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Cameron Mackintosh, one of the most prolific producers in musical theatre history, has declared he will no longer produce shows on Broadway, citing the prohibitive and ever-rising costs of mounting productions in New York City.
“The costs of running a show are ludicrous in New York,” Mackintosh said in a recent interview with The New York Times. “I won’t do it anymore.”
The comments came in the context of a stark ticket-price comparison between Broadway and London’s West End, where Mackintosh is a co-producer on Hamilton alongside Jeffrey Seller. Top tickets to see Leslie Odom Jr. reprise his Tony Award-winning role as Aaron Burr reached $1,500 on Broadway last fall, while the same seat for Odom’s West End run this spring tops out at around $365 – a fourfold difference for the same performer in the same show.
“I know, as a producer of Hamilton in London, we have tickets under £100 here, which hardly gets you into the foyer in New York, let alone an orchestra seat. Here, I’m not saying it’s cheap, but it’s certainly affordable” said Mackintosh.
His London operations remain robust. Mackintosh owns and operates eight historic West End theatres and is currently riding high on the success of Matthew Bourne’s newly reimagined production of Oliver!, the recent acclaimed Sondheim revue Old Friends (starring Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga), and a worldwide arena tour of Les Misérables celebrating the show’s record-breaking 40-plus year continuous run.
