Jordan Fisher, Gaten Matarazzo & Ruthie Ann Miles Join Broadway’s ‘Sweeney Todd’

Funny Girl broke a house record with more than $2 million in receipts at the August Wilson Theatre, A Beautiful Noise continued its $1 million-plus weekly take, and The Piano Lesson topped the list of highest-grossing non-musical productions with $914,752, each contributing to Broadway’s $37M box office tally for the week ending Dec. 18.

Ain’t No Mo’, playwright Jordan E. Cooper’s acclaimed but struggling Broadway comedy, has extended its run for another week and will now play through Friday, December 23, at the Belasco Theatre.

People love their legendary rock record label story and the moguls behind them, “Cadillac Records,” “24 Hour Party People,” etc., and now the latest in this line of films is “Spinning Gold.” Directed by Timothy Scott Bogart, the music drama is based on the life of his father, Casablanca Records founder Neil Bogart. Casablanca Records was responsible for an eclectic roster of bands like Donna Summer, Parliament, Gladys Knight, The Isley Brothers, The Village People, Bill Withers, and KISS.

The holiday spirit – at least the kind measured at the box office – seemed to arrive on Broadway last week, for some shows anyway. Obvious case in point: A Christmas Carol, starring Jefferson Mays in his tour de force as every last ghost, miser and Cratchit in the story, was up a bountiful 34% in receipts, taking in $742,010 and filling 83% of seats at the Nederlander.

Ain’t No Mo’, the Broadway debut of author and star Jordan E. Cooper, opened at the Belasco Theatre on Dec. 1 to the sort of reviews producers and playwrights dream about. Even the few critics who weren’t completely won over couldn’t help but point out a singular brilliance at work here, not to mention a stars-in-the-making cast and more laugh-out-loud moments than most of the rest of Broadway combined. A celebrity-packed opening night, with producer Lee Daniels greeting a crowd that included Gabrielle Union, Dwayne Wade and C. J. Uzomah – who happen to be among the starry cohort of co-producers – as well as Matthew Broderick, Tamron Hall, Deborah Cox, Stephanie Mills, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Susan Kelechi Watson, Camryn Manheim, Tony Kushner, Tituss Burgess, Gayle King, Pat Williams, Christopher Sieber, Jennifer Simard, Colton Ryan, Ari’el Stachel and Timothy Olyphant suggested nothing less than the buzzy arrival of Broadway’s next big thing, out-of-the-box division.

Actor, producer, and director Michael B. Jordan is now part owner of the English soccer team AFC Bournemouth.

For the second time in a week, Broadway is losing a worthy production that attempted to find an audience that encompassed but reached beyond the usual white, middle-aged demographic: Jordan E. Cooper’s Ain’t No Mo’, the often visionary, relentlessly brilliant and forever fearless take by its Black creators and performers on the stubborn subject of race in America will close next week.