NEW YEAR'S EVE GRAB BAG

Data points, tidbits, travel pics, and more from a year of Jaques

Welcome to your weekly guide to the global theater industry. New to Jaques? Check out this handy explainer.

A photo from my camera roll of the pretty spectacular interior of Paris’ Théâtre du Châtelet, where I saw Les Misérables last month.

Happy New Year’s eve and many, many thanks to all of you who support Jaques with free and paid subscriptions. I’ve been thrilled to have you on board in 2024.

Before we rush headlong into 2025, I wanted to look back at the year—and scroll back through my camera roll—to share some of the data, reporting, tidbits, and travel pics I’ve picked up in the last 12 months but haven’t had the opportunity to include in a newsletter. So in this edition of Jaques, look out for

• China stats,

• an urgent¹ Starlight Express update,

• a closer look at the sets of Maybe Happy Ending in Seoul vs. on Broadway,

• design snapshots from Antonio Banderas’ Gypsy in Málaga, and

• tent complexes and next-level concessions in Madrid.

Here’s what I’ve got from the year that was.

FOR THE FIREFLIES

“Fireflies” = the name that fans of the Broadway production of Maybe Happy Ending have chosen for themselves. Or maybe the show’s marketing team chose it for them? Either way, the name has stuck around—and so far, so has the production, which has seen its sales spike encouragingly in the wake of a slew of glowing reviews.

If you caught my story about Maybe Happy Ending earlier this fall, you’ll remember I was particularly struck by the very different design aesthetic of the show’s New York iteration as compared to the recent South Korean production (which I caught when I visited Seoul over the summer). Looking back through my photos from the year, I found this pic of the set in Seoul:

It’s pre-show lighting so it’s a little dim, but you can get a sense of its relative simplicity: two doors—one for each of the two apartments occupied by our two robotic protagonists—on either side of a central playing area that serves as Oliver’s apartment, Claire’s apartment, and other locations, often with the help of projections that appear on various surfaces throughout the set. Above, you can make out the show’s orchestra: four strings and a piano (plus drums, not visible in this photo). Set changes were mostly human-powered, with little automation to speak of.

That notably modest approach stands in stark contrast to the Broadway version, an $18.25 million production that conjures the story’s near-future setting with a big, technologically ambitious set. Take a look at this video for a good idea of the many ways the set transforms throughout the show:

We’ll see if Maybe Happy Ending can maintain its Broadway momentum beyond the holidays—I’m rooting for it!—but either way, given the show’s reception from critics and theater fans alike, you can bet the musical will be showing up on stages around the country and around the world in the coming years. And that fairly simple, very popular Seoul staging offers a glimpse of the title’s smaller-scale potential as producers and amateur/educational programs start to pick up the show.

ANTONIO’S VISION OF GYPSY

Before my recent trip to Madrid, I made a stop in Málaga to catch the new production of Gypsy directed by Antonio Banderas at the theater he founded, Teatro del Soho. I was most intrigued by the design of the production, which seems to drift further and further from the musical’s 1920s setting as the story goes on. (For instance: The actress playing June spends a chunk of the show wearing a neon blue, pigtailed wig that reminded me of Harley Quinn.)

The projections, by Spanish contemporary artist José Luis Puche, are unexpectedly expressionistic and sometimes downright surreal. At the Teatro del Soho, Puche’s original design sketches and paintings are on display in the lobby; here’s a gallery of some of the photos I snapped before curtain:

Gypsy projection design sketches by José Luis Puche.

This is not what I expected the backdrops for a production of Gypsy to look like! And it’s very different from the current revival now on Broadway starring Audra McDonald.

Banderas’ Gypsy runs in Málaga through Jan. 12, when the production decamps to Madrid for an engagement that starts Feb. 7.

CHINA STATS

You may have noticed that I haven’t written extensively about the industry in China yet—I’m working on it! It’s a huge, complicated market that I’m still trying to get a bead on.

But in the meantime I did get a hold of some market data, presented by Yun Huang during the KAMS K-Musical Market, the conference in Seoul that I attended earlier this year. A producer with Alibaba Damai Mailive, the live entertainment firm that’s a subsidiary of Chinese tech giant Alibaba, Huang shared some numbers during her speech at the KAMS conference. Here’s what she told us:

THE DEMO