Johan Persson<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nOf course, \u201cPaddington\u201d producers Sonia Friedman and Eliza Lumley think I\u2019m merely padding column inches. They say their show, which opens in the spring at the Al Hirschfeld, is in hibernation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still nine months from our Broadway opening, we haven\u2019t yet launched our campaign, nor have we announced the cast, and we\u2019re very pleased with where we are at this stage,\u201d they jointly said.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Paddington\u2019 followed a very similar trajectory in London. Sales accelerated dramatically once previews began \u2014 in fact, they exploded \u2014 as audiences experienced the show for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hmmm, they\u2019ve certainly done a little more than blast out a press release.<\/p>\n
In the leadup to their announcement, the production blanketed the city with teasing fliers saying \u201cHave you seen this bear?,\u201d in reference to a tense plot point at the end of Act One.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And the character Paddington \u2014 who\u2019s performed by an actress in a suit while an offstage actor operates the face and provides the kindly voice \u2014 appeared on \u201cGood Morning America,\u201d like a furry Matt Damon.<\/p>\n
\u201cPaddington\u201d even tried to muscle in on Knicksmania this month in an Instagram video.<\/p>\n\u201cDolly\u201d has been selling well despite doing little marketing. Matthew Murphy<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cDolly,\u201d which opens in the winter at the St. James, has done considerably less.<\/p>\n
\u201cA True Original,\u201d produced by Parton and the UK\u2019s Ambassador Theatre Group (which \u2014 the drama! \u2014 also owns Sonia Friedman Productions), announced its Broadway run with a social media video from Parton only two weeks ago and went on sale July 10.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
There\u2019s been little marketing spend beyond that, I\u2019m told. Parton, 80, hasn\u2019t done any national TV interviews, and her show is selling well anyway, particularly with groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cDolly\u201d\u2019s combined price tag for its Nashville tryout and New York productions is a hefty $30 million \u2014 including $17 million for Broadway. Like \u201cPaddington,\u201d it has an uphill climb.<\/p>\nThe musical had rough word of mouth after its 2025 tryout in Nashville. Dara-Michelle Farr\/AdMedia \/ SplashNews.com<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nParton and her collaborators, sources said, are addressing the gripes from the earlier run. More of her popular songs will be in the first act, and the story won\u2019t be as beat-to-beat biographical as before.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That sour initial word of mouth, luckily for Dolly, doesn\u2019t seem to have wafted far beyond the gossiping cobras of the theater industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cDolly Parton is a singular figure in our culture,\u201d said British producer Adam Speers of ATG. \u201cThere\u2019s nobody else quite like her: her humor, her remarkable empathy and an ability to make everyone feel like they\u2019ve known her their entire lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s key. Every American knows Dolly in their DNA like she\u2019s a prettier George Washington. But a lot of people will need to be properly introduced to Paddington and the Brown family for their $31 million musical to run the several years required to become a hit.<\/p>\n
Friedman and Lumley believe their show can do just that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhilst \u2018Paddington\u2019 is set in London, its themes are universal,\u201d they said \u2014 tossing in a \u201cst\u201d for good measure. \u201cAt its heart it\u2019s a story about kindness, tolerance, acceptance and finding home. Those are values that resonate everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
I completely agree. Though it wouldn\u2019t hurt if the main character\u2019s name was Simba!<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source celebrity.land \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Broadway season doesn\u2019t kick off for a few more weeks, when the horror play \u201cParanormal Activity\u201d starts previews at the August Wilson Theatre. To call the state of new musicals these days alarming would be an understatement. But we already have a hot early race. Or, well, hot-ish. Of the four new musicals that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2513127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25174],"tags":[344468,22641,21741,345885,24047],"class_list":["post-2513126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gossip","tag-broadway","tag-dolly-parton","tag-entertainment","tag-musicals","tag-theater"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Two-risky-30-million-musicals-are-battling-on-Broadway-\u2014.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2513126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2513126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2513126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2513128,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2513126\/revisions\/2513128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2513127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2513126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2513126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2513126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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