Black-Led Broadway Shows Are Driving A Billion-Dollar Comeback

Forbes

2 days ago

As the Tonys approach, the industry's biggest night is a chance to ask who gets the spotlight—and who built the stage. No one embodies this more than Audra McDonald. McDonald's success isn't just artistic. It's economics.
Audra McDonald accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role in a play for ... More 'Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill' on stage at the 68th annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, June 8, 2014, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
I first saw Audra McDonald in Carousel, the Cameron Mackintosh revival with colorblind casting. It was one of the first plays I loved as an adult. This was the 1990s. Seeing a Black woman fully inhabit a classic Rodgers and Hammerstein role shifted the chemistry in my brain. It was more than the casting—it was her voice, soaring above the chorus. Later, I watched her show her acting chops opposite Diddy—yes, Sean Puffy Combs—in Raisin in the Sun.
McDonald's shows routinely break box office records, and she anchors a Broadway season that has shattered earnings projections.
If you've followed my reporting or my Substack, Vanilla is Black, you know I spend a lot of time at the intersection of race, culture, and economics. Broadway is where those forces collide, inside a black box and under a spotlight.
I've long admired Patti LuPone, but never quite loved her. She's as known for her sharp tongue as she is for her singing. I saw her in Sweeney Todd at Chicago's Ravinia Festival. It was one of her most transformative performances in a career full of them. She's a diva. She's brilliant. She knows it. She's Patti LuPone. And yet, when you read the recent New Yorker profile of her, it's clear she's either unaware of herself, or doesn't care.
She's fought co-stars, producers, and even audience members. She's snatched phones and turned outbursts into punchlines. Now imagine if a Black actress did just one of those things. To understand what that kind of dismissal means in practice, I turned to Carla Stillwell, an actor, playwright, director, and founder of the Stillwell Institute for Contemporary Black Art. For more than 30 years, she's been challenging the way American theater treats Black women onstage and behind the scenes.
Audra MacDonald and Patti LuPone during a break in an LA Opera rehearsal of Mahagonny at the Dorothy ... More Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles Tuesday January 30, 2007. (Photo by Richard Hartog/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
In the New Yorker piece, LuPone talks about other women, especially Black women, with a striking air of superiority. She was born in Northport, New York, which is still more than 95 percent white. While she's seen as a quintessential New Yorker, it's hard to ignore how insulated her world might have been.
Of Audra McDonald, she said, 'She's not a friend. That's typical of Audra.'
And of veteran actress Kecia Lewis, who confronted LuPone about noise complaints backstage during Hell's Kitchen, LuPone snapped: 'She's done seven shows. I've done thirty-one. Don't call yourself a vet, bitch.'
After the New Yorker profile ran, more than 500 prominent figures in the theater world signed an open letter condemning LuPone's remarks. The Broadway community formally rebuked her tone and language, calling for greater accountability in how Black women are treated on and off stage.
Carla Stillwell, actor, director playwright, educator, and founder of the Stillwell Institute for ... More Contemporary Black Art, has spent more than 40 years reshaping American theater—onstage, in the classroom, and behind the scenes.
By the time Patti LuPone dismissed Kecia Lewis as a 'bitch' who wasn't a 'vet,' Stillwell wasn't surprised. 'Anybody who has done one show on Broadway is a veteran,' she told me. 'Go argue with your mom. People don't know the work it takes to be integrated into that kind of high-level musical. To be physically and vocally trained just to be in the room. To dismiss that is so disrespectful.'
Kecia Lewis is a Broadway veteran. She originated roles in Big River and Once on This Island, and brought down the house in The Drowsy Chaperone and A New Brain. Her performance in Hell's Kitchen has been widely praised. Her first Broadway role came when she was just 18 years old. She was in the original cast of Dreamgirls.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 16: Kecia Lewis poses with her award for Best Performance by an Actress in ... More a Featured Role in a Musical for "Hell's Kitchen" at the 77th Annual Tony Awards at David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center on June 16, 2024 in New York City. (Photo byfor Tony Awards Productions)
'American theater gives Black women the finger every single day,' she said. 'Patti LuPone has had twice as many opportunities as a woman like Audra McDonald or Kecia Lewis. Not because she's not talented—she is—but because the work was created for her to flourish in as a white woman. I'm sure there were eight Black women who could smoke her ass, but they were never given the chance.'
Despite Lewis's talent and longevity, she's only just now getting her due. That's not because she lacked ability or range. It's because Black women have had so few opportunities to lead in American theater. If there had been more than ten Black-written musicals produced on Broadway over the past 160 years, Lewis likely would have starred in many more.
Black plays are rarely revived. New plays by Black writers struggle to get financed. And when Black actresses do break through, they often face constant dismissal and marginalization.
Despite progress on stage, disparities persist in leadership roles. Since Broadway's inception in 1866, only 10 musicals have been directed by Black individuals, highlighting the ongoing need for inclusivity behind the scenes. Forbes notes that fewer than 12% of company managers are people of color and only two lead producers are African-American.
