The West End has a major advantage over Broadway during awards seasons

On Sunday, the Olivier Awards wrapped up an eventful and vibrant awards season – cherishing the best in UK and London theatre over the last 18 months or so.

The year’s big winners opened across 2023 and 2024 – from Dear England, last summer, to Operation Mincemeat, in late spring 2023, to Sunset Boulevard and VANYA in the autumn, and Stranger Things: The First Shadow in December. They reflected a year of frequent high points, dispersed across the seasons.

If you look over at the Tony Awards in New York, the picture is somewhat more frenetic. Over this month, a flurry of shows are inviting in critics and opening ahead of the awards’ cut-off window on 25 April 2024. That means, over the next eight days, there will be premieres for big shows like Suffs, Hell’s Kitchen, The Great Gatsby, The Heart of Rock and Roll, The Wiz, Cabaret, Patriots, Mary Jane, Stereophonic, Mother Play, Uncle Vanya and Illinoise. That means that almost a third of Broadway houses have shows to open.

It’s the theatrical equivalent of Netflix dropping every episode of an eagerly anticipated series all at once – rather than teasing out speculation and excitement over weeks and months, a big splurge of amorphous storytelling is unleashed, with reviews being released frenetically and simultaneously. Shows rarely get a chance to build up steam before another starts grabbing the headlines.

What this also does is unbalances the year – quieter months mean less of interest to theatre aficionados visiting New York (and drives spectators from Broadway and towards the more exciting, innovative and affordable off-Broadway spaces, which admittedly isn’t so bad a thing).

By and large, the West End bucks this trend – we had a few plays opening just before the Olivier Awards’ cut off in February, but the lack of obsession amongst producers and programmers with awards dates means a healthier, heartier ecosystem

Producers also know that, in the West End, awards are mightily important, but they aren’t the end of the world – a show like A Little Life can go away without any Oliviers but still enjoy two mighty, sold-out runs in the West End. Operation Mincemeat was doing perfectly well before it picked up its WhatsOnStage and Olivier Awards.

Interestingly, eschewing the spring mania might actually work in some Broadway show’s favour – Merrily We Roll Along, for example, still remains an audience favourite and front runner despite opening months back – it will be fascinating to see how Eddie Redmayne’s Cabaret fares against the seminal Sondheim staging.

The heavily garlanded Sunset Boulevard is choosing to open on Broadway in the autumn – hopefully meaning it won’t get lost amongst the same, inevitable flurry of openings coming next April. Let’s hope the West End never goes the same way.