The rise of the Broadway ‘bro show’

Edward Price wouldn’t be mistaken for a Broadway junkie. A straight guy in his 40s, Price splits his time between New York City and the Hudson Valley and rarely shells out money to see shows.

But in recent weeks, he’s been an unlikely Broadway regular, venturing alone to see two plays: “Othello,” starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal, and “Glengarry Glen Ross,” starring Bob Odenkirk, Kieran Culkin and Bill Burr.

“We want to see a good, solid male psyche. We want to see the full extent of the male experience,” said Price, a political economist. “You don’t always get that in theater.”

Both productions are part of a mega-earning Broadway box-office year, fueled, in part, by testosterone. Men typically account for only around one-third of Broadway attendees, according to Broadway League reports. But an especially large number of shows this past season – such as “Othello,” “Glengarry,” “Good Night, and Good Luck,” “Dead Outlaw” and “Stranger Things” – attracted a high proportion of male theatergoers, producers say. And there are probably more on the way, with revivals of the plays “Waiting for Godot” and “Art,” a solo show starring comedian Jeff Ross, and a new adaptation of the 1975 movie “Dog Day Afternoon” arriving in New York this upcoming season.

With so many of these shows appealing especially to straight men, some in Broadway circles have coined a term, said John Johnson, the producer behind “Good Night and Good Luck” and “Dog Day Afternoon”: “We call them ‘bro shows.’”

Yes, the expected caveats here: Not all women and gay men like musicals, and not all straight men like plays starring guys from their favorite action flick. “Just because you’re a straight man, a dad or whatever, doesn’t mean that group is homogeneous in what they want to see,” acknowledged theater marketing executive Rian Durham. But interviews with theater producers and marketers say preferences are hard to deny when targeting a show’s audience.

“Oftentimes, when we talk about finding the audiences, it’s often been targeting women and finding a show they can bring their partner to,” said Marc Jablonski, head of business intelligence for Broadway marketing firm AKA. “Now it’s the other way.”

Part of the reason is star power. Rugged A-listers have descended on New York, with George Clooney, John Krasinski, Adam Driver, Andrew Scott, Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber starring in recent Broadway and off-Broadway productions. Keanu Reeves is reuniting with his Bill & Ted franchise co-star Alex Winter for the “Waiting for Godot” revival. And next spring, “The Bear” Emmy winners Jon Bernthal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach will star in “Dog Day Afternoon.”

“I can almost guarantee you there were guy friend groups on text threads being like, ‘Hey that guy from “Succession” is in “Glengarry,” we should go check it out,’” Johnson said.

Indeed, a number of finance bros are flocking to “Glengarry,” a play about unethical Chicago salesmen. Jeffrey Richards, the show’s lead producer, has been involved with multiple incarnations of the play, including ones starring Al Pacino, Alan Alda and Schreiber. “I have never seen an audience for this play that has attracted a group of bros, as it were, to the extent that this production has,” he said.

Durham, an executive at Situation Interactive, the show’s digital marketing agency, said some have jokingly labeled the play “Bro Mary” – a twist on “Oh, Mary!,” the hit Broadway comedy about Mary Todd Lincoln favored by many gay men.

Sam Fremin, a 23-year-old journalist in Swoyersville, Pennsylvania, enjoys Broadway, but soaring ticket prices can keep him away. In May, Fremin splurged on a “Glengarry” date night with his girlfriend. He is a fan of its playwright, David Mamet, and the starry cast didn’t hurt. “It felt like there was a more diverse set of tones and themes in the shows that were being offered this year,” he said.

If a younger set enjoy “Glengarry,” middle-aged dads seem to gravitate toward musicals such as “Operation Mincemeat,” about a World War II military ruse involving a corpse, and “Dead Outlaw,” about a bandit whose corpse becomes a morbid attraction. Both are based on true stories from decades ago – their subjects could pass for books on a Barnes & Noble Father’s Day table.

“Mincemeat” producer Jon Thoday said men make up around half of its ticket-buyers. (Thoday and other producers said they only have access to ticket-buyer gender breakdowns, but that those numbers often closely parallel the actual audience). The show’s marketing has leaned into espionage and comedy, which has piqued their interest. “A lot of people bring their dad to it, whether it’s a teenage person who loves the show or whether it’s a dad who brings his dad,” he added.

Another dad favorite? “Good Night, and Good Luck,” a play starring Clooney as journalist and former Washington State University alum Edward R. Murrow taking on U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Johnson, the show’s lead producer, said men composed about 46% of ticket-buyers. “When you have a star of that caliber, it’s a lot easier for everyone to kind of coalesce around it,” he said.

During its run, which ended earlier this month, a towering black-and-white profile shot of Clooney smoking a cigarette stretched across the Winter Garden Theatre facade. Miky Wolf, the chief creative officer of AKA, opted for cinematic flair when concocting the campaign. Wolf, who also worked on marketing for “Glengarry” and “Othello,” said it reflected his belief that Broadway shows now compete for attention with TV and movies.

“I intentionally wanted to do something that felt like a political thriller,” he said. “That felt like something I know I want to engage with in terms of what I read, what I watch.”

Another reason more men are buying seats is more precise targeting technology on platforms such as Meta, Google and video streaming services. “We went from the 65-year-old woman who lives in Rye, New York,” Johnson said, “to hedge fund bros who live in the Financial District in a high-rise, rolling up in their Cadillac Escalade Uber.” (A slight exaggeration, but suburbanite viewers are slightly down since the COVID-19 pandemic.)

Straight men are not a newly discovered Broadway audience segment, of course. The jukebox musicals “Jersey Boys,” “Rock of Ages” and “American Idiot” brought out many male rock lovers. And “The Book of Mormon,” which debuted fourteen years ago, introduced loyal fans of “South Park” to the Great White Way.

John Kenrick, a musical theater historian, said in the early 1800s, during the birth of American commercial theater, men made up the majority of audiences. “It was like going to the horse race,” he said. While gay men have been involved in making and attending Broadway theater since its earliest days, Broadway wasn’t publicly viewed as an industry shaped by gay culture until the 1970s and 80s. “That’s when performers, writers could start being a little more visible about their sexuality,” he said.

These days, it’s not only rockers and comedians drawing dudes. “Maybe Happy Ending,” which won the Tony Award for best new musical, is a love story between two robots starring “Glee” star Darren Criss. Notably, it has slightly overindexed on male ticket-buyers, as compared with Broadway as a whole.

Not every bro show last season was commercially successful. “Swept Away,” a musical based on a tale about a shipwreck and cannibalism, featured music from the Avett Brothers, but it closed less than a month after opening to mixed reviews.

Sonia Friedman, the mega-producer behind hits like “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” said she has seen evidence that once straight guys get introduced to Broadway, they are especially prone to seeing a wide array of shows after. She is now behind Broadway’s “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” whose ticket-buyers are 47 percent male. “It’s too early to say that about ‘Stranger Things,’ but I’d hope the experience they’re having will take them somewhere else,” she said.

What other grisly tales, A-list studs or big-ticket IPs are up for grabs? Thoday cracked, “Stand by for the James Bond musical.”