Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Anyone trying to book for many theatre shows in London will know the feeling: interest and then excitement, followed by a growing despair with the realisation that most, if not all, tickets have long gone.The Importance of Being Earnest at the National Theatre, which opened late last year, rapidly sold out much of its entire run. Very few tickets at all are available to see Paul Mescal\u2019s Olivier award-winning return in A Streetcar Named Desire in February. Meanwhile, long-running shows such as The Lion King and Hamilton reliably fill up auditoriums every week.\u00a0As visitors have flooded back \u2014 between July and September last year, the West End attracted 22.6mn visitors, a 6.7 per cent increase in footfall compared with the previous year, according to the Heart of London Business Alliance \u2014 audiences have soared above pre-pandemic levels. In the first three-quarters of 2024, according to industry body the Society of London Theatre (Solt), attendances reached 13.2mn and revenues of \u00a3793mn, up from 13.1mn and \u00a3735mn in the same period the previous year. Producers now expect that the number of people who have visited London theatres in 2024 will easily match the 17.1mn recorded for 2023, with revenues expected to be higher \u2014 an astonishing comeback for a sector that many feared would be irretrievably damaged by Covid-19 and pummelled by the UK\u2019s cost of living crisis.On Broadway in New York, however, it has been a very different tale since the end of the pandemic. According to a report last summer by New York State comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, attendances at Broadway theatres remain below pre-pandemic levels. Sales for the 2023-24 season on Broadway were about $1.5bn, or about a sixth lower than sales for the last season before lockdowns closed the district in March 2020.\u00a0Elton John\u2019s new Broadway musical, Tammy Faye, based on the life of the televangelist, was forced to shut just weeks after opening, having struggled to sell tickets. The Heart of Rock and Roll, a jukebox musical featuring the songs of Huey Lewis and the News, closed in the summer after two months.For producers in London, the trend is throwing into question the time-honoured tradition of the Broadway transfer \u2014 long seen as the jewel in the crown for a successful West End show.\u201cLondon is doing beautifully, but it is becoming so much more difficult to transfer work from London to New York,\u201d says Zoe Snow, partner at GBA, which has produced shows including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in the West End and was technical director for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child internationally. \u201cMounting a production that can achieve success in New York is harder and harder,\u201d she adds, pointing to the costs of production in the US.The trend is a decisive shift in the balance between two cities that have long vied to be the world capital of theatre. It illustrates contrasting approaches to the relationship between art and commerce. For many producers, London \u2014 and the UK theatre sector more generally \u2014 is increasingly seen as a crucible for fresh, risk-taking work, while Broadway risks becoming a home for unadventurous revivals, Hollywood spin-offs or celebrity casting. The question is whether this realignment is temporary, or heralds a permanent change. \u201cNew York has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels of audience,\u201d says the London-based producer Patrick Gracey, whose recent stagings include new versions of Chekhov\u2019s The Seagull starring Cate Blanchett and Sean O\u2019Casey\u2019s Juno and the Paycock with Mark Rylance. \u201cWe have some of the best creatives; some of the best writers, directors, designers, as well as best actors in the world.\u201dSitting in the Gielgud Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue the day after the first preview performance of his new West End production of Oliver!, the veteran British producer and theatre owner Sir Cameron Mackintosh says business has rarely been better.\u201cI\u2019m going through a very, very successful patch. London is far busier for most of the year than it ever was pre-Covid,\u201d he says. \u201cWe used to have bigger troughs, after Christmas and in September, but it seems to be levelling with London filling up with more and more people.\u201dMackintosh\u2019s three longest-running West End shows \u2014 Les Mis\u00e9rables, Phantom of the Opera and Hamilton \u2014 have, he says, \u201cgone back to virtual capacity every performance\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009with a bigger advance than they\u2019ve had for many years\u201d.