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.
Thirty-six shows sold a total of $42.6 million, according to the Broadway League. Seventeen exceeded $1 million. It was the best-attended week in a year, with 328,000 tickets sold.
The industry set records even at less-than-full throttle: The Iceman Cometh, with Washington and still in previews, had six performances, and Springsteen on Broadway had four.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child brought in $2.1 million, a record for a Broadway play. It only barely trailed the blockbuster musicals Hamilton ($3.1 million), The Lion King ($2.5 million), Wicked ($2.4 million), and Frozen ($2.3 million), which Disney said was a record for the St. James Theatre.
Mean Girls remains a sellout, at $1.2 million in a heavily comped week, although like Frozen its reviews were light on raves.
The Band’s Visit, which has graduated from being a favorite for the best musical Tony Award to heavy favorite, rose 3 percent to $871,000, its highest in six weeks.
Escape to Margaritaville, at 46 percent of its potential, doesn’t look like a long-term tenant of the Marquis. And the starry revival of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America was at 72 percent despite stellar reviews and abundant (and expensive) full-page newspaper and magazine ads.
Overall, the average ticket was $130, up $20 from the same week last season.
