La La Land just detonated a full-on earthquake on Broadway. It had been years, decades even, since the Great White Way had seen this kind of fever.
The old-timers were getting flashbacks to 1988, when The Phantom of the Opera crashed onto the scene like a meteor: same insane lines around the block, same blood-in-the-water frenzy.
Could La La Land have Phantom-level legs? Stay open forever and print money until the heat death of the universe?
Right now it felt exactly like those first Phantom previews: pure, drop-to-your-knees awe.
We'll see.
But one thing was already crystal clear: Gertia wasn't sweating the For Sale sign on the Olympia anymore. The theater made its money back in a single weekend. The place came roaring back to life like someone hit it with defibrillator paddles. Every dime they bled on Spring Awakening was suddenly pocket change.
Because La La Land was printing cash like it was mad at the concept of poverty. Sold-out houses every single night.
On Broadway, "sold-out every night" is the unicorn. Only Phantom and Les Mis live in that zip code.
Now there's a third tenant.
Gertia sat behind her desk grinning so wide her face was in danger of staying that way. "Joy, this is insane. You saved us. But… the stage rights are technically still yours…"
Joy waved her off with a laugh. "Relax. I'm not yanking them. I've gotta head back to L.A. soon anyway. My associate director's solid; he'll take over. And since I own the rights, you guys can't screw me even if you try." She winked. "Just keep cutting me checks."
Gertia raised an eyebrow. "And how much are we talking?"
"Thirty percent of the gross every year. Call it a finder's fee for not letting your theater die." Joy grinned like a kid who just found the cheat code to life.
She was about to be stupid rich. Musicals are ATM machines that never turn off. Phantom has played 74,000+ performances in 27 countries, 130 million people have seen it, and it's grossed over $6 billion, more than any movie ever made.
Joy didn't come here to get paid (she came to level up), but getting paid anyway? She wasn't gonna cry about it. More money meant bigger swings on her next films.
Still, it was time to go home. Hollywood was calling.
Gertia tried one last pitch. "You sure you don't want to stay? You're a natural. Broadway would kill for you to tear the place up again. The Olympia's your home now."
Joy just smiled and shook her head. "My heart's in movies. This was my grad school. Maybe I'll come back someday, but right now I've got peaks left to climb in L.A. Dreams I didn't finish last time around."
"EXTRA! EXTRA! Broadway Reporter scores the first interview with the mysterious director of La La Land, next week's issue, do NOT miss it!"
"The secret woman finally steps into the light!"
The hype was off the charts.
Margaret, the reporter, had spent months guessing who this genius could be. When she saw the name Joy Grant on the briefing sheet, she literally froze for a full minute.
Of course it was her. Of freaking course.
Why are the insanely talented people always insanely talented at everything? It's unfair.
But also… yeah, it tracks. Someone who rewrote Hollywood at twenty-five could probably walk onto Broadway and do the same damn thing.
Margaret still had to ask. "Joy, what made you want to tackle a modern jazz-love musical?"
Joy leaned back, relaxed, no ego in sight. She still felt like a regular girl who'd lucked into the best job on earth. "I just wanted to talk about how life and art, dreams and reality, can dance together instead of beating each other up."
"Is it true this show is basically a love letter to Los Angeles?"
"Yep. Me, the writer, the composer; we all bled L.A. onto the stage."
"Why Broadway? Are you done with Hollywood?"
Joy laughed, easy and warm. "God no. I'll be back in L.A. in a couple weeks. This was like when actors hit a wall and go back to class. I needed to sharpen my tools somewhere the spotlight wasn't blinding me."
Margaret grinned. "So when you do come back, Hollywood better brace itself for Hurricane Joy: The Sequel."
"Fingers crossed I wreck the place in an even bigger way."
Margaret sighed, half-joking, half-serious. "We're gonna miss you. Broadway won't forget what you did here."
Joy's smile went soft. "I won't forget either. These months were magic."
The interview was short, sweet, and the editors slapped a screaming headline on it:
"Meet the Director of La La Land: A Genius You Can't Put in a Box"
They printed a million copies expecting big numbers.
It sold out in hours. They printed another half-million.
The second Joy Grant was revealed as the mastermind, La La Land shattered every recent Broadway attendance record. Her movie fans stormed the theater like it was a rock concert. Their goddess had vanished for six months and secretly built a masterpiece on the opposite coast? Shut up and take our money.
In a few months the show sucked up every spare ticket dollar on the entire island of Manhattan.
Meanwhile, over at the American Theater, the Hairspray creative team sat in a circle staring at the new issue of Broadway Reporter like they'd been slapped.
More like punched in the soul.
The Hollywood director they'd laughed at in the elevator a few weeks ago? The one with the "doomed jazz musical" and the "nobody cast"?
Yeah. That was Joy freaking Grant.
Their show, the hottest thing on Broadway last season, was suddenly yesterday's news. Lights dimmed, literally. People were ditching Hairspray in droves to see La La Land.
The general manager, Muse, stayed weirdly calm while everyone else panicked. "If the director is Joy Grant, then yeah, it all makes sense. I get why it's perfect. I get why it's eating our lunch."
His team stared at him. "Why?"
He exhaled. "You guys don't really follow Hollywood. A couple years ago that girl dominated the entire industry so hard people were scared to go to work. Juno. Source Code. She was a party-girl trainwreck, then she got clean and turned into a once-in-a-century talent. She just brought that same magic here."
Someone piped up, "We have to do something! Counter-program, badmouth it, anything!"
Muse just shook his head. "Watch her movies. Then come talk to me. We're not stopping this. She earned it."
Because nobody becomes that kind of genius without bleeding for it. Joy sat in the dark for the 30th, 40th, 50th performance of Hairspray, taking notes like a lunatic. She made thousands of phone calls herself. She slept on the theater floor tweaking scenes at 4 a.m.
The world saw the explosion and called it "talent."
They didn't see the grind.
But the grind was there. And it paid off.
So yeah, call her a genius.
She earned that crown the hard way.
Keep running, Joy. Life's too short to stand still, and way too long to settle.
Go make more miracles.
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