Noticing the full houses on opening nights for some of the hottest Broadway shows on the touring circuit, not the mention the full parking lots and long lines at the bars and merchandise tables in the lobby, one can see that The Bushnell is having a very good year.

The Bushnell’s longtime president and CEO David R. Fay confirms that the theater is experiencing a run of good fortune. It has not only bounced back from the instability of the post-COVID rebuilding period but is setting new sales records for its Broadway subscription series.

“We are having a very good year,” Fay said. “There was a lot of work done after the pandemic. The last half of last year we saw the tide really turn. We really saw everything take off. Subscriptions are up. Single tickets are up.

“We still have to raise a lot of money every year to bridge the gap” between income and expenses, including commitments to shows that won’t arrive in Hartford for months or years after they’re booked, Fay said. “But the shows are doing very well this year. There’s more than enough good stuff to choose from.

Fay added that the theater has the benefit of being a presenter. “There are very few things we produce ourselves. Everything we book has been curated, developed, built up over many years,” he said. “We don’t have to figure out what will work. We’re able to attract shows that we know will do well.”

This year, that has meant such crowdpleasers as the Neil Diamond musical “A Beautiful Noise,” the Michael Jackson musical “MJ” and the returns of such long-running hits as “Les Miserables” and “Wicked.” “A Beautiful Noise” opened the 2024-25 Broadway series in October. The series continues in 2025 with “Peter Pan” from Feb. 4-9, “The Wiz” from March 11-16, “Some Like It Hot” from April 29 through May 4 and “Back to the Future” from June 4-8. There’s also the return of the pop musical “Six” heading into this new year. The show played The Bushnell just two years ago and is being brought back as a bonus event that is not part of the subscription season.

“‘A Beautiful Noise’ was very close to selling out,” Fay said. “It was the highest single-week grossing show in our history. Then we turn around and do ‘MJ’ and it breaks that record. We had only set that record last year with ‘Six,’ which is coming back in January and has already grossed $1.2 million — and that’s on single tickets since it’s not on the subscription package.”

Fay praised the work of chief operating officer/vice president of marketing Stephanie Fried and the theater’s entire marketing team for The Bushnell’s recent successes. He added that the venue, which is managed by a non-profit organization, has a very supportive board of trustees and local sponsors.

A cohesive, forward-looking organization has allowed The Bushnell to expand its horizons and look into new methods of promotion and marketing.

“Our commitment to digital media is really taking off,” Fay said. “It’s very effective targeted marketing.”

The Bushnell has also embraced the increasingly popular practice of “dynamic pricing,” a marketing practice that can raise or lower ticket prices based on public demand that has “allowed us to carefully manage ticket sales throughout the run of a show.”

“A final piece of this, I think, is to upgrade the entire theatrical experience,” Fay said. He mentions the digital displays on the walls of the theater and inside its main lobby. They feature not only poster images for upcoming events at the theater but elaborate original videos of local performing artists, directed by the theater’s on-staff digital producer, Ryan Glista. Dozens of the complex videos, which often show the artists moving from one screen to another, range from choral or dance troupes to local drag queens, drum circles and even a menagerie of trained animals gamboling about the yard of Connecticut-based animal trainer Bill Berloni.

Fay also noted that on warm days, The Bushnell set up extra food and beverage tables in the theater’s courtyard area. For particularly popular family-friendly shows like “Disney’s The Lion King,” extra snack sales tables are set up in the lobby.

The Bushnell’s Broadway subscription series is overseen by Patrick Langevin, the organization’s vice president of programming. Tom Sessa, the director of programming, is in charge of the single-night bookings like concerts and stand-up comedy shows.

While many stand-up shows play The Bushnell’s smaller Belding Theater space, Taylor Tomlinson — the host of the late-night show “After Midnight” who also has a substantial social media following — had a successful two-night stand in the larger Mortensen Hall, where the Broadway series plays.

Earlier this year, The Bushnell found itself booking another performance space in a whole other town, the Warner Theatre complex in Torrington. When the Warner Theatre’s CEO left for another opportunity, Fay said, “They reached out to us. Our organizations have been good friends for many many years. We’ve had board members in common and other connections. We offered to help and ended up taking a leadership role in their programming. Having a 1,7900-seat hall not far from us has been good for both of us.”

Fried and Langevin have been made co-executive directors of the Warner Theatre. Besides bringing in touring acts, the Warner has been used for local multi-media projects by Ryan Glista and his frequent collaborator Carolyn Paine.

The Bushnell also continues to support the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, presenting their main Masterworks season in the Belding space and some of the symphony’s bigger events (including this month’s “Holiday Cirque Baroque”) in Mortensen Hall and also providing the company with office services.

The Bushnell is planning to announce its 2025-26 Broadway season in March.