This week, Michael Paulson at The New York Times dropped an article entitled “The Broadway Musical Is in Trouble” and, naturally, it generated some heat.
Admittedly it was not a fun read. As someone who’s spent more than a decade in and around the theater industry, I felt a mix of grief, frustration, and sadness. A sort of spiritual sigh.
Over the past few days I’ve watched and read thoughtful counterpoints—fact checks, missing context, smart rebuttals. But none of them untied the knot in my stomach.
So I set out to understand why. Why did this story, which is hardly the first “Broadway is dying” headline, feel heavier this time?
Let’s get into it.
Why It Shook Me
Here’s the truth: I wasn’t rattled by the numbers. The economics have always been risky. That part didn’t surprise me. What shook me was the feeling they produced.
Headlines don’t just pull clicks; they set the room temp. When a story like this drops, it changes the air. Auditions feel smaller. Rehearsals feel tighter. Conversations feel heavier. The atmosphere is giving Sour Kangaroo.
And atmosphere is sticky. It travels faster than context, faster than rebuttals, faster than any thoughtful talking point. It seeps into people’s weekend plans, an investor’s appetite, a designer’s bandwidth, an actor’s self-talk. (Trust me on that one.)
Nuance is comforting because it gives the air shape. Re-enter: Broadway’s Brand Bullseye. A simple framework I stumbled upon last week that, unexpectedly, helped me see that what I was feeling were the waves of a predictable ripple: a big artifact dropped into a small ecosystem.
So instead of litigating the article, I mapped the mood. And I was shocked at what I found. Or rather, didn’t find.
The Ripple
The basic principle is simple: each ring of the bullseye represents a different proximity to the theater industry at large. Together, they form the capital-B Brand of Broadway.
Outer Ring — The Public
When the public sees “Broadway is in trouble” splashed across the Times, it doesn’t come with context. Maybe Broadway isn’t worth the ticket this month, or this year. It also tilts the moral frame—if the ship is sinking, anyone still aboard should feel “grateful.” Demand softens and judgment hardens.
Middle Ring — The Adjacent Crowd
This is where investors, journalists, and partners orbit. A headline like this recalibrates risk. Suddenly “backing a musical” or pursuing a career in theater sounds less like an adventure and more like stepping into a casino where the odds are stacked against you. And when attention narrows to “sure things,” the pipeline of experiments that could become the next sure thing starts to dry up.
Inner Ring — The People Making It
Everyone who builds the work—actors, musicians, designers, stagehands—ends up breathing the air that headline creates. The vibe shifts from possibility to precarity. The work continues, but under a cloud that makes joy and stamina harder to hold onto.
Seeing that shape from 10,000 feet was clarifying. I could name the weight I’d been feeling. But it also raised a bigger question about the center of the bullseye — the room where it happens.
The Core
As a member of Actors’ Equity, I’ll admit my own bias here. At the time of writing this, (and the release of the Times piece) our union is in active negotiations with The Broadway League. I can’t speak to specifics, but I can say the road has been bumpy.
Which is why this headline made me wonder: how does it land in the Core? For producers, general managers, theater owners—the people in the room—it doesn’t just describe reality, it reshapes the dials they use every day. Budgets tighten. Timelines compress. “What would it take?” becomes “what can we cut?” The story reframes the economics as harsher, the risk as heavier, the options as narrower. In the short run, that kind of caution makes sense.
But here’s the paradox: the same narrative also risks reinforcing the scarcity it describes. That’s the loop. Atmosphere becomes action. Action becomes atmosphere. And the cycle spins on.
The Knot Untied
In the end, I don’t think the Times piece was dishonest. And I don’t think musicals are dying. Broadway has always been risky business: fragile, miraculous, impossible until it isn’t.
But once I tracked how the headline moved through each ring, I couldn’t ignore the silence at the center. The part that shapes all the economics: theater owners, rent, splits, the baked-in costs. That omission was the real source of my discomfort.
Because when the plumbing goes unnamed, the art takes the blame. The headline makes it sound like musicals are failing, when really it’s the pipes that are creaking.
So no, I don’t think another obituary for the American musical helps. But widening the lens might. Naming the systems, not just the symptoms.
And much like this country, no one person or party can fix it alone. That’s the work ahead. If we want people to keep showing up to sit in the dark and share one of the oldest traditions we have, we’ll need to repair, reshape, and rebuild the system—together.
One Last Thing…
The past two weeks we’ve been remounting BEAU. My days have been stuffed with rehearsals and press I would’ve prayed for ten years ago. And yet—maybe because I’m older, maybe because I’ve logged more miles—it doesn’t give me the same “high.” It’s still fun. It’s also my job. I’m deeply grateful to do it. And it is, in equal measure, fulfilling, exhausting, and brain-melting.
What’s been unexpectedly grounding is watching the bullseye in real time.
Outer ring friends see the clips and go, “You’re everywhere!”
Middle ring folks ask, “How’s the buzz? Are you extending?”
People making it (my ring) we’re deep in the weeds. Trying to bring it life again, but in a whole new way.
The core sees call sheets, payroll, load-ins, margins—dials that have to land just right.
Same week, four realities. The old me chased the spike; the current me trusts the system. The thrill hasn’t disappeared so much as spread out—less fireworks, more pilot light. And once you can name the rings, the work gets…lighter? Not easier, necessarily. Just truer.
I stop confusing dopamine for meaning.
If you’re making something right now, try to notice what each ring is seeing. Breathe the air with your eyes wide open, and let the nuance do its job. It won’t fix the plumbing by itself—but it might give you steadier hands while you’re hard at work.
Can’t wait for you to experience what we’re brewing at The Distillery.
See you next week ♥️
—Matt