It's Tough to Make Money on Broadway in 2026

Life is expensive, and Broadway theatre even more so. If you thought going to concerts was pricey in the post-COVID age, try popping over to New York to see a show. It’s already tough to make money with a Broadway show. Long before our current situation, the majority of shows would fail to break even. And it’s only getting messier.

Over the next three months a ton of shows are closing earlier than expected. Moulin Rouge!, which opened in 2019, is closing this August. Death Becomes Her, one of the 2024 season’s biggest hits, announced that it will end on June 28. And Beaches, based on the Bette Midler movie, will shut down on May 24, a month after its official premiere. These were shows that did not have limited runs. They were expected to run far longer.

Now, Moulin Rouge! had a very respectable run, one that was stymied for a while by COVID, so it shouldn’t be embarrassed by those numbers. It also reportedly earned back its initial investment a few years ago so it’s in the black. Beaches, though? Not even close. The same is probably true for Death Becomes Her, even though it had all the markings of a hit: a ton of awards nominations, a dedicated fanbase, breakout memes, and solid box office returns. It should, by all accounts, be a financial success. But Broadway is bleak, and it’s only gotten darker over the past few years.

The new musical has faced a lot of pressure in 2020s Broadway. Running costs have gone up. So have ticket prices, but not proportionately to what would be needed to justify the costs. And those prices aren’t something a lot of people are willing or able to pay for. $100 a ticket used to be an obscene rarity. Now, it’s the starting price for the cheap seats. Even tourists don’t want to spend a few months’ rent on a good night out, and that’s without adding travel and food and accommodation costs. According to The New York Times, only three musicals that opened after COVID restrictions were lifted have reported profits: the Michael Jackson jukebox musical MJ, the Max Martin pop jukebox musical & Juliet, and Six, a show about Henry VIII’s wives that only features six actors on stage and no massive sets.

Right now, the model for a hit is to take a play (preferably an established piece of writing), put a bunch of stars in it, charge $300 a ticket, then run it for 16 weeks. Look at Dog Day Afternoon with Jon Bernthal, Proof with Ayo Edebiri and Don Cheadle, Every Brilliant Thing with Daniel Radcliffe, and Death of a Salesman with Nathan Lane (and Scott Rudin.) They’re all reporting solid numbers and are all reliant on big actors who people want to see in the flesh. Would Beaches have run longer if they’d replaced its very talented cast of stage performers with some movie-stars? Maybe, but doesn’t it suck that this is the only option?

There are some good new musicals on Broadway right now. The Lost Boys has received a ton of excellent reviews. The adaptation of the Apple TV series Schmigadoon! has been warmly received. Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) is a real underdog success story, having started life as a tiny show in Ipswich before becoming a West End and now Broadway hit. But we face continual reminders that most people have been priced out of live theatre, and the entire business is now built upon an unsustainable model that is sure to crumble without some serious intervention.