicago as my two favorite musicals.  And movies.  Arguably, they are the same musical, with plot differences but the same writers (Kander/Ebb) and similar themes.  The Alan Cumming version was great, other than my discontented Mom.  But there was no way to top the movie.  And Liza. 

My love for that movie (and Liza) was an early indicator as a child that I was Gay.  Which I somehow missed at the time.  But it's okay.  I caught up later.

[Olddaddy]

So Peter , me and my boyfriend will be in Bangkok this week so looking forward to staying with you 

Please arrange the bed , and make sure the coffee is the Italian creamy type , and a good bottle of Vino 🍷🍷

[PeterRS2]

I love the scene in the movie Cabaret where Sally and Brian (played by the very English Michael York) are having an argument about her relationship with Maximilian. Brian says to Sally -

"Oh, screw Maximilian!" to which she brazenly  replies -

"I do!" and he adds somewhat sheepishly -

"So do I!" 

[PeterRS2]

10 minutes ago, Olddaddy said:

So Peter , me and my boyfriend will be in Bangkok this week so looking forward to staying with you 

Please arrange the bed , and make sure the coffee is the Italian creamy type , and a good bottle of Vino 🍷🍷

The balcony is ready but I regret no bed. It is the rainy season and you'd end up with a very soggy mattress. And my coffee is the strongest Ristretto black, but great for waking up in the morning.

You, as you may recall from one of my earlier posts, are bringing two bottles of Bass Phillip Estate 2021 Pinot Noir which will go down very nicely,  thank you

[PeterRS2]

2 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

You have deeper knowledge and higher standards than I do.

If I have a greater depth of knowledge it is only because I have had a great love of musicals since I was a teenager and in my working life have been privileged to be in New York and London (and even Sydney) dozens of times when getting to see a musical has been relatively easy. I certainly doubt that I have higher standards!

Whereas the musical genre really took off just before WWII and continued both during and after the war, going back to the topic of the thread I think Lloyd Webber has made one pertinent point. I'm not talking about the investment he says is becoming much more difficult - well, when you have designers design monster sets and don't get them reduced to more manageable and financially moderate sizes, what does he expect? The fact is that he and producer Cameron Mackintosh gave the designer Maria Bjornson £950,000 to design both the scenery and the costumes for the entire Phantom of the Opera when it opened in London in 1986. After 40 years inflation that equates to approx. £3.6 million. Since the Broadway production was identical, the physical production costs would have been virtually the same. Even after adding costs for writer, director, choreographer, cast, theatre hire, orchestra, backstage staff (of which Phantom requied about 40) etc. the cost of mounting Phantom today would have been perfectly possible even with Lloyd Webber's present thoughts on financing.

In my view, what the musical needs is a visionary or a group of visionaries. I think after Rodgers and Hammerstein the acceptance that a new musical would be worth seeing rather bit the dust. Just as that duo was completing The Sound of Music, four great creators in Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins and Arthur Laurents had started work on what became one of the great 20th century musicals, West Side Story. For almost the first time serious drama (through what is termed "the book") found its way as a major element in musicals, and this element was to continue.  The list becomes long with Gypsy, My Fair Lady, Chicago, Fiddler on the Roof, Hair etc. Perhaps only Michael Bennett's A Chorus Line (far better on stage than Richard Attenborough's pretty dreadful movie - the fact was that no other director would touch it!) looked back to the glory years of the 1930s.

Until then Broadway had had its own way. Most shows with directors like Hal Prince and Michael Bennett turned to gold. Then in the 1970s along came two English ingenues, musical mad graduates determined to put a show together. The rest of the story behind the Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice partnership is pretty much known. They were visionaries in their own right. And soon another appeared in the person of Cameron Macintosh. Now almost 80, when he was eight an aunt took him to see the old-style musical Salad Days. From then on he was hooked. By 1990 the New York Times described him as being "the most successful, influential and powerful theatrical producer in the world." 

Mackintosh began his career as a stagehand at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. In the 1970s he was producing small scale inexpensive musicals. In 1981 he was asked to produce Lloyd Webber's CATS, a show no-one in the business believed had any long run potential. It was eventually to run for more than two decades in both London and Broadway. Before the two teamed up for Phantom in 1986, which like CATS broke records for massively long runs in both cities, a couple of cassettes had landed on Mackintosh's desk. Ths was a show which had run in Paris - a city which generally loathes musicals - and which the writer and composer hoped might interest Mackintosh for a run in London. 