At the same time, outside of Broadway, Black institutions are stepping up where traditional gatekeepers have failed. The National Black Theatre in Harlem is constructing an $80 million arts complex—part performance space, part cultural incubator. In Brooklyn, the Billie Holiday Theatre, founded in 1972, continues to center Black voices and recently received a National Medal of Arts. These aren't just symbolic investments—they're blueprints for the future of American theater.
Broadway's 2024–2025 season reached a historic high, grossing a record-breaking $1.89 billion and drawing 14.7 million attendees, according to data from the Broadway League. The Guardian noted that many of these record-breaking grosses came from new, original works, many Black-led that didn't rely on stars or IP. It's a sign that Broadway's future might finally be catching up to its talent. The financial stakes have never been higher, and as Forbes reports, skyrocketing production costs are shaping the industry's future in ways even the most seasoned producers didn't see coming.
NEW YORK - JUNE 12: Myles Frost and the cast of "MJ" at THE 75TH ANNUAL TONY AWARDS, live from Radio ... More City Music Hall in New York City, Sunday, June 12 on the CBS Television Network. Emmy Award winners Darren Criss and Julianne Hough co-host THE TONY AWARDS: ACT ONE, an hour of exclusive content streaming live only on Paramount+, followed by Academy Award winner and Tony Award nominee Ariana DeBose hosting THE 75TH ANNUAL TONY AWARDS.(Photo by Mary Kouw/CBS via Getty Images)
The recovery wasn't driven by revivals or worn-out blockbusters. It was powered by Black-led productions like MJ the Musical, Fat Ham, and Ain't Too Proud—new stories that brought in new audiences. And the impact is measurable: Baruch College estimates Broadway now contributes $14.7 billion to New York City's economy and supports nearly 97,000 jobs. Forbes reports an 18.5% jump in sales and a 17% rise in attendance.
Stillwell put it bluntly: 'Black women are the largest spending power in this country after white men. We've always been the revitalization of any industry on the brink. Broadway's comeback? That's us.'
Audra McDonald is the most decorated actor in Broadway history. She has six Tony Awards, two Grammys, and one Emmy. She trained at Juilliard and has performed everything from Shakespeare to Mahler. Her performance in Porgy and Bess pulled in $2.6 million in one week. Her turn as Mama Rose in Gypsy grossed $1.89 million and has earned more than $36 million to date. She is the only performer ever to win in all four Tony acting categories: lead and featured, musical and play.
Beyond the stage, McDonald co-founded Broadway Impact to fight for marriage equality. She has raised funds for the Ali Forney Center, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, and Covenant House. She's also been a vocal advocate for LGBTQ+ homeless youth and called out Broadway's silence during the AIDS crisis.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - DECEMBER 19: Audra McDonald during the opening night curtain call for the new ... More revival of the musical "Gypsy" on Broadway at The Majestic Theatre on December 19, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Bruce Glikas/WireImage)
Stillwell was unequivocal in her assessment of McDonald's character: 'I've never heard a dark, nasty word about that lady. Only that her work ethic is impeccable and her personality is pristine. That woman is highly unproblematic. She comes to work to work.'
Audra McDonald doesn't need to defend herself. Her résumé is a mic drop.
Before Audra, there was Stephanie Mills. There was Diahann Carroll. There was Lena Horne.
In 1957, Horne starred in Jamaica, a hit Broadway satire that let a glamorous Black woman lead a musical—something rare then and now. The show was originally written for Harry Belafonte but starred Ricardo Montalban, Ossie Davis, and Josephine Premice alongside Horne. Her performance of 'Push De Button' nearly became a Broadway standard.
In 1962, Diahann Carroll became the first Black woman to win a Tony for Best Actress in a Musical for No Strings. But that didn't stop a white hostess from barring her from her own cast party, claiming Carroll 'wasn't a real person' and would confuse her children. Carroll threw her own party.
In the 1980s, Nell Carter, fresh off her Tony win for Ain't Misbehavin', was offered sitcoms but never starring roles on Broadway again. She once said the industry wanted her voice, but not her body.
Even after The Wiz ran for four years and brought in Black audiences by the thousands, Stephanie Mills wasn't seen as a Broadway leading lady. She was 'too short,' 'too dark,' her nose 'too wide.' Some of that came from industry gatekeepers. Some came from Black folks.
The future of Broadway won't come from safer revivals. It will come from stories that challenge the mold.
Stillwell told me, 'Theater has to stop pandering and start developing new Black writers, Black composers. The successful stories aren't safe. They're honest. We don't need another revival. We need new work that isn't shaped by white comfort.'
I interviewed Tiana Kaye Blair, director of Trouble In Mind, for NPR a few years ago. During rehearsals, she said something that still sticks with me: 'Are you working to create something new that will then, in turn, do something new for audiences?'
That means people who have traditionally not attended Broadway theater.
Audra McDonald doesn't need to defend herself. I would rarely attempt to speak for Black gay men. But I can say this much with confidence.
We got you, Audra.
And as Pride Month begins, the Black gay world speaks with one voice: Patti, take several seats.
Everyone else, enjoy the Tonys.