\u00a0Even more challenging productions have beat expectations. An avant-garde adaptation of Sophocles\u2019 Oedipus by the director Robert Icke, which was co-produced by Gracey and Sonia Friedman Productions and opened in another of Mackintosh\u2019s theatres, easily earned back its London costs. Oedipus did not have a single unsold seat throughout its run, which ends Saturday. \u201cIt became a huge hit and recouped in a very short time,\u201d says Mackintosh.One big advantage London has over New York is its generous system of tax credits, which enable as much as a third of the budget for new shows to be recouped, theatre producers say. Last spring, the UK government announced an increase in the amount of tax relief that can be claimed for creating new productions to 40 per cent, double what it was before the pandemic \u2014 something that has helped spur the sector\u2019s recovery, according to industry insiders. These tax credits are \u201cliterally life-changing for producers,\u201d says Kenny Wax, the producer behind The Play That Goes Wrong and Six.Commercial producers also benefit from the UK\u2019s long-established system of arts subsidy \u2014 less than in cultural powerhouses such as Germany and France, but still generous compared with anything available in the US. Despite recent cuts, the taxpayer-funded Arts Council England supports nearly 1,000 arts organisations to the tune of nearly \u00a3500mn annually, nourishing a varied ecosystem that allows new work to be workshopped, developed and tested in subsidised theatres before it braves the commercial West End.Increasingly, American producers are opting to develop work in Britain before bringing it across the Atlantic, such as Stranger Things, a co-production between Netflix and Sonia Friedman. \u201cThere is a phenomenon of US productions starting in the UK before coming to Broadway \u2014 often English actors with American accents \u2014 to benefit from the subsidised work and lower costs,\u201d says Matt Torney, artistic director of the non-profit company Theatrical Outfit in Atlanta, Georgia, one of the city\u2019s largest producing theatres. \u201cThey can take aesthetic risks in the UK \u2014 in the US, one turkey and we might have to close.\u201dFrancesca Moody, a British producer known for bringing the original theatrical versions of Fleabag and Baby Reindeer to the Edinburgh Fringe, after which both transferred successfully to London, says that this means that the UK has a strong pipeline of new work, \u201cimportant for the future of the theatre\u201d.\u201cYou can think outside the box to how you are inviting audiences into your theatre,\u201d she says.Tax credits and subsidies also mean that producers and theatre owners are often able to keep prices down. Despite criticism that top-tier tickets for West End shows are increasingly unaffordable \u2014\u00a0the most expensive seats for a starry production of Cabaret at the Playhouse Theatre are now more than \u00a3300 \u2014\u00a0the average cost of a ticket in London is just under \u00a360, according to Solt figures, compared with more than $125 in New York.\u00a0Eleanor Lloyd, whose production company in the West End was behind Agatha Christie\u2019s Witness for the Prosecution in County Hall, says that the effect is producers are less reliant on celebrity casting or other tricks to pull in audiences. \u201cIn London, shows without stars can find their place,\u201d she says.The sheer \u201cbreadth of work\u201d available in London sets it apart, Lloyd says. \u201cThere is something for everyone \u2014 Agatha Christie, Greek tragedy. A C\u00e9line Dion musical!\u201dNew York, by contrast, has struggled more after the pandemic. Mackintosh, who co-produced Andrew Lloyd Webber\u2019s The Phantom of the Opera, still the longest-running show in Broadway history until it closed in 2023, does not have any productions in New York\u2019s premier theatre district.Analysts have pointed to various factors, notably the lingering effects of the pandemic \u2014 which closed theatres across the US for many months then depressed audience figures when they reopened \u2014 and the lack of long-term government support. But, says Mackintosh, there is a starker reason too: \u201cThe real problem in America is that the cost of running a show has escalated beyond all reason.\u201dSome of the large-scale shows that would have broken even at $700,000 a week pre-Covid now require more than a million dollars per week to turn a profit, he says.Many New York theatre workers are unionised, which means labour costs are comparatively expensive, while the cost of theatre rents is also criticised by producers as debilitatingly high.According to Wax, the West End staging of The Play That Goes Wrong, which began life in a tiny fringe theatre before being picked up by commercial producers, cost \u00a3300,000 and is now in its 10th year in the West End, having easily survived Covid. On Broadway, it cost $4mn to mount and lasted just two years before moving to a smaller, more economical off-Broadway space.\u201cIt is a totally different scale of capitalisation, costs and margins,\u201d he says. Larger productions \u201cdo not get much change\u201d from $20mn, he adds.\u00a0US regional touring is doing well \u2014 there are not the same costs as Broadway and there is strong demandOthers worry that audiences seem less inclined to travel into Midtown, where Broadway theatres are clustered. Overseas tourists have returned to New York but numbers are still below pre-pandemic levels, according to the report from the city\u2019s comptroller. Still, New York City Tourism + Conventions, the destination marketing organisation, said that the five boroughs attracted 64.3mn travellers by the end of 2024, reaching 97 per cent of its record 2019 visitation level of nearly 67mn.But one producer, who declined to be named, says that for some local people Manhattan has become \u201cless attractive as a place, certainly downtown and around Times Square. People are thinking of this being a bit more dangerous than it used to be, a little less clean.