{"id":195870,"date":"2025-10-01T23:34:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T23:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/195870\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T23:34:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T23:34:15","slug":"jimmy-nederlander-on-getting-leonardo-dicaprio-on-broadway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/195870\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Nederlander on Getting Leonardo Dicaprio on Broadway"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEvery week, James L. Nederlander performs his version of \u201cUndercover Boss.\u201d He dons a baseball cap and sunglasses and stands in line, looking like a typical tourist as he waits to get into \u201cWicked,\u201d \u201cHamilton<\/a>\u201d or any of the other shows playing at one of the nine Broadway theaters he owns.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI want to make sure the patrons are having a great experience,\u201d he says. \u201cI want to see if the person taking the tickets is courteous. Are the concession stands clean. Is there trash on the floor. You need to sweat the little things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs president of the Nederlander Organization, Nederlander is a third-generation Broadway impresario, which has given him a front-row seat to the theater industry\u2019s boom and bust times. And five years after the business had to shutter due to COVID, he thinks that audiences have finally returned in force, pointing to the record $1.89 billion in sales last season. But Nederlander also knows that producing a show has never been costlier, and making a profit could get even harder if a tax credit that helped Broadway get back on its feet is allowed to expire.<\/p>\n

\t\tWhat makes you optimistic about the state of Broadway, and what makes you pessimistic? \t<\/p>\n

\n\tPeople are coming again. I\u2019ve heard a lot about ticket prices being too high, but if people want to see something, they pay. Seeing Denzel Washington, George Clooney or Kieran Culkin in a show is a once-in-a-lifetime thing for a lot of people.<\/p>\n

\t\tHow big will the impact be if the Broadway tax credit expires? \t<\/p>\n

\n\tIt means having to raise another few million dollars depending on the show, and it\u2019s hard to raise money right now. That\u2019s quite a tightrope you\u2019re going to need to walk. Does that mean some shows won\u2019t come or will go to Off Broadway? I\u2019m not sure. We\u2019re trying to get it extended. I\u2019m hopeful it will be.<\/p>\n

\t\tThere have been hit shows, but we haven\u2019t had a new blockbuster since \u201cHamilton.\u201d \t<\/p>\n

\n\tIt just seems like we we only get those every 10 years or so. And COVID didn\u2019t help. You have shows like \u201cMoulin Rouge!\u201d that are still running, but it\u2019s true that nothing has hit on the level of \u201cHamilton.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tLeslie Odom Jr. is returning as Aaron Burr for the 10h anniversary of \u201cHamilton.\u201d Will other original cast members come back? \t<\/p>\n

\n\tI hope they will. It\u2019s a brilliant idea, because the tickets for Leslie are through the roof.<\/p>\n

\t\tWhat\u2019s the biggest mistake people make when it comes to bringing something to Broadway? \t<\/p>\n

\n\tImagine someone asking you what your show is about? The elevator pitch can\u2019t be too complicated. I learned a big lesson on a play I produced called \u201cIrena\u2019s Vow.\u201d It was a beautiful true story and Tovah Feldshuh was in it, and she was fantastic. But it was about this woman who rescues 12 people during World War II. She lives with an officer, and that officer is a Nazi. That\u2019s a lot to ask of people. If Glenn Close was in it, maybe people would come.<\/p>\n

\t\tA common complaint is that the bathrooms, particularly for women, aren\u2019t big enough and the lines during intermission are too long. Can anything be done? \t<\/p>\n

\n\tNo. We have updated our bathrooms, and I\u2019m sure other theater chains have too, but these theaters were built a long time ago. You can modernize them, but you can\u2019t physically make them bigger because there are issues with the historic nature of the buildings. Maybe you make the men\u2019s rooms smaller? But then you have the same issue with lines there.<\/p>\n

\t\tYou\u2019re not a fan of the bike lanes in Times Square. What\u2019s the issue? \t<\/p>\n

\n\tThey\u2019re disruptive and intrusive. To put one in front of the Neil Simon Theatre is ridiculous. You get 1,500 people a day going to a show, and you\u2019re not looking for bikes or these electric scooters that are going 40 miles per hour. I\u2019m all for people biking, but this is dangerous. <\/p>\n

\t\tWhat\u2019s your white whale? Who have you been trying to get to Broadway? \t<\/p>\n

\n\tMcCartney. Pink, I would love. Spielberg has produced things, and I\u2019d love to see him direct a show. Leonardo DiCaprio, I met with him and I met with Scorsese. I keep trying. I don\u2019t give up, because you never know when someone is going to catch the bug.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every week, James L. Nederlander performs his version of \u201cUndercover Boss.\u201d He dons a baseball cap and sunglasses…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88,5615,113493],"class_list":["post-195870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-hamilton","tag-jimmy-nederlander"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}