Those cassettes of the concept album for Les Miserables excited a degree of curiosity in Mackintosh. He had it adapted into English and asked for views of a writer and director. Both agreed it had potential, but only for a short run. SInce it would be very expensive to stage, Mackintosh approached the the Royal Shakespeare Company to see if they would share in the production costs. As a result, Les Mis as it is known opened for a 12-week season in 1985. Newspaper reviewers generally did not like it. Some panned it. The investors assumed their investment had gone down the drain. But Mackintosh had spent his evenings not looking at the stage but at the audience. He saw how much they were enjoying the show. He decided to add some extra performance weeks. And of course we now know that Les Mis has become the longest running musical in West End history history and the second longest in the world!

Now a new batch of long-running musicals and their producers have appeared. Rent, Hamilton, The Book of Mormon and Wicked have appeared, to add to older shows like The Lion King. No visionary successor has yet appeared to take over from Lloyd Webber and Mackintosh, but unquestionably one or two will - eventually!

[Olddaddy]

4 hours ago, PeterRS2 said:

The balcony is ready but I regret no bed. It is the rainy season and you'd end up with a very soggy mattress. And my coffee is the strongest Ristretto black, but great for waking up in the morning.

You, as you may recall from one of my earlier posts, are bringing two bottles of Bass Phillip Estate 2021 Pinot Noir which will go down very nicely,  thank you

I can never drink black coffee ☕ 

I have tried though but great for keeping me awake on the night shift 🌛🕙

[stevenkesslar]

14 hours ago, PeterRS2 said:

No visionary successor has yet appeared to take over from Lloyd Webber and Mackintosh, but unquestionably one or two will - eventually!

I'm rooting for my oldest nephew's daughter.

It's a fun stage of my life.  This young woman did go to an arts school that she recently graduated from.  And she does want to win either a Tony or an Oscar.  So all I have to do is be the uncle who at dinner says, "I already have my fantasy about how you win an Oscar.  You're going to be living in Paris with your husband (she gets married in September) directing your first film.  For which you will win an Oscar.  And when you win I want to be the old guy in the rocker saying, "I know that woman!"  I'll stop there.  But she did smile and look me in the eye and say, "I like your fantasy!"  

I was visiting their state because her sister, who is now in college and wants to be an actor, starred in a local non-profit production of Hadestown.  She lives in the South.  But she has pictures on her Instagram of shots on Broadway, when Mom and Dad took them to see some play they had to see.

My point is, I think Broadway will be fine.  My nephew's daughter, as I said to her Mom and her Mom knows, is much more likely to do Thoroughly Modern Millie than Doubt or Schindler's List.  It's all good.  We need both.  Somebody will come along and dazzle us again.  And, since my standards are low, it'll be easy.  😉

Have fun in Bangkok.

[PeterRS2]

6 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

Somebody will come along and dazzle us again.  And, since my standards are low, it'll be easy.  😉

Your nephew's daughter can take heart from the fact that a number of top stars have begun careers hoofing the boards in theatres before making it big on Broadway or in movies. Julie Andews is one obvius example, and she was turned down by no less than studio boss Jack Warner for the movie My Fair Lady after she had been a big success in the stage version.  But even success on stage is not vital. Sarah Jessica Parker, Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton and Viola Davis all started in small roles on Broadway.

[stevenkesslar]

14 hours ago, PeterRS2 said:

Julie Andews is one obvious example, and she was turned down by no less than studio boss Jack Warner for the movie My Fair Lady after she had been a big success in the stage version.

 

[PeterRS2]

How strange! When I looked at the previous post, the clip was from the Golden Globe ceremony when she won for  Mary Poppins. Suddenly just now (09:55 Bangkok) it changed to Victor Victoria which I had posted below (but then took out) and then changed back again to The Golden Globe ceremony. (So I have reinserted the Victor Victoria trailer.) Never seen that in this Board before!

In later life she always thanked Jack Warner for not casting her in My Fair Lady as that really opened a new door to a different career first as Mary Poppins. She is certainly a great actor. I don't know why but I have always found her a bit too saccharine. The only movie I have really loved was Victor Victoria. I have the DVD and play it sometimes for young Thai friends who also seem to love it. And that is not because of the gay element, more the comedy. I always admired Robert Preston and thought he could never be bettered than in The Music Man. But I consider his role in Victor Victoria his best.