The short version
We read every professional review of a show, give each one a score out of 100, and average them. Reviews from bigger outlets like The New York Times count for more than reviews from small blogs. That average is the CriticScore.
We do something similar with ratings from theatergoers on sites like Show Score and Mezzanine, which gives the AudienceGrade. The two are kept separate, so you can see when critics and audiences disagree.
What the scores mean
If every review so far comes from smaller outlets (Tier 3 or 4, below), we wait for 2 more before showing a score.
How CriticScore™ works
Each review gets a score out of 100 (the next section explains how). The CriticScore is the average of those scores, but not every review counts the same. A review in The New York Times reaches far more readers than a post on a personal blog, so we sort outlets into four tiers, and the tier decides how much a review counts. You'll see the tier as a small T1 to T4 label next to each outlet name.
The four tiers
Top critics
A handful of critics count in full wherever they publish, because readers follow them from outlet to outlet: Jesse Green, Ben Brantley, Charles Isherwood, David Rooney, Hilton Als, Helen Shaw, Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, Adam Feldman, Linda Winer, Alexis Soloski, Sara Holdren, Johnny Oleksinski and Chris Jones.
New York and London are rated separately
An outlet can matter more in one city than the other. The New York Times is Tier 1 for Broadway but Tier 2 for the West End, where it reviews only a few shows. The Stage is the reverse. Off-Broadway shows use the New York tiers and Off-West End shows use the London ones.
Critics' Picks
A New York Times Critics' Pick adds 3 points to that review's score, and a Critics' Pick never scores below 70. A Time Out Critics' Choice adds 2 points. We only count these when the label appears on the outlet's own page.
How a review becomes a number
Reviews with stars or a grade
When a critic gives stars, the stars set the range and we read the review to place it within that range. A rave and a grudging four stars shouldn't get the same number.
Letter grades, like Entertainment Weekly's, work the same way: an A lands near the top, a C near the middle.
Reviews with no rating
Most Broadway critics don't give stars or grades at all. For those reviews, AI models read the full text and decide where it falls, from a rave to a pan. We check their work against hundreds of reviews that did come with stars.
AudienceGrade™
The AudienceGrade is what theatergoers think, collected from the sites where they rate shows and turned into a single letter grade.
Where the ratings come from
For London shows we also use ratings from SeatPlan, London Box Office and London Theatre Direct.
How the sites are combined
A site with more ratings for a show counts for more. No single site can make up more than 80% of a grade, so one busy site can't drown out the rest.
Box Office
Every week The Broadway League publishes official ticket sales for each show. We take those figures from BroadwayWorld on Tuesday morning, after the week ends on Sunday.
This week
For shows that are running, we show:
The whole run
For every show, including ones that have closed, we keep running totals: total ticket sales, total performances and total audience.
Award Score
The Award Score sums up a show's awards in one number out of 100. It sits next to the CriticScore and the AudienceGrade on each show's Awards Scorecard.
Which awards count
For Broadway: the Tony Awards, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Drama League awards, the New York Drama Critics' Circle, and the Olivier Awards when a show transfers from London. For the West End, the Oliviers are the main event and count for more.
Bigger awards count for more
A Tony for Best Musical counts for far more than a Tony for Lighting Design. Here's what a Tony win is worth in each group. A nomination is worth about a tenth of a win.
Other awards use the same groups at a smaller scale (a Drama Desk for Best Musical is worth +28, not +200). Revivals get 85% of the points a new show would. When one show sweeps several design awards in the same night, each one after the first counts for a little less.
From points to a score out of 100
Each extra award adds a little less than the one before, so a single win and a record-breaking sweep both fit on the same 0 to 100 scale. Roughly:
Badges
During Tony season a show's score is marked Provisional until the ceremony in June, when the wins come in.
Check our work
Every review behind a score is listed on the show's page, with the outlet, its tier, the score we gave it, and a link to read the full review. The same rules apply to every show.
Think we got a review or an outlet wrong? Let us know.
If Broadway Scorecard has helped you pick your next show:
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