Why the King rules Broadway at Christmas

Eventually the hits of yesterday bow off the stage, and shows that once seemed undefeatable smashes fall victims to time, fashion and waning attention. Witness Cats, Les Misérables and Miss Saigon, to name but three examples, the original Broadway runs of which all overlapped with Disney’s own mega-musical. Even The Phantom of the Opera, which holds the record for the longest-running show in Broadway history, did so with its later years less robust than its younger days. Yet The Lion King, and to be fair, Wicked, still stand at or near the top charts not only at the holidays but year-round, decades after their debuts.

The Lion King was far from the first musical to have first been a movie, although no doubt it benefited from the success of its original animated version. It’s worth noting, however, that the film had come out only three years earlier. It was unquestionably popular and present in the public’s mind, but it did not have the generations of goodwill that paved the way from The Wizard of Oz (books and movie) to Wicked. It was in some ways competing with itself in the marketplace, with the film available for physical purchase in the VCR era and a direct-to-video animated sequel even joined the fray just a year after the musical debuted; both videos could be had, and replayed endlessly, for less than the price of a single theatre ticket.

While Phantom holds the long-runner crown and Wicked nips at its heels, the current staying power of The Lion King suggests that it will have no difficulty besting the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical less than a decade from now. The only wild card is the tenacious revival of Chicago, which began a year before The Lion King and while it grosses much less on a consistent basis, it hangs in, sometimes seemingly against the odds and trends of commerce, and is now Broadway’s second longest-running show in history while The Lion King stands at third.

The Lion King seems to be defying almost any characteristic previously associated with a hit show.

That The Lion King appeals to all ages and stands as perhaps the quintessential family show is a key part of its appeal, but other family shows have risen and fallen over the years – the original run of Annie played 2,377 performances, certainly a smash in its day, but its two revivals failed to replicate that success. Other family favourites like You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown and Godspell have never sustained on Broadway and while Little Shop of Horrors is a champion Off-Broadway once again, its sole Broadway run lasted less than a year.

In hindsight, many will say that The Lion King ‘had all the right ingredients’, but it has never had stars in its cast. Director Julie Taymor has never had anything close to the same broad success on Broadway before or since. The Disney name and corporate capacity did not make hits of Tarzan or The Little Mermaid on Broadway. The show did introduce Elton John as a musical-theatre composer, but even he wasn’t the main selling point, and his track record since has been unpredictable: a hit with Billy Elliott, moderate success with Aida, a flop with Lestat, undetermined futures for The Devil Wears Prada and Tammy Faye.

Like all great theatrical successes, what fuels new records for The Lion King at a point that few shows ever reach is unknowable: a singular combustion of talents (and it must be said, producing acumen at its birth and in succeeding years) that keeps it not only running but dominating, even as other shows that have captured the zeitgeist have come and gone. By way of example, Rent preceded it by a year but moved on 15 years ago; Hamilton remains strong but demand is not what it was in its earliest years.

That there were sufficient ticket buyers last week capable of filling 15,000 seats to a 26-year-old show at an average price of $286 is genuinely remarkable, a vivid demonstration of the laws of supply and demand. It’s also evidence that the Lion will continue to rule for years to come, because it’s not even an anomaly – its latest highest-grossing week, almost surely a record for any Broadway show, topped last year’s Christmas week record-holder by $1,365. That show? The Lion King.
US show round-up below...

This week in US theatre

First seen Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club in early 2022, Joshua Harmon’s generation-spanning exploration of antisemitism in France, Prayer for the French Republic, opens on Broadway on January 9, once again under the aegis of MTC. Returning cast members, under David Cromer’s direction, include Betsy Aidem, Frances Benhamou and Ari Brand, while newcomers include Anthony Edwards and Richard Masur.