The opening evening does not mean what it meant. This suddenly meant even less than three years ago, when I wrote for the first time that it had become almost meaningless. Changes have consequences for the public ticket purchase public, for professional criticism and for the New York Theater ecosystem as a whole.
Here are ten facts, updated, on the opening evening in Broadway.
1. The opening party is always an opportunity for the distribution and the Broadway team to party, and for the celebrities who are attending to take their photos, which gives advertising to the show
“Going to Opening Nights has been one of those activated Known Incomrehensibly Enough as 'The Thing to Do,'” Cornelia Otis Skinner Wrote in Humorous Essay on September 29, 1940 (Appoanied by the Hirschfeld Illustration, Above.) “What, Brilliance of A Premiere, is the Presence of A Goodly Number of Celebrities, Pseudo-Celebrities, and Celebrity Starrer-Dests. “
How Hirschfeld said: “The public of the opening night is mainly friends of the actors and donors of the series, and they come to applaud their money.”
2. The opening evening is not The first performance of a Broadway show in front of a paying audience, as several decades ago. This first show is now called the first overview. Broadway producers use the preview period, which normally lasts from several days to several weeks, in the way they used trials outside the city – to see how an audience reacts, what works for them and what does not do it; to resolve structural and technical challenges; To give artists more time to develop their character. (The definition of the opening evening by George Jean Nathan: “The night before the game is ready to open.”) The creative team sometimes brings substantial changes in the preview period, but when the opening evening arrives, the show is supposed to be “frozen” (more changes) until the end of the race.
3. If the general public and even some frequent theater lovers no longer understand the difference between a first overview and an opening evening, there is a reason for this. The shows rarely published or promoted the distinction. It is not in their interest to do so.
4. The opening evening meant the night when the criticisms came out.
This also meant the night when criticism attended performance. They had only a few hours after attending a show to write it. This would have ceased to occur in the 1970s. Critics began to be invited during the “press nights” during the preview period. They agreed to keep their criticisms under the wraps until the opening evening, honoring what is called an embargo. This change has given criticism (at least theoretically) more time to think about the show and produce more considered criticism.
It had become such a standard practice that there was something close to indignation in 2022 when the Broadway renewal of “The Music Man” with Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster announced that Theater reviews were to see the show during the opening evening, Forcing them to return to the previous practice to get only a few hours to write their criticism. This was labeled a blow and was not repeated by any other production.
5. This season, suddenly, the opening evening no longer necessarily means when the criticisms come out. Some productions delay their embargoes so that they can perform after the opening evening. “BOOP”, for example, has an official opening evening on Saturday April 5, 2025, but the publicists of the show told professional criticism that their criticisms could not take place until 9 pm on Monday, April 7. “Just in time” does the same thing. The “opening party” is April 26 (which is the day before the deadline to be considered for the Tony Awards), but criticisms are prohibited from publishing their criticisms until April 28 (the day after Tony's deadline.)
Several other shows pushed the embargo at midnight of the opening evening, or a minute before midnight their reasoning: they did not want to ruin the opening evening for the casting, the crew and the friends, if the criticisms turned out to be negative. It is an indication of what is really going on.
6. The tickets were cheaper during the preview period – as they are still during the preview periods in other world class theater cities, such as London. But that changed in New York in the 1990s. (Like A Wall Street Journal article in 2010 explained.)
Now, even if production during the preview period can be assaulted with piloting lines, technology accidents and scenes that are omitted later, or new added later, the public is almost always billed in the same way for their tickets before the opening evening as after.
The most notorious example of the abuse of the preview period was “Spider-Man: Town Off the Dark”, which started previews on November 28, 2010, and did not officially opened up on June 14, 2011. A period of preview of seven months; 182 Preview performances, a record. For what? They wanted time to repair the show, of course. They also wanted to sell as many tickets as possible before criticism weighs on me.
7. The more professional opinions are delayed and the more confusion sown on the distinction between the first overview and the opening evening, the more the role of the professional critic is decreased. As criticism Pauline Kael said: “In the arts, the critic is the only independent source of information. The rest made of advertising.”
8. The new embargoes only apply what are called “first night” criticisms, which represent a small percentage of professional theater criticisms which are invited to review a show. The so-called criticism of the “second night” are always invited after the opening evening, which is another reason why the opening evening means less than before. The majority of criticisms are invited days, even weeks after the opening of the show, which puts them in a competitive disadvantage, given the way in which theater lovers pay attention only to the opinion which leave the opening evening – a situation exacerbated by the rise of the Internet.
9. Indeed, the landscape of new media – Internet and social media – is an important factor in the transformation of the opening evening into a picturesque anachronism, in several ways. Social media influencers and residents of online discussion rooms are starting to offer their opinions on these programs from the very first overview. These opinions replace what was called word of mouth, but they are also increasingly replacing professional criticism. Some online comments is equivalent to criticisms considered to be abbreviated. Many are not.
10. The new landscape also makes the critical hierarchy overwhelmed that publicists persist in imposing. Critics on the websites of inherited publications (i.e. newspapers) do not necessarily obtain more traffic than those of online publications only. And criticisms without large companies behind them are more likely to offer the most diverse perspectives than most members of the theater community give at least one lip service. Critics rejected as “second night” often write just as well and know just as much about the theater.
There are practical reasons why the changes in the opening evening are unhappy. But what about the loss of the romance of the opening night accumulated above the ages-the wonder, the magic, the spirit prevails, the probable apocryphal anecdotes which are linked to it?
Javier Badem said her first memories were his actress mother during the opening evenings. “I watched her vomit behind the scenes of the opening evening, then the next minute, she became Isabella, Queen of Spain. At the time, I remember thinking: what kind of schizophrenic work is it? Now everything makes sense. “
George Bernard Shaw in Winston Churchill: I reserve two tickets for you for my first (from Pygmalion.) Come and bring a friend – if you have one.
Winston Churchill at George Bernard Shaw: Impossible to be present for the first performance. Will attend the second – if there is one.
