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Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Black-Led Broadway Shows Are Driving A Billion-Dollar Comeback
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.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Opening weekend at Heritage Carousel draws families, friends
DES MOINES – The Heritage Carousel at Union Park in Des Moines opened for the season on Saturday, and several families were happy to see it continue its traditions. The Carousel opened Saturday, May 24th, and will run through Sunday, August 24. Operating hours are Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. 22nd annual CelebrAsian festival takes over downtown Des Moines The carousel opened in 1998 and Jackie Cacciatore, the Executive Director of Heritage Carousel, said that she's committed to keeping the carousel affordable. 'We charge $0.50 for kids to ride and a dollar for adults, and our prices have remained the same since 1998,' Cacciatore said. Cacciatore said that its nice to see generations of kids enjoy the carousel. 'This is our 27th year in operation, and so we're seeing grandparents bringing their grandchildren who brought their parents or, you know, brought their kids and it's really fun to see that,' Cacciatore said. To learn more about the Heritage Carousel visit the Carousel's website. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
South China Morning Post
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Guess how much? Jimmy O. Yang's Hong Kong tickets resell at up to 140% mark-up
Tickets for a pair of additional shows by Hong Kong-American comedian Jimmy O. Yang were snapped up in less than an hour on Tuesday, with some online resellers offering seats at a mark-up of more than 140 per cent. A Post reporter who visited ticket platform Urbtix at 10am observed that it took more than 30 minutes to get into the queue for sales, with more than 40,000 listed as waiting at one point. All the tickets available were listed as sold out in an hour. Tickets for the two recently added June 15 shows at the Hong Kong Coliseum were priced at HK$380 (US$48.60), HK$580 and HK$780. Yang, who was born in Hong Kong before relocating to the United States in 2000, had earlier announced the two extra shows after the first two on June 13 and 14 also sold out within minutes. A check on the online platform Carousel showed some users reselling tickets for as high as HK$1,400 on Tuesday afternoon.
Vogue Singapore
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Vogue Singapore
Grace Roberts on growing up in Singapore and playing Christine Daaé in the ‘The Phantom of the Opera'
When The Phantom of the Opera arrived on our shores earlier this month, it was a homecoming for Grace Roberts. While the musical theatre performer is British, her family moved to Singapore when she was six weeks old, and she spent the first 18 years of her life growing up in the city. It was also here that she first started doing theatre. 'I started out doing choir when I was younger, and started to do plays and musicals when I was old enough to audition at school. I also took part in school concerts at the Victoria Concert Hall and the Esplanade when I was in junior and senior school. I honestly thought those amazing buildings were something else, and it was an incredible introduction to theatre,' she thinks back fondly. Grace Roberts plays Christine and Ben Forster plays the Phantom for the Singapore run of the musical. Courtesy of Base Entertainment Asia As she returns to Singapore this time, it is in one of the most beloved and iconic roles in musical theatre: Christine Daaé, the beautiful soprano that becomes the obsession of the mysterious musical genius that haunts the Paris Opera House. In the midst of the sheer grandeur of the musical—the swelling score, the magnificent costumes and the unbelievably spectacular sets—Christine is the show's tender heart, and it is a role that Roberts is absolutely magnetic in. From her quiet bravery to her deep compassion, Roberts brings a depth to Christine that turns an already technically brilliant performance into one that feels like a revelation. Here, she opens up on discovering her love for theatre, stepping into the role of Christine and what it has been like to perform in the place where she grew up. Grace Roberts as Christine Daaé. Courtesy of Base Entertainment Asia When did your love for theatre begin? Is there a particular production that inspired your decision to go into musical theatre? I've loved theatre since I was a little girl. My grandmother introduced me to films like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers , Carousel , and Oklahoma! when I went to visit and we'd play everything on loop. I also vividly remember watching a taped version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on VCR and being totally enthralled when I was about five. So I was introduced to music and theatre through film pretty early, but I'd say the major turning point was seeing Wicked when I was around 11. I was just taken aback by the sheer scale of it all, and I knew I wanted to be involved with something as magical as that. What is it like to perform back here in the place where you grew up? I can't really describe how special it is. I've always wanted to perform in Marina Bay Sands, and being able to stand on that stage is quite incredible. It's also amazing to have my parents able to see me perform in such an iconic Singapore landmark. It's really a combination of things that makes this so incredibly special. 