Broadway musical 'Dead Outlaw' up for seven Tony Awards
The musical 'Dead Outlaw' is up for seven Tony Awards, including Best New Musical and Best Leading Actor in a Musical, and actor Andrew Durand and composer and lyricist David Yazbek join Morning Joe to discuss.
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Associated Press
3 hours ago
- Associated Press
Harvey Fierstein, on eve of Tony honor, looks back on his career
NEW YORK (AP) — Last year, Broadway actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein handed director Jack O'Brien the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. This year, it's his turn. 'Following him is not an easy task. In fact, I spoke to him and he said, 'I just want to put my name in there as someone who would love to give you the award.' And I said, 'Well, I'd rather you didn't.' I said, 'I'd rather you wrote my speech,'' Fierstein says. Fierstein, the four-time Tony winner behind 'Torch Song Trilogy' and 'Kinky Boots,' will get the award Sunday at Radio City Music Hall. He connected by Zoom from his home in 'a small fictional town in Connecticut' to talk about his career and a Broadway season dominated by George Clooney in 'Good Night, and Good Luck' and Denzel Washington in 'Othello.' The conversation has been edited for clarity and Do you know what you're going to say on Tony night?FIERSTEIN: I never know what I'm going to say. But I have been trying to gather thoughts, which I guess is a good idea. And I watched at least five or six lifetime achievements speeches by others. AP: Has the honor triggered any personal thoughts?FIERSTEIN: I did write a line that may or may not end up in my speech, saying that the most humbling thing is to think that my life meant something to the community. It's one thing to be enjoyed, but to have the kind of meaning that they turn around and say, 'We want to give you a lifetime achievement'? That's a very heady Was a lifetime in the theater inevitable? FIERSTEIN: No, no, no. I guess there are theatrical types, but art was always inevitable. I was sort of artistic, but I thought I'd maybe be a Disney animator. I don't think I ever believed I was good enough to create the Disney characters, but there were people that took the creation and then did the other drawings. I thought I could do that. Something in the arts. I had my BA in painting from Pratt. That's what I thought was going to You arrived on Broadway just as AIDS was consuming the arts. What was Broadway like then?FIERSTEIN: There was no time to think about it. We had to go to war immediately. If you remember, Ronald Reagan never said the word 'AIDS' in eight years. There was no attack against the disease; there was only an attack against people. People wouldn't go to restaurants because there were gay waiters. There were people that wouldn't go to Broadway because there were gay people. They might be in the audience with gay You work has always been about compassion. Why didn't you want to burn it all down?FIERSTEIN: My writing is telling stories that mean something to me. And certainly there's hatred and there's anger in my stories — and truth — as far as I can tell them. But the horrible truth is that no matter how badly we act as human beings, there's still a humanity under it What are your thoughts about the current Broadway season?FIERSTEIN: Who would have guessed that we'd have a season where the plays were the big thing and the musicals are sort of ignored? Thanks to George and Denzel and these stars that return to Broadway — thankfully return to Broadway — and they've done these plays and it's wonderful. They're bringing an audience that maybe wouldn't go see a musical or a Just get them to experience it, right? FIERSTEIN: Once you go to the theater, once you get in there and if you have a good time, if it does something, you're going to come back. I don't care why you came in the first place. Come back and see what else we have and open your mind and heart — and What about the pipeline of playwrights — are you happy with it?FIERSTEIN: There are people that are in love with theater, certainly, but there are people that want to make a living. And those people seem to drift to television and movies. I have a nephew married to a wonderful woman who wants to be a writer, but what she wants to write is movies and TV. It wouldn't even interest her to write a play. I don't know why. It seems easier to write television. It seems easier to write a half-hour where you already are given the characters. AP: Congratulations again. You are beloved in this community and a lifetime achievement award seems I thought it was because they just wanted to give me something else to dust, because I ain't got enough stuff to dust here. ___ For more coverage of the 2025 Tony Awards, visit
Forbes
8 hours ago
- Forbes
Why Hollywood Stars Make Bank On Broadway—For Producers
George Clooney could not have asked for a much bigger or better Broadway debut. Good Night, and Good Luck—the show he cowrote, produced and stars in—is nominated for five Tony Awards at this Sunday's ceremony, including Clooney for Best Actor, and has broken weekly box office records as the highest-grossing non-musical play in history. Its penultimate performance on Saturday will be broadcast live on CNN and HBO Max, a first for a Broadway show. Through 12 weeks of its 13-week run, the stage adaptation of the showdown between journalist Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy has grossed more on Broadway ($44 million) than its source material. The 2005 film of the same name cowritten and directed by Clooney, earned just $32 million at the domestic box office despite earning six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Director. But this much is clear—Clooney didn't come to Broadway for the money. Forbes estimates the 64-year-old Clooney will earn $6 million in salary and gross royalties for his numerous roles in the show, more than any other theater performer over that span, but a fraction of what Hollywood's highest-paid actors can expect to make on each movie project. For last year's Wolfs, for instance, Forbes estimates Apple paid Clooney and his co-star Brad Pitt $30 million each. Whether it's the purity or the prestige of acting on stage—"Movies will make you famous, television will make you rich, but theatre will make you good," the Broadway stalwart Terrence Mann famously quipped—A-list stars like Clooney have become a vital of the Broadway ecosystem. Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal currently headline Othello, while Kieren Culkin, Bob Odenkirk and Bill Burr lead Glengarry Glen Ross. In April, Gladiator II star Paul Mescal wrapped up a run in A Streetcar Named Desire. And the 2024 theater season included Robert Downey Jr., Rachel McAdams, Steve Carrell, Eddie Redmayne and Jeremy Strong, all leading non-musical plays that ran 10-16 weeks with a hard closing date to accommodate the actors' busy schedules. While Hollywood stars have made appearances on Broadway for decades, in recent years, producers and investors have been increasingly eager to stage these short-run, star-driven productions, which considerably lower their financial risk. A play typically requires a $6 to $9 million investment to get to opening night, compared to $20-25 million for new musicals, according to Forbes estimates. Weekly operating costs run in the $400,000-$600,000 range for plays versus $800,000-$900,000 for musicals. 'Your likelihood of losing all your money [as an investor] is near zero, because of the projections of sales based on that actor," says Jason Turchin, a Tony-winning producer and founder of the Broadway Investors Club. 'You may not make multiples back but you should get a healthy return.' Good Night, and Good Luck, for example, recouped its initial $9.5 million investment just seven and a half weeks into its run. Othello and Glengarry Glen Ross made their money back ($9 million and $7.5 million respectively) in nine weeks. Reputation, Reputation, Reputation: Stars such as Othello's Jake Gyllenhaal and Denzel Washington can sell out limited-edition runs on Broadway and then return to the more lucrative world of movies. While the upside of these shows is capped by the limited run, investors can expect to make 10-30% return on their capital, Turchin says. Considering only about a quarter of all Broadway shows fully pay back their investors, or less, it's the kind of safe bet he believes producers will lean into even more in future years. A-list stars meanwhile, some of whom are paid upwards of $20 million per movie, are typically given a minimum weekly salary—around $100,000 per week for the highest-level talent—as an advance against a percentage of the show's net gross, after expenses such as credit card fees and theater restoration charges are deducted from the raw receipts. An actor's gross royalty points are highly variable, but the top end can reach 10%. Other significant members of a show, such as the writers, producers, and directors, are either paid royalties from a small percentage of the gross or a larger percentage of a show's profits after recoupment. For ongoing shows, almost all have moved toward paying out of the profits to mitigate risk, but for sure-thing star vehicles—say, Hugh Jackman's year-long run in the 2022 revival of The Music Man—the standard is gross participation. Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck deal would include net gross points for starring, cowriting, producing and owning the underlying IP, adding up to his impressive total. Until this year, a Broadway actor's gross percentage only modestly exceeded the weekly minimums. Most hits gross just over $1 million per week, and over the run of a show, a star performer could expect to earn between $1-3 million. But if you're the type of actor who has made a fortune playing a superhero (Jackman), selling a tequila company (Clooney) or being one of the most bankable box office draws of the last 30 years (Washington), the money matters less. What's changed in the 2025 season is that producers are realizing just how far they can push the ticket pricing with a bankable star, particularly for the most expensive seats. Average ticket prices for Good Night, and Good Luck, Othello and Glengarry Glen Ross hover between $250-$400, and premium seats have routinely sold in the $700-$900 range, more than double the cost of top tickets to last year's star-driven plays or long-running hits like Wicked and Hamilton. Of the shows that started their runs in March, they account for three of the top four highest-grossers on Broadway, with Good Night, and Good Luck and Othello averaging more than $3 million per week, and Clooney's show cracking the previously untouchable $4 million threshold for non-musicals on three occasions. For deep-pocketed theatergoers, the appeal of seeing a movie star perform live has proven immune to traditional hurdles for other shows, such as negative reviews. According to Broadway review aggregator Did They Like It?, Good Night, and Good Luck received eight positive reviews, 9 mixed reviews and four negative reviews from major critics. Othello logged two positive reviews, 15 mixed reviews and three negative, and was completely shut out at the Tony Awards. Yet ticket sales remain robust. Last year's Robert Downey Jr.-led McNeal—his Broadway debut—was one of the worst reviewed shows of the season (one positive, five mixed, eight negative) and grossed $14 million across its 12-week run. Compare that to a play like John Proctor Is The Villain—a revisionist telling of Arthur Miller's The Crucible starring Sadie Sink of Stranger Things—which received 17 positive reviews, three mixed and one negative, plus seven Tony nominations, but averages less than $500,000 in weekly grosses, and one can quickly see the disconnect. "It does seem that theatergoers want to see Hollywood celebrities, in the same space at the same time. They crave that experience,' says one major Broadway dealmaker. 'And for the star? A standing ovation from a thousand people every night doesn't hurt the ego.'
