How Hollywood Glamour Is Reviving the Endangered Broadway Play

“Almost our entire model is limited-run star engagements,” said the producer Greg Nobile, whose company, Seaview, had a hit last season with a 17-week revival of “An Enemy of the People” starring Jeremy Strong. This season it is doubling down, starting next month with a revival of “Romeo and Juliet” featuring Kit Connor, a star of the popular Netflix teen show “Heartstopper,” and Rachel Zegler, who played Maria in the 2021 “West Side Story” film, followed by the Clooney play. “I believe right now, to get anybody’s attention in any sector, things need to be an event.”

Since the pandemic, film and television stars have brought buzz and audiences to a number of Broadway plays, including Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick in “Plaza Suite,” Samuel L. Jackson in “The Piano Lesson,” Jessica Chastain in “A Doll’s House” and Jodie Comer in “Prima Facie.” Producers took note, and among the screen stars headlining plays on New York stages in the coming months, both on Broadway and off, are Kenneth Branagh, Kieran Culkin, Adam Driver, Mia Farrow, Daniel Dae Kim, Julianna Margulies, Bob Odenkirk, Jim Parsons and Marisa Tomei.

As with everything on Broadway, finances play a role. The money risked by investors on plays is much lower than on musicals, which tend to have bigger casts, more elaborate sets, and, of course, musicians, and which have become increasingly expensive to produce. A new musical these days often costs more than $20 million to bring to Broadway — “Boop!” a new musical based on Betty Boop that is opening next spring, is being capitalized for up to $26 million. Plays generally cost less than half as much — the “Romeo and Juliet” revival is being capitalized for up to $7 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Of course, the potential upside is also lower. A successful play might return 30 percent to investors; the musical juggernauts (which are few and far between) can return many times that by sustaining long runs in large theaters and spinning off tours. (Of the 24 new Broadway musicals that opened over the last two seasons, only one, “& Juliet,” has become profitable thus far. Two others, “Hell’s Kitchen” and “The Outsiders,” have plausible paths to profitability, but it is too soon to know for sure.)

Parsons, who has embraced stage work since the end of his television series, “The Big Bang Theory,” is featured in a revival of “Our Town” that begins performances next month, with a cast that also includes Katie Holmes.