Jersey Boys–A Broadway Crowd-Pleaser!
March 18th, 2007In Forbes’ “The Tastemakers” series, reporter Joshua Lipton focuses on the performing arts. Lipton notes that there is a special magic and immediacy of live performance that continues to draws theatergoers to the hushed houses on Broadway. In fact, the Great White Way raked in $906 million in 2006, the most ever in the history of that small stretch of theaters on Manhattan’s West side, according to the League of American Theaters and Producers, the national trade association for the Broadway industry.
Along with providing some insight as to why the 2005-2006 Broadway season was most financially lucrative year in history, Lipton highlights some of the Great White Way’s biggest shows, including Jersey Boys:
Jersey Boys was another crowd-pleaser. The show proved that a pop musical could win over audiences with a substantive hit that pleased critics and theatergoers alike. Jersey Boys won 2006′s best musical and earned Tonys for two of its performers: John Lloyd Young won as best actor in a musical, and Christian Hoff won the best featured actor in a musical.
In addition to the story, Lipton has a slide show featuring some of the major figures on Broadway during 2006. Among those featured is JB director Des McAnuff, who received 382 press mentions last year. The reporter notes that in 2006, more than 500,000 theatergoers paid to see Jersey Boys, the jukebox musical chronicling the rise to fame of four blue-collar guys who worked their way from the streets of Newark to fame and fortune. The show earned a Tony Award for best musical, grossed $54 million in 2006, and has now been joined by a national tour in San Francisco. Along with planning London and Las Vegas productions of Jersey Boys, McAnuff, 54, also developed a new production with Aaron Sorkin of West Wing-fame called The Farnsworth Invention, which details the race to develop the television.