\u201dLondon theatres, by contrast, appear to be benefiting from an influx of American visitors, helped by the strong dollar. \u201cSuddenly we have back that couple from Boston who come to London for two weeks and\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009will see about 10 shows,\u201d says the producer. \u201cYou sit next to them in the theatre, you can see their list: \u2018What are we doing tomorrow, darling?\u2019\u201dHowever, after a tough 2023-24 season, Broadway is slowly bouncing back owing to a strong Christmas period, with attendances and grosses in just over the first half of the new season about 16 per cent higher than last year.According to US theatre magazine Playbill, Broadway had the highest grossing Christmas week since 2018, boosting hopes that the district is set to follow London\u2019s recovery.Producers also point out that Broadway is not bereft of new commercial successes to go alongside mainstays such as Wicked, which just before Christmas became the first show ever to gross $5mn in one week, The Lion King or Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, all but guaranteed to make money. An experimental reimagining of Lloyd Webber\u2019s adaptation of Sunset Boulevard, featuring the Pussycat Dolls star Nicole Scherzinger, is doing good business at the St James Theatre on West 44th Street.\u00a0In November, Cole Escola\u2019s new Abraham Lincoln-themed comedy Oh, Mary! became the first show of the 2024-25 Broadway season to recoup its costs, according to its producers, having transferred from a smaller off-Broadway venue. The touring network of regional theatres across the US, where costs are lower and many shows travel after Broadway, seems to be in rude health. \u201cUS regional touring is doing well \u2014 there are not the same costs as Broadway and there is strong demand,\u201d says Snow of GBA. \u201cPeople can wait to see a world-class show come to them, and its much cheaper.\u201dIn the UK it flips again, with regional theatres often struggling more to secure guaranteed audiences outside the capital, although the pantomime season \u2014 when many theatres make their biggest returns \u2014 has been impressively strong. London-based Crossroads Pantomimes, the world\u2019s largest pantomime producer with 23 shows playing across Britain in 2024, said its version of Robin Hood at the London Palladium was its fastest-selling production at the historic West End venue since it started shows there nine years ago. A Crossroads staging of Aladdin at Newcastle\u2019s Theatre Royal has had similar success.\u00a0Sales are way better than before the pandemic. It will cost over \u00a3100 to take the family out, but most see that as an investment worth making\ufeffDavid Ian, chief executive of parent company Crossroads Live, says that the organisation, which produces a broad roster of commercial shows in regional theatres in the UK, US and Australia, has had a record-breaking year, with 4.5mn tickets sold and gross revenues of \u00a3260mn, \u201cwhich is phenomenal year-on-year growth\u201d.Another regional UK producer, Emily Wood, co-founder of Evolution Productions, says that the 10 pantomimes produced by the company were selling at record levels in 2024, with about 15 per cent increase in sales on average compared with 2023.\u201cThere has been a resurgence in pantomime. Sales are way better than before the pandemic. It will cost over \u00a3100 to take the family out, but most see that as an investment worth making.\u201dBut a good Christmas is not always enough for the UK\u2019s theatres, which will need to entice crowds back to their venues throughout the year amid tough economic conditions.After the government raised employers\u2019 national insurance contributions at the recent Budget, labour costs are set to rise. UK economic growth has been sluggish to non-existent, and inflation has eaten into household budgets, leading to fears that theatre trips will feel to many people like a luxury.If costs rise, producers are worried what that will mean for ticket prices already criticised as too high and for reaching future generations of theatre fans. \u201cTicket prices are so important \u2014 they are the gateway,\u201d says Moody, the theatre producer.Even in the best of times, commercial theatre has never been a safe bet for investors, whichever side of the Atlantic it is staged: many shows never recoup their initial investment, never mind make a profit. Producers are now asking if Broadway can maintain its recent momentum into the new year and beyond.Yet, fresh from his success with Oedipus, producer Gracey is confident that British drama will continue to lead the way. \u201cThe UK is the best place in the world to make and to see theatre, and a huge part of that and its strength is in the diversity of offering,\u201d he says. \u201cNot every show is for everyone, but there is a show for everyone.\u201dData visualisation by Ian Bott<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Anyone trying to book for many theatre shows in London will know the feeling: interest and then excitement, followed by a growing despair with the realisation that most, if not all, tickets have long gone.The Importance of Being Earnest at the National Theatre, which<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":150839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-150838","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150838"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150840,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150838\/revisions\/150840"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}