‘The Outsiders’ Adds a Thursday Matinee; Only Show on Broadway With 4 Matinee Shows/Week
“The Outsiders” on Broadway announced that its Wednesday evening performances would be replaced with a Thursday afternoon show, making it one of only two shows on Broadway to offer 2 p.m. Thursday performances.
| 06 Sep 2024 | 02:55
The cast of “The Outsiders” performed on a Thursday afternoon at Broadway in Bryant Park a month before the show would begin weekly Thursday matinee shows. (
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In addition to Best Musical, “The Outsiders” won three additional Tony Awards, including Danya Taymor winning Best Direction. (
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Brody Grant was nominated for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for his performance in “The Outsiders.” (
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The 2024 Best Musical Tony winner “The Outsiders” at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre announced that the show will be replacing its Wednesday evening performances with 2 p.m. shows on Thursdays beginning on Sept. 12.
Of the 26 Broadway productions currently running, 21 have Wednesday evening shows (22 before “The Outsiders” switched). Twelve (formerly 13) have two-show days on Wednesdays–a matinee and an evening show.
With the addition of Thursday matinee performances, “The Outsiders” will now be one of only two Broadway shows playing on Thursday afternoons, alongside “The Great Gatsby” at the Broadway Theatre. Additionally, “The Outsiders” will be the only show on Broadway offering four matinee performances each week, rather than the standard two or three.
This means that “The Outsiders” will be shifting from competing with 21 other Broadway shows for audiences on Wednesday evenings to just one on Thursday afternoons. Theoretically, this makes it easier for audiences to fit a performance of “The Outsiders” into their week, as seeing it would not mean sacrificing other fan-favorites playing on Wednesday evenings, such as “Hadestown” or “Suffs.”
However, it is relatively surprising to see this shift come from “The Outsiders,” of all shows. As this year’s Best Musical winner, it has done spectacularly at the box office. It has the highest weekly capacity of any show on Broadway right now, according to reports from the Broadway League, with an average of 102 percent of its seats full each performance last week (it surpasses 100 percent since the show offers standing room for those willing to spend the show’s roughly two-and-a-half-hour duration on their feet rather than in a chair).
The only other show surpassing 100% average capacity last week was “The Roommate,” which opened on Aug. 29 and had an average 101% capacity last week. Four shows had an average of 100% of its seats filled each show last week, and the show with the lowest average capacity was “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” at 83%.
Again, the only Thursday matinee competitor to “The Outsiders” is “The Great Gatsby,” which is certainly performing well at the box office, but only had an average of 93 percent of its seats filled last week, compared to the 102 percent average for “The Outsiders.” Granted, the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater where “The Outsiders” plays is a bit smaller than the Broadway Theater housing “The Great Gatsby.” But, “The Outsiders” still made more money last week than “The Great Gatsby” did, according to stats from the Broadway League.
It is very possible that “The Outsiders” is moving to having two weekday matinee shows in order to accommodate additional school field trips to the show—it does offer student ticketing initiatives, particularly since the novel by S.E. Hinton that the show is based on is a popular book in middle-school curriculums.
It will be interesting to see how this impacts the popular show’s grosses and ticket sales after its first Thursday matinee performance on Sept. 12.