Broadway League Pres. Charlotte St. Martin Exits
St. Martin has overseen the trade association for 18 years, and is leaving as Broadway aims to reattain pre-pandemic attendance and revenue levels. In a statement, she said that her departure is “truly the most difficult decision.”
| 22 Jan 2024 | 01:21
Charlotte St. Martin speaking at The Tony Awards in 2019. St. Martin abruptly resigned as President of The Broadway League on Jan. 16, after 18 years in the role. (
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Students and educators gathered in Times Square on Nov. 8, 2023, to celebrate surpassing 100,000 high-school students who had seen a play under the Broadway Bridges® program. It was started by St. Martin and the League in 2017. (
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Charlotte St. Martin, who has overseen the Broadway League for 18 years, will be retiring from her role on February 16. She made the announcement on Tuesday, Jan. 16.
Jason Laks, the League’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel, will serve as Acting President while the organization’s Board of Governors searches for an official replacement.
“While there is never a good moment for an executive who has spent a great deal of time in their role to resign, it is the appropriate time for me. It is truly the most difficult decision as I love the League, the staff, and of course, the industry that we have supported,” St. Martin said in a statement.
She added that is “very proud of our League team and the successes we have shared and know they will continue to provide the League with the highest level of commitment for which they are known. It has been the honor of my career to lead this organization, and I am grateful for all that we have accomplished together.”
She will be assisting in the search for her successor.
Kristin Caskey, the League’s current chair of its Board of Governors, chimed in with a statement of her own: “When Broadway shut down for two years during the pandemic, it was under Charlotte’s steadfast leadership that the League helped create the Shuttered Venues Operations Grant and the New York City Musical and Theatrical Production Tax Credit, two vitally important initiatives that ensured the successful return of our industry.”
She also highlighted St. Martin’s stewardship of League initiatives such as Broadway Bridges® and the the Jimmy Awards®.
Broadway Bridges® started in 2017, and is geared towards helping every tenth grader in NYC’s public schools see a Broadway play. On November, 8, 2023, students and teachers gathered in Times Sq. to celebrate getting 100,000 students to attend the theatre under the program.
Caskey’s reference to pandemic doldrums was telling. As the Broadway industry’s national trade association, the League serves as a credible stand-in for the overall economic vital signs of NYC’s theatre scene.
Although St. Martin’s role has been quite lucrative–she was paid $542,323 in 2022, according to tax return records published by ProPublica–the League has been slowly bleeding money since 2020. That, of course, was the year that COVID-19 descended on Manhattan.
2019 was seemingly a banner year for the League, with tax records showing it pulled in nearly $11.9 million in revenue, while racking up just under $10 million in expenses. In other words, they had a surplus of $1.9 million that year. Conversely, in 2022–the last year for which figures were available–the trade group racked up a net loss of $866,703 for the year. Their annual revenue of $8.4 million was not enough to cover the league’s yearly expenses of $9.2 million. Its total assets for the year were listed at $13.8 million.
In the decade before the pandemic’s ravages, the league was consistently pulling in more than $10 million a year.
A week prior to her retirement, St. Martin told Crain’s New York Business that she was nevertheless “cautiously optimistic” about the industry rebounding. After all, the League’s recently released “Demographics of the Broadway Audience 2022-2023” report had some positive signs, including a rebound in attendance.
“This season garnered 12.3 million admissions, 16.8% shy of the record-breaking 2018–2019 season pre-COVID (the last complete season before the shutdown),” the report’s executive summary noted.
Broadway’s latest big bet, the Barry Manilow musical “Harmony,” will close on Feb. 4 after a four-month run. By its final curtain call, it will have played only 24 previews and 96 regular performances. The New York Times has reported that the play was capitalized to the tune of $15 million, according to SEC filings. It has reportedly not recouped the investment.
Even the longest-running play on Broadway was not immune: Phantom of the Opera closed in Feb. 2023, after a 35-year run that included 13,981 performances.
Meanwhile, even incoming congestion pricing tolls have spilt into continued coverage of Broadway attendance. Outlets such as Fox5 and Forbes have speculated that the environmental levy may turn off some Broadway attendees who drive, leading pricing plan advocates to fire back that a $15 levy is negligible for the class of consumers that can afford the typically pricey Broadway experience.
COVID-19 was an also expensive time for The Broadway League as an industry behemoth, considering that many theaters have had to navigate public health closures. The League’s pandemic consulting costs reportedly ate up over a quarter-million dollars for the fiscal year that ended in 2022, including $180,00 paid to the Washington DC-based Elemendorf Strategies, not to mention $104,750 paid to the epidemiologist Brian S. Koll.
Tax filings also reveal that the League paid the white-shoe firm Proskauer Rose $508,408 for legal services that same year, nearly equaling the compensation package paid to St. Martin. Kevin Kayes LLC, another law firm engaged in lobbying, also received $146,880 from The League in 2022.