A recent New York Times piece suggested that “the Broadway musical is in trouble.” Much of the context in that reporting is fair: capitalization costs have soared, risk tolerance has shrunk and post-pandemic economics have forced shows to fight harder than ever to find their audience. But from my perspective as president and CEO of the American Theatre Wing, the suggestion that the Broadway musical faces an existential crisis misses the point. Broadway isn’t dying. It is evolving.

This is hardly the first time someone has sounded the alarm. Broadway’s doom has been predicted for more than half a century. In 1969, The Times asked, “Has Broadway Had It?” In 1995, New York Magazine devoted a cover story to the ominous question, “Can Broadway Be Saved?” In 2005, The New Yorker chronicled Michael John LaChiusa declaring that “the Broadway musical is dead.” And for decades, Michael Riedel made a sport of declaring the art form on life support. The headlines keep coming. Broadway keeps going.

There is truth to the argument that rising costs are squeezing the commercial musical. When a new production can cost $25 million to mount and hundreds of thousands a week to run, even a critically embraced musical can close before it finds its audience. But the deeper issue is not the musical itself. It is the financial framework built around one narrow barometer of success: recoupment.

Recoupment was never a perfect metric. Today, it is a deeply incomplete one. It does not account for the multiple lives a show now leads, nor does it reflect who gets paid and when. Many shows deemed “financial disappointments” still employ hundreds at union wages, pay out royalties, seed tours, sustain licensing income, launch international productions and enjoy long afterlives in cast recordings, classrooms and regional productions. Lead producers generate income from their productions even when investors do not. None of this is nefarious. Measuring the health of the American musical solely by first-run Broadway recoupment is like judging a river only by its narrowest point. By more nuanced measures, it’s fair to argue the musical is thriving. It’s easy to find the green shoots if you know where to look.

Audiences are showing up and changing. MJ continues to bring first-time Broadway goers to the art form, fans of pop and R&B who never saw Broadway as “for them.” Buena Vista Social Club, sung entirely in Spanish, has welcomed multigenerational Latino audiences with a celebration of Afro-Cuban musical heritage rarely seen on commercial stages. Maybe Happy Ending, a futuristic love story, which originated in South Korea, before the English version opened on Broadway to much acclaim, broke box office records on its way to winning the Tony Award for Best Musical. These are not blips. They are proof of a widening circle. 

At the American Theatre Wing, we see this future building in real time. Our mission is to invest in brave work, support creative growth and expand the pipeline of theatre makers and audiences. From that vantage point, the story is not one of collapse but of possibility. This year, our Jonathan Larson Grants received nearly 1,000 applications, the highest number in the program’s 28-year history. Writers are bringing new musical languages, new cultural influences, new storytelling traditions and new sonic identities to the form. The appetite to make musicals has never been stronger.

And this lineage is not theoretical. Larson Grant alumni include Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, Dave Malloy, Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, Shaina Taub, Michael R. Jackson, Joe Iconis and many others whose work has reshaped the art form. Collectively, they have gone on to win Pulitzers, Tonys, Grammys, Emmys and Oscars. If this form were dying, so many extraordinary artists wouldn’t be sprinting toward it.

The momentum extends beyond musicals. Oh, Mary!, Cole Escola’s deliriously bold, proudly queer comedy, is one of the hottest tickets on Broadway. No franchise. No brand recognition. No advance fan base. Just a singular voice. And audiences are hungry for it. And the cultural footprint of musicals radiates far beyond New York. The screen adaptation of Wicked surpassed $750 million at the global box office. The filmed capture of Hamilton drove an estimated 752,000 app downloads for Disney+ in its first three days of streaming. These are not the stats of a fading form. They are the proof of a migrating one.

None of this ignores the very real economic challenges facing Broadway. They are structural, significant and shared across the industry. But a financial model in need of reinvention is not evidence of an art form in peril. It is evidence that the infrastructure has fallen out of step with the imagination it is meant to serve. Musical theater has never belonged to a single venue, a single revenue stream or a single definition of success. The impulse at the heart of it, to turn story into song and gather a community to listen, predates every balance sheet and will outlive every one of them.

