There’s New Year’s week, when the city is packed with tourists and many shows have nine performances, and then there’s every other week. Last week was a record for the latter.
Bruce Springsteen, Denzel Washington, Harry Potter, Frozen and spring break for public schools lifted Broadway to its highest-grossing week that didn’t coincide with the New Year’s holiday. It was the fifth-highest-grossing week in history.
EXCLUSIVE: This season, every night is kids’ night on Broadway.
While theatergoers still pay up for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s historical hip-hop, Broadway’s fastest-growing onstage demographic are princesses, princes, witches and wizards. With the Harry Potter plays and Mean Girls early in previews and Frozen opening on Thursday, family-friendly sales are likely to stay elevated.
Broadway Journal hasn’t crunched the numbers for every season, so we can’t say that family show sales are at record levels — but industry veterans we spoke to said it seems that way.
EXCLUSIVE: The Frozen fractals appear to be falling into place for Disney.
Reviews aren’t out until the March 22 opening of Disney Theatrical Productions’ adaptation of the 2013 blockbuster animated film, but it has already raised prices for performances next year.
U.S. stocks aren’t the only market under pressure.
Yesterday’s Super Bowl and the mid-Winter funk contributed to Broadway lowest grosses in four months. Sales last week dipped 10 percent to $24.9 million, according to the Broadway League.
The upside to lower grosses: more affordable theater.
The average ticket to the Tony Award-winning musical comedy The Book of Mormon was $133, the lowest in almost seven years. (Prices may have been skewed because there were seven performances, instead of the customary eight.) Seventh-row center are available for tomorrow for $149.50. (Tickets still go for as much as $477.50 on weekends.)Continue Reading
There’s nothing like a closing notice to get playgoers’ attention. Sustaining that isn’t easy.
Indecent grosses soared 60 percent to $606,000 last week, according to data from the Broadway League. It was by far the best week for Paula Vogel’s historical drama — about the controversial 1923 Broadway production of God of Vengeance — since it began previews in April.
Indecent had announced a Sunday, June 25, closing, but late on Thursday, June 22, lead producer Daryl Roth said she was inspired by the sales surge to rescind her decision and run it until August 6. Restarting a box office, with no advance sales, is challenging. A quick check of Telecharge suggests wide availability for this week.Continue Reading
The Tony Awards delivered at the box office.
Many winners at Radio City Music Hall on June 11 had their bestselling weeks to-date after being recognized for achievement and, in the case of musicals, making the most of the international platform to present songs from their shows.
Broadway producers and investors made the brave decision to present several new plays without stars this past season.
Audiences haven’t followed. Grosses for straight plays (non-musicals) tumbled 15 percent in the 12 months ending on Sunday, after plunging 27 percent the previous season, according to statistics out today from the Broadway League. At $154 million, it was the lowest-grossing season for plays in at least six years.
With a week to go, 2016-17 has already surpassed last season’s record grosses.
After 51 weeks, Broadway has sold $1.415 billion of tickets, vs. $1.373 billion for all of 2015-16. Sales are on track to rise 5 percent, according to figures from the Broadway League.
EXCLUSIVE: On Sept. 27, 2012, four days before Rebecca the Musical was to begin rehearsals, it sold 27 tickets.
The day’s “wrap,” or sales, was $2,952.50, according to an internal production document introduced this week in the Rebecca civil trial.
Its advance sale was $1.035 million, the document said. “That would be a weak advance,” testified Aaron Lustbader, a partner at Foresight Theatrical, the general manager of such shows as Phantom of the Opera. Lustbader wasn’t involved in Rebecca, which was postponed for the third and final time a day before rehearsals were to start. Big musicals typically wrap $50,000 each day before previews, he testified yesterday.
Easter week was flush for Broadway’s flashiest star vehicles and dismal for serious new plays, Pulitzer Prize notwithstanding.
Two Scott Rudin productions in previews tell the story: Hello, Dolly! with Bette Midler passed $2 million for the first time, its average ticket rose $8 to $201, according to sales figures released by the Broadway League. Meanwhile Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House Part 2 was little changed at $91,000, with an average ticket of $24.
