Culture | Sing it from the rooftops

The New York-London arbitrage for musicals

Can you guess which is more expensive: Broadway or the West End?

Amber Gray at the press conference for Hadestown on Broadway Meets The Press, Walter Kerr Theatre, New York, March 18th 2019
Rethinking centre stagePhotograph: Alamy

When “Hadestown”, a musical that sets the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to New Orleans-style jazz, was produced in 2019 and opened on Broadway, it took an initial investment of $11.5m. Since then American consumer prices have risen by more than 20%. But one producer of “Hadestown” has estimated it would cost $18m to put on today—a rise of 57%. Talk about hellish inflation.

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This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Sing it from ⇔the rooftops”

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