USA Today
18 hours ago
- USA Today
'Gypsy' star Joy Woods dishes on her Tony Award nomination and advice from Audra McDonald
'Gypsy' star Joy Woods dishes on her Tony Award nomination and advice from Audra McDonald Show Caption Hide Caption 'Gypsy' star Joy Woods calls Audra McDonald 'graceful.' Here's why. Joy Woods, a first-time Tony nominee for her role in "Gypsy," chats with USA TODAY's Ralphie Aversa about the musical and her co-star Audra McDonald. NEW YORK – Joy Woods is a first-time Tony Awards nominee for her performance alongside Audra McDonald in director George C. Wolfe's revival of the Broadway musical "Gypsy." Ahead of Sunday's award show, the Chicago-born actress asked McDonald, who is also nominated, how she should prepare. "(McDonald) said to expect chaos," Woods, 24, tells USA TODAY. "But it's also a celebration. So it's not a bad kind of chaos. It's one that we can look forward to." Woods also decided that she'll face the "chaos" without any family nearby. "My brother or my parents or my grandma are usually at openings with me," she says. "Those things, you get pulled in so many directions that you never really get to see them. So I was like, 'I'm going to do this alone. I'm going to take my Kind bars and my Celsius (drink) and wing it honey, and I think that's going to be really good for me." 'Gypsy' made headlines and Broadway history "Gypsy," based loosely on the memoirs of striptease artist Gypsy Rose Lee, first came to Broadway in 1959. It and several of the subsequent revivals earned Tony recognition. The original earned eight Tony nominations, and the 1989 production won the Tony for best revival. Patti LuPone played Gypsy's mother, Rose, in the 2008 revival and won the Tony for best leading actress in a musical. This year, McDonald, the first Black actor cast in the role on Broadway, is nominated in the same category for the same role. She and LuPone have been in the headlines together recently following an interview with the New Yorker, published on May 26, in which LuPone was critical of McDonald for supporting a criticizing social media post by Broadway performer Kecia Lewis. LuPone complained that "Hell's Kitchen," a Broadway show that Lewis is in, was too "loud." At the time, LuPone was in the comedy "The Roommate," which played next door. Lewis took to social media to call LuPone's criticism and actions, "racially microaggressive." On Instagram, McDonald supported Lewis' post. LuPone responded in the New Yorker by saying McDonald "wasn't a friend." After the New Yorker feature, McDonald told "CBS Mornings" that she was unaware of any rift between her and LuPone. Then, the Broadway theater community wrote an open letter that called for the "Agatha All Along" actress and other performers who "use their platform to publicly demean, harass or disparage fellow artists" to be excluded from the Tony Awards and similar industry events. LuPone has since apologized for her remarks. In his review of the 2025 production, USA TODAY's Patrick Ryan wrote, "In casting a Black actress as Rose for the first time ever on Broadway, the show takes on subtle yet powerful new meaning, despite no changes to Arthur Laurents' original book. It's blatant, for instance, that Rose prioritizes the lighter skinned June, in hopes that she might seem more palatable to the predominantly white vaudeville circuit." Woods, the first Black performer cast as Louise on Broadway, reveals she and McDonald have had "a few" conversations about the role of race in "Gypsy." "I think she's been very graceful at letting me find this on my own," Woods says of McDonald's mentorship. "She's just the most patient, calm, giving scene partner and I felt like I was such a fish out of water starting this process. I didn't know if I was ready. I didn't know if I was right for it. "We haven't had many conversations about (my casting), but I think it's felt when we're (on stage together), which I think is really special."
