UNIVERSAL CASHES IN ON WICKED IP 🫧 OFF BROADWAY TAKEOVER WATCH 🎭 KENNEDY CENTER INVESTIGATED FOR CRONYISM 🏛️
Plus, some great conversations from Indigenous theatre makers, and some discomforting industry futures.
Good morning, Witches! 🫧
Our first story this week is about the future of the Wicked franchise— and how the Finance and Marketing departments at Universal Pictures started foaming at the mouth after seeing last weekend's box office numbers.
“Because of ‘Wicked’s’ success but also the fanship, we have almost a responsibility to figure out how we can continue this universe.”
Michael Moses, Universal Pictures’ Chief Marketing Officer https://variety.com/2025/...
In other words, the studio has a responsibility to continue selling Wicked sequels, prequels, merch, events, and theme parks to us until we’re literally green in the face. 🤢
This has been a tactic used most visibly with the Harry Potter franchise.
You can read more about this well-researched phenomenon on Intellectual Property (IP) Holders, lawyers, and large creators partnering to create an (expensive) alternate reality for their fans to live (and dissociate) inside.
🫧 And to round out our Wicked coverage, here’s a great video essay analyzing the racial politics of the movies from FD Signifier and Princess Weekes.
Second, we are keeping an eye on the growing number of producers who are buyin off-Broadway theater spaces during this economic downturn. 👀
For the record, there was a similar expansion in the 1950s during the birth of the off-Broadway movement, but let’s see who is buying these venues this time:
THE NEW GROUP, the off-Broadway group that has not had a permanent home for decades, is taking over the Theatre at St. Clements Church https://playbill.com/article/...
A24, the film studio, recently purchased Cherry Lane Theater. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/...
Wild Project, another off-Broadway company that has not had a permanent home, just purchased an 89-seat theater at 195 East 3rd Street. https://playbill.com/article/...
Seaview, the production company run by producer Greg Nobile, recently acquired the Tony Kiser Theater. https://www.broadway.com/buzz/...
MORE NEWS:
🏛️ KENNEDY CENTER UPDATES:
PLAYBILL Senate Democrats Launch Investigation Into Kennedy Center https://playbill.com/article/...
US SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS is requesting answers on the documents they have obtained, with Sheldon Whitehouse saying they reveal “that the nation’s premier arts center is being used as a slush fund and private club for Trump’s friends and political allies,” including:
📉 Steeply discounted event rentals for NewsNation and the American Conservative Union Foundation
🏨 Tens of thousands of dollars spent on luxury hotel rooms, lavish meals, and entertainment for friends/newly hired staff
👯 Work contracts are going to personal friends, costing the government tens of thousands of dollars each month
⚽️ Exclusive use of the Kennedy Center for a FIFA event, amounting to $5,038,444 in losses for the Center
🐢 INDIGENOUS FUTURES:
HOWLROUND An Earnest Call-in from Native Theatremakers to an Industry That Refuses to Change https://howlround.com/earnest...
TRANS LAW CENTER Chief Robert Joseph reminds us that gender diversity has always existed among Indigenous communities. https://www.instagram.com/...
HOWLROUND A Roundtable on Theatre’s Colonial Silencing: Reflecting on Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson at The Public, peerless at Yale Repertory Theatre, and other stories of Native artists navigating white supremacist cultures at large theatres. https://howlround.com/loud...
📽️ ACTIVIST FUTURES:
HOWLROUND Accounting for Change with Sara Porkalob https://howlround.com/accounting...
FALL OF FREEDOM Artists projected a list of the names of journalists, artists, writers, scholars, and media workers killed in Gaza. via Lynn Nottage
CHICAGO SUN TIMES Did the ‘We See You, White American Theater’ movement spark change in Chicago? https://chicago.suntimes.com/theater/...
🎭 INDUSTRY FUTURES:
HYPERALLERGIC Meet the members of Mamdani’s Arts and Culture Transition Committee (Including NYTW’s Patricia McGregor and Apollo Theatre’s Kamilah Forbes!) https://hyperallergic.com/meet...
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER Simu Liu Slams Studios for the “Backslide” of Asian Representation in Hollywood: “F***ing Appalling” https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/...
AMERICAN THEATRE New Survey of Artists Highlights Challenges of Sustaining Creative Work https://www.americantheatre.org/2025/...
REPRO UNCENSORED The Death of Teen Vogue Is Not an Accident, It’s Digital Suppression in Disguise https://www.reprouncensored.org/research...
METRO TIMES Detroit City Council endorsed U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s bill aimed at overhauling the way artists are paid for digital streams https://www.metrotimes.com/music...
DEADLINE Nearly Half Of LGBTQ TV Characters Are Canceled, GLAAD Finds: “A Dangerous Precedent” https://deadline.com/2025/...
🔮 DISABILITY FUTURES:
THE NATION A Tribute to an Oracle, Alice Wong https://www.thenation.com/article/...
BAZAAR VIETNAM Marissa Bode: Wicked’s Breakout Star https://bazaarvietnam.vn/marissa...
DEADLINE Lady Gaga suffered a psychotic break after taking lithium prescribed by a doctor during the filming of A Star is Born https://deadline.com/2025/...
🌊 LABOR FUTURES:
THE STAGE ATG staff asked to ‘volunteer’ time to decorate Wicked venue for Christmas https://www.thestage.co.uk/news/...
DETROIT METRO TIMES DIA workers say museum’s Diego Rivera murals inspired them to form a union https://www.metrotimes.com/news/...
LABOR NOTES How to Build a Union Culture that Welcomes Immigrant Members https://labornotes.org/blogs/...
HYPERALLERGIC Met Museum Workers Push to Unionize https://hyperallergic.com/met...
LABOR NOTES How To Think Like an Organizer https://www.instagram.com/p/DRiQFKPD-jm/
🫂 GET INVOLVED: 🫂
Watch a screening of Palestine 36 at the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice in Los Angeles this Sunday, November 30 @7pm. Details here.
Search this database to find a Fall of Freedom event in your area.
Search this database to find a small business to support this holiday season instead of Amazon (this database is for New Yorkers!)
That’s all this week. See you in mid-December! 🎭🛠️