Moulin Rouge! at 5: How The Broadway Musical Overcame the COVID Lockdown and Went Global

Posted by Reinaldo Massengill on Sunday, September 1, 2024

The fifth-anniversary Broadway performance of “Moulin Rouge!” didn’t exactly go as planned. A technical issue with the set delayed the July 25 curtain by some 45 minutes and required certain pivotal scenes to be played farther upstage than usual. By intermission a featured actor had injured his foot, and another performer replaced him for Act 2.

But none of that dampened the enthusiasm of the audience, some of whom had begun lining up two hours before the original 7 p.m. curtain. Besides, thriving in the face of adversity feels like a signature move for this Broadway musical about bohemians struggling to keep their theater afloat.

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Just nine months after the strong-selling “Moulin Rouge!” opened on July 25, 2019, the pandemic shut down the show along with rest of the theater industry. And yet, since reopening in September 2021, the musical has expanded across the globe at a prodigious clip, winning the Tony Award for best musical in 2021 and rolling out nine international productions, with five (including Broadway and the West End) currently playing, a Netherlands staging bowing in September and a world tour launching in Edinburgh in April. At this point “Moulin Rouge!” has sold 8 million tickets worldwide across some 5,500 performances.

A robust international life was always part of the plan, driven by global interest in the title and the popularity of Baz Luhrmann’s audacious 2001 film. Just as those preparations were ramping up, the pandemic came along to throw a wrench in the works. That’s when Sydney-based production company Global Creatures got busy, navigating supply line issues and running auditions over Zoom to ensure a quick restart.

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“We were mindful of the potential for ‘Moulin Rouge!’ around the world in helping to regenerate the business,” says Carmen Pavlovic, CEO of Global Creatures. “We could employ a lot of people and help a lot of artisan businesses get back on their feet. I felt like ‘Moulin Rouge!’ really had something to contribute.”

Meanwhile, the show’s marketing team worked overtime to keep fans engaged via pro-shot performance clips and behind-the-scenes content. At the packed anniversary performance, the faithful were rewarded with a tote and poster on every seat and a curtain speech from Aaron Tveit, the show’s original Tony-winning star, who returned to the production that week.

“This show means a tremendous amount to me, as you can imagine — because I keep finding myself back on this stage,” he told them.

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