Producer Sonia Friedman was overjoyed with Leopoldstadt‘s Tony Awards wins, including the coveted Best Play award. However, she also shared some sobering thoughts about the challenges of producing plays of its scale and cost. When asked about the difficulties of mounting a show like Tom Stoppard’s multi-layered look at the persecution of Jews in Vienna, with action spanning the years 1899 and 1955, Friedman said, “Oooh, this is a big conversation.” Before Leopoldstadt, Friedman had produced large-scale plays like The Ferryman and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, both of which also won Tony Awards.
“Plays of this scale are under threat right now,” Friedman said, standing onstage in the press room next to Stoppard. “I don’t know that Broadway will see another play of this scale or breadth in terms of the number of people onstage for a while, until the economics of Broadway can make them more accessible for audiences and cheaper to produce. It’s a very, very expensive landscape right now and the model needs a bit of fixing. So, I don’t know when there’ll be a play like this again.”
Despite the play receiving glowing reviews, turning it into a profitable enterprise is more challenging than ever. “It’s a very, very, very high risk, no matter how brilliant it is, however great the reviews are, however many people come,” she said. “It’s a tough financial environment at the moment for most shows, but particularly shows that have a cast of 38.”
Friedman was asked about why she and her fellow producers continued with the show during the lean winter months on Broadway, when the industry was emerging from Covid but had yet to find its footing. “Just the commitment to keep going,” she said. “There was no strategy. I just wanted the play to be seen by as many people as possible for as long a period as possible.”
It’s clear that producing plays of this scale is a challenging and risky endeavor, but Friedman’s commitment to bringing Leopoldstadt to as many people as possible is admirable. Let’s hope that the economics of Broadway can be fixed so that we can continue to see groundbreaking productions like this in the future.
