Soaring costs are driving US theater producers to debut their shows in Britain. Broadway stagings, always expensive, have become prohibitively so: Budgets regularly reach $20 million, and just four out of 48 new musicals released since 2020 have become profitable. Investors have become skittish and are looking for value.
London has skilled theater workers and offers cheaper rents and staff — West End actors’ wages are half of Broadway’s — while the union landscape is less complicated and the British government offers tax support. “For American artists telling American stories, American productions remain the dream,” The New York Times reported, but sometimes you just have to accept that your incredibly American, Springsteen-soundtracked adaptation of High Noon needs to open off Leicester Square.