Broadway Bigwigs Donated Heavily to Hochul Before Proposed Tax Credit Expansion

In July, the Broadway League — the industry’s main trade group — hired the lobbying firm Ostroff Associates to try to “enhance” the tax credit, state records show. The firm directly lobbied Hochul’s office, her budget director, Blake Washington, and Empire State Development Corporation about the tax credit during September or October, according to a disclosure covering those months.

Around the same time, Hochul’s campaign got a cash infusion from the theater world. In October, Hochul raked in more than $243,000 in campaign donations from at least 27 Broadway producers, actors, theater executives, or lobbyists, according to a review by New York Focus. That included $83,000 on a single day — October 16 — from eight industry figures, as well as $250 from Jonathan Bing, another lobbyist for the Broadway League, who has recently lobbied the legislature for the tax credit’s expansion. Eleven members of the Broadway League’s board of governors donated a total of $121,000 that month.

Broadway League board members who donated included producer Jeffrey Seller, who gave the maximum $18,000 on October 10. Producers Brian Moreland, Alecia Parker, Mike Bosner, who also sit on the board, and Sue Frost, the incoming chairperson, each gave $15,000 that month. So did another board member, Charles Flateman, executive vice president at the Shubert Organization, the largest theater owner on Broadway. Attempts to reach them were unsuccessful.

This week, with the governor’s budget announcement, the group got what it wanted, at least to some extent. Hochul’s proposed $150 million expansion would also be partly retroactive, covering shows that opened as early as December 1, 2025, in response to industry concerns that the dwindling funding might have affected shows that opened last year.

Hochul’s campaign declined to comment on the donations or say whether they were made during a specific fundraising event. The Broadway League declined to comment.

The governor’s office defended the tax credit as crucial for propping up the theater industry and the tourism sector it helps support. Hochul’s office said the new funding would allow the state to honor its previous commitment to invest in the program through its 2027 sunset date.

As for the donations, Hochul spokesperson Kristin Devoe said, “Campaign donations have no impact on government decisions.”

It’s not clear whether Ostroff’s lobbying of the Hochul administration occurred before or after the spate of theater industry donations — or when, exactly, Hochul signed off on the tax credit’s expansion. John Kaehny, executive director of the government reform group Reinvent Albany, said that, regardless, the close proximity of those events looked “terrible.”

“If they’re making contributions before the decision, they’re trying to influence that decision,” Kaehny said. “And if they’re making them after the decision, they’re trying to reward that decision.”

Kaehny said that, in an ideal world, recipients of taxpayer-funded government subsidies would not be allowed to make campaign contributions. He called the spate of Broadway donations to Hochul a “textbook example of how campaign contributions buy massive amounts of subsidy.”

Rick Ostroff, president and CEO of Ostroff Associates, did not respond to questions about exactly when his firm met with Hochul administration officials or whether his client, the Broadway League, had thrown a Hochul fundraiser last fall. Ostroff himself has been a major past Hochul campaign supporter, personally throwing at least four fundraisers for the governor between 2021 and 2023, records show.

The tax credit was endowed with $100 million when the state authorized it in 2021. Hochul extended it by a year and added another $100 million in 2022, then by two years with an additional $100 million in 2023 — which effectively cut the annual outlay to $50 million per year. Finally, in last year’s state budget, the state extended the program through 2027 with another $100 million, bringing the total allocation to $400 million.

The state has continued pouring money into the program despite questions about its effectiveness. A 2023 state-commissioned study found that it generated just 23 cents for every dollar the state invested — although the report concluded that the expense might ultimately be worth it, given the impact of Broadway on local businesses like hotels and restaurants.

Meanwhile, the theater industry has charted an impressive recovery. Broadway attendance and revenues finally surpassed their pre-pandemic levels around November 2024 and have mostly climbed since — although smaller, nonprofit theaters have continued to struggle. Even so, the taxpayer subsidy is available only to commercial theatrical productions; nonprofits are excluded, as are opera, ballet, and orchestra performances.

In its current form, the tax credit functions as a grant, offering the maximum $3 million credit to Broadway theaters with at least 500 seats, between 41st and 54th streets in Manhattan. Off-Broadway venues in Manhattan with at least 100 seats can receive up to $350,000.

Hochul’s latest $150 million expansion is different from the previous ones, since it does not propose extending the program further into the future. And it appears to fall short of what the industry has asked for: Broadway League officials have said they want the program extended through 2029 and restored to $100 million per year.