Paula Vogel’s Tony-winning play “Indecent” ended its Broadway run last night on a new high. After 128 performances and 15 previews at Cort Theatre, the show closed with its highest weekly gross yet: $739,171. “Indecent” was originally set to end June 25 but an increase in ticket sales and audience word-of-mouth led to a six-week extension. BroadwayWorld confirms that the play was profitable each week of its extended run.
The source adds that, though the show is closing in New York, there will be plenty of future opportunities to catch “Indecent.” Minneapolis’ Guthrie Theatre will be putting on a production this season as will The Huntington in Boston. Further, the 2018–19 season will see productions of “Indecent” in cities including Philadelphia, Toronto, Montreal, Denver, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Portland, and Tel Aviv, Israel.
Audiences will also have the chance to watch “Indecent” on screen. One of the play’s final Broadway shows was filmed by BroadwayHD. This production will be available to stream in January 2018 in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Directed by Tony winner Rebecca Taichman, “Indecent” examines the controversial 1923 play “God of Vengeance,” which was closed by police due to its depiction of lesbianism. It also explores themes of Judaism, immigration, xenophobia, and equality.
“Gender has been a constant chip on my shoulder,” Vogel told Women and Hollywood in an interview. “It has had an enormous impact. I have all of these ideas for Broadway-sized plays that I’ve never written because I just knew I couldn’t get them produced. This idea has too many women in the cast; this one would take two to three hours and if I got past one hour and 45 minutes I’d be told my play is too long.”
Vogel is an American Theater Hall of Fame inductee, has run MFA programs at Brown and Yale, and is the recipient of multiple playwriting prizes including the Pulitzer. But she didn’t make her Broadway debut until “Indecent,” which she attributes to sexism.
“I think that most [women] know that it’s going to be a much deeper climb,” she explained. “It means that as artists we have better table manners because behavior is judged differently if you’re a woman artist.”
Vogel won the Pulitzer in 1998 for “How I Learned to Drive,” a portrait of a woman in a sexually abusive relationship with her uncle. Her other plays include “Don Juan Comes Home From Iraq,” “The Mineola Twins,” “The Baltimore Waltz,” “Hot ‘N Throbbing,” “Desdemona,” and “The Oldest Profession.”
