The Aug. 8 closing announcement for Cats: The Jellicle Ball on Broadway sent shock waves through the industry, not just because of the closure itself but because of what it says about the future of the musical genre. The revival, which reimagined the ’80s classic as a queer ballroom competition, was critically acclaimed and had been seeing high attendance, with grosses hovering around $1 million a week pre-Tonys. Grosses did slip slightly after the Tony Awards, where the show won three awards but missed out on the key trophy for best revival. Still, these numbers, on paper, did not appear to point to an impending closure for the show.
However, cast and company members were gathered for a meeting July 13 and told that the show had been unable to generate enough revenue to cover expenses, The Hollywood Reporter has learned, leading to a decision to close after about five months on Broadway rather than continue operating at a loss. It wasn’t an issue of getting audience members in, per se, but also bringing up the average ticket price and bringing in theatergoers willing to pay the higher prices necessary to cover the now-elevated costs of producing on Broadway.
“We’re in this environment where I’m watching a lot of shows not quite find the audience that can sustain them at the level that they need to be sustained because the costs have gone up so much,” says Mara Isaacs, lead producer on the Broadway musical Hadestown. “There have always been more shows that fail than succeed. I think the proportion right now feels distorted, and that’s the thing that feels so bad.”
The issue emerged post-pandemic as costs shot up due to supply-chain issues and higher prices for materials. Weekly running expenses remain high as utility charges and theater rent have also risen, alongside increasing rates for actors, musicians and stagehands as well as creative team members, to meet the rising cost of living. The problem is more acute for musicals, given their typically larger cast sizes and need for an orchestra, and the fact that many plays now feature celebrities who are able to draw in big crowds at higher ticket prices. “Without action, Broadway risks rivaling Hollywood’s empty soundstages: increasingly dark theatres where bold new work once lived,” Cats composer Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote on X on July 14.
The issue of rising production costs is a constant conversation in the industry, but no collective solution has yet been found, leading Lloyd Webber to call on theater owners, producers and union leaders to come together to find an answer. The state tax credit has helped shows attract investors and work toward recoupment, but only a handful of post-pandemic musicals have recouped, many have shuttered early, and in this uncertain environment, there have been only five new musicals announced for next year.
The team behind Cats: The Jellicle Ball was photographed April 23 in front of the Broadhurst Theatre in New York City. Several of the ballroom veterans behind Cats: The Jellicle Ball (from left) Leiomy, Primo Thee Ballerino, Wiles and Junior LaBeija.
Photographed by Amy Lombard
“A lot of my colleagues have never had a show that has lasted more than a year,” says Clayton Craddock, a current drummer in Cats: The Jellicle Ball and Broadway veteran.
For now, producers have been trying to tackle the challenge on an individual level, with new shows attempting to bring down their budgets by using fewer set pieces, less automation and reconsidering how many castmembers are necessary before coming to Broadway. “We try to look at every single piece of the production and what we’re spending money on and what we’re not. What is necessary for the story to be told? What are ways we can reduce costs by use of theatricality or magic realism?” says Ben Holtzman, lead producer of the new musical Wanted, about two white-passing sisters who become outlaws, which is opening on Broadway in the fall.
Hadestown, a folk and jazz musical inspired by two Greek myths, is one of the rare recent musicals that has had staying power, with the show running seven years on Broadway after winning the 2019 Tony for best musical and recouping its $11.5 million capitalization. (In comparison,Cats was capitalized for up to $18 million, still relatively low for this era, while Paddington, a big, technical show coming in the spring, is capitalized for up to $31 million.) Even so, Isaacs says Hadestown has had to remain nimble and has responded to the increasing operating expenses with several creative casting choices, including bringing in names such as The Summer I Turned Pretty’s Lola Tung, and by making cuts to their budget, significantly reducing marketing spend about two years ago.
The challenge of having higher running costs also means that shows have to draw in audiences early on, including during the preview process, which used to be more of a grace period for productions to find their audience and work out any remaining issues. Holtzman has been working to combat this by trying to raise awareness about Wanted over the past year, creating a long marketing runway and offering discounted ticket prices during the preview process to help build word-of-mouth. But he notes that most of the ticket prices will have to rise in order to meet costs: “The amount of time that you have for your show to pick up has shortened.”
There is still optimism, given that audience numbers have grown since the early post-pandemic days and select musicals have had sustained runs, such as Maybe Happy Ending, the 2024 best musical winner, which had a boost from star Darren Criss, and Buena Vista Social Club, which opened in 2025 and follows a group of Cuban musicians. But audience behaviors have also changed post-pandemic, with many gravitating back to old favorites like Wicked and The Lion King orcelebrity-driven shows.
“We’ve trained audiences that the shows of value are the ones with stars and recognizable IP, and so now we have to try to dig ourselves out of that behavior pattern because that’s not sustainable either. We have to figure out how to welcome audiences to shows that are as much about community and about the experience as they are about celebrity,” Isaacs said.
While Cats has well-known IP (for better or for worse), this revival’s bold departure from the source material put the focus on ballroom, with competitors voguing down the runway. This placed it more in the category of a new musical, which also meant needing to educate Broadway audiences about the subculture. That’s another reason why its closure, and the loss of its creative risk-taking and centering of trans and queer performers, is felt in the industry.
For his part, Craddock, the drummer in Cats, says the industry and his job security has felt increasingly unstable post-pandemic. Because of this he started a business educating other musicians about Broadway’s financial model, and encouraging them to take more gigs outside of the industry, to learn how to play more styles of music and find other revenue streams in order to hedge against the instability. He was not as shocked as others about the announcement, even as he says it doesn’t match the current atmosphere at the show.
“I didn’t know how much longer it could last since it’s a new show,” Craddock says. “Even though people that have come to see it love it, the energy is electric inside the theater, and the band is great, the vibe in the pit is great, but there just weren’t enough people to keep this afloat.”
This story appeared in the July 22 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