'Masquerade' in The Phantom of the Opera . Courtesy of Base Entertainment Asia What was your introduction to The Phantom of the Opera? I've known the music for years . I was introduced to the music when I was much younger, but I didn't see the show until it came to Singapore in 2013. I watched Claire Lyon as Christine and Brad Little as the Phantom, and I was just mesmerised by the production value and the incredible music. As soon as the chandelier rose, I just knew it was something I had to do one day. What about Christine's character were you most drawn to? I love how compassionate she is, but I also appreciate how brave the character is. Although she's a woman living in the Victorian era, she's incredibly headstrong and resilient. I like to think that she's seriously ahead of her time and is somewhat constricted by the period she's living in. What is the most challenging part about playing Christine? I'd say the sheer amount of stage time. I'm quite lucky that Christine is in my wheelhouse vocally, so I don't find the singing too challenging. However, Christine just doesn't really leave the stage, especially in act two. Having enough stamina and fitness to keep up with the role is something I had to find quite early on in my journey. Grace Roberts as Christine in 'Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again'. Courtesy of Base Entertainment Asia What has it been like to perform alongside Ben Forster as the Phantom and Matt Leisy as Raoul? It's wonderful, I absolutely adore them both! They bring such life and uniqueness to the roles, and it's truly a pleasure to work alongside them every night. We're having the time of our lives up there. Do you have a favourite scene or song to perform in the show? I love doing the graveyard scene—that's 'Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again' through to 'Wandering Child'. I find that it's incredibly layered, and it's the culmination of everything Christine has learned in the show so far. It gives her some resolution and direction to take her through the rest of the show. Do you have a dream role you would like to play in the future? I'd absolutely love to play Glinda from Wicked . It's the only other role on my theatre bucket list, aside from Christine. The Phantom of the Opera runs until 22 June 2025.
Tom's Guide
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
Netflix confirms ‘Lupin' season 4 is happening — and production is already underway
On May 12, Netflix confirmed that 'Lupin' season 4 had entered production in Paris, France, meaning we'll be reunited with our favorite French gentleman thief Assane Diop (Omar Sy) again soon. While we don't have a release date to work with, we know the new season will be comprised of eight 45-minute episodes. 'I often say that 'Lupin' is an extraordinary plaything," Sy said in a statement shared on Tudum. 'I find great joy in it every time. Together with Netflix, Carousel, and Gaumont, we've invested the time needed to raise our ambitions and deliver even more surprises and enjoyment, both for us and the audience." "The fresh energy from Carrousel Studios aligns perfectly with this vision. I'm eager to share the new episodes with as many people as possible,' Sy added. Alongside news of 'Lupin's' renewal, the streaming service also shared an announcement teaser comprised of scenes from the past three seasons being contextualised in their real-life locations. At the end, we zoom inside the Eiffel Tower, where we find Assane Diop standing before a film camera. Then, smiling, he turns to face us, flashes a smile, and tells us he's back with a tip of his hat. Right now, we don't have many more details about 'Lupin' season 4, beyond reports that the 'Lupin' season 4 cast also includes Ludivine Sagnier, Antoine Gouy, Soufiane Guerrab, Shirine Boutella, plus new additions Théo Christine and Laïka Blanc-Francard. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. We don't have a synopsis or logline for 'Lupin' season 4 just yet, but we can at least speculate on what could happen in the new season, based on where we left our titular thief in 2023. 'Lupin' season 3 ended with Assane handing himself in to Detective Guédira, after framing his childhood boxing coach for the theft of the Black Pearl. In his cell, Assane received a note from his neighbor (and former foe) Hubert Pellegrini (Hervé Pierre). Pellegrini passed him a photo of teenage Assane, holding 'The Cagliostro's Revenge,' one of his beloved Lupin books. The implication from those closing moments? Hubert might well have been behind the events of season 3, and may well be out for revenge. Excited? We'll be keeping a close eye out for any updates about the next season (including a potential release date), so keep checking back for 'Lupin' season 4 news. And if you need help finding your next watch while you wait for Assane Diop's return, be sure to check out our list of the best mystery shows on Netflix or our overall round-up of the best Netflix shows for tons more streaming recommendations.