The death of Broadway has been announced too many times to count. But as long as there are artists who have something to say, audiences who ache to feel something true and institutions committed to widening who gets to make and see this work, the orchestra will keep playing. We should not fear for the future of the musical. We must keep building it, every day, alongside the artists already writing its next song.

On May 2, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) abruptly terminated hundreds of grants to arts organizations across the country. Notifications were sent from a non-reply email address, citing a shift in grantmaking priorities “to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the president.” This sudden policy reversal, following renewed efforts from the Trump administration to eliminate the agency entirely, blindsided recipients, from nationally recognized institutions to small local programs. The result? Deep uncertainty and financial peril for organizations that serve as economic and cultural anchors in their communities.

This is not a matter of partisan preference—it’s a matter of national consequence. By federal allocation standards, the NEA’s budget is minuscule, accounting for just 0.003 percent of federal spending in 2022. Yet its return on investment is extraordinary. The nonprofit arts and culture sector generated $151.7 billion in economic activity in 2022, supporting 2.6 million jobs and delivering $29.1 billion in government revenue, according to an Arts & Economic Prosperity 6 study. The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that America’s arts and culture sector contributed $1.2 trillion to GDP in 2023—more than agriculture, transportation or utilities. And the NEA doesn’t fund irresponsibly. It employs an extensive, peer-reviewed selection process, and every dollar awarded must be matched by another from private, local or state sources, ensuring that, rather than replacing community investment, federal funding encourages it and multiplies its impact.

More than 60 percent of NEA grants go to small and mid-sized organizations with annual budgets under $2 million—those most deeply embedded in communities and least likely to have large endowments or ticket revenues to fall back on. These are the dance companies offering workshops in city parks, the after-school theater programs and the local music ensembles introducing new generations to classical instruments. One-third of NEA-funded programming reaches high-poverty neighborhoods and underserved populations, including people with disabilities, veterans and the incarcerated.

In New York City, where the arts are inextricable from the city’s identity and economy, these organizations do more than create culture—they support livelihoods. While Broadway may grab headlines, it is the citywide network of nonprofit venues, rehearsal studios and community stages that sustains the creative workforce and feeds future stars. Eliminate support for the small institutions, and the entire ecosystem falters.

But the NEA’s impact extends well beyond big cities; it funds projects in all 435 congressional districts. Around 4,000 communities benefit each year, and more than 41 million Americans attend a live event supported by NEA funding annually. In rural towns, these programs are often the only reliable access to the arts and a key source of civic pride.

These cuts won’t just harm our economy, they will be detrimental to our collective well-being. As an outlet for expression, empathy and community-building, the performing arts offer a vital antidote to digital overload. This is, perhaps, especially vital amidst the growing mental health crisis we are seeing in young people, but the mental and physical benefits of engaging with the arts across all age groups are well-studied and quantifiable. A study published in Art Therapy found that 45 minutes of creative activity can reduce cortisol levels—the body’s primary stress hormone—by up to 25 percent. A 2019 study conducted by researchers from University College London found that adults who engaged in the arts, even occasionally, had a 14 percent lower risk of dying than those who did not. 

There is also a strategic imperative. Every smart industry invests in R&D. The arts are no different. The NEA supports experimentation and innovation at the earliest stages, when new ideas are most fragile. This is where our cultural future begins—not with commercial guarantees, but with bold visions in need of space to grow. Undermining public support means stifling creative innovation and weakening our global cultural influence.

Calls to eliminate the NEA are not only economically short-sighted—they’re out of step with what Americans want. A major national public opinion survey conducted by Americans for the Arts in 2023 found that nearly 80 percent of Americans believe arts and culture are important to their community’s business and economy, and 86 percent support arts education in schools. The arts make our neighborhoods livable, our cities vibrant and our children more prepared to thrive in a complex world.

As we approach the Tony Awards and celebrate excellence on Broadway, we must also consider the scaffolding that supports it. The future of American theater—and of our cultural legacy—depends on the choices we make now. Reviving NEA funding isn’t a partisan agenda—it’s a common-sense investment in jobs, health, education and the kind of civic unity this country so urgently needs.