Broadway grosses continued to cool last week, falling a little more than 11% to $29,614,804 over the 29 currently running shows. That's pretty much par for the course this time of year. The good news is that almost 92% of seats were filled, meaning the Broadway League's Broadway Week (which offers two-for-one tickets to most shows) is definitely working. That also means ticket prices (and grosses along with them) fall, but at a cumulative average ticket price of $120.27 last week, we should all be pretty pleased.
And the data tells us we may have some new hits on the horizon. New musical Redwood, co-conceived by and starring Wicked Tony winner Idina Menzel, began at the Nederlander Theatre and brought in almost $400,000 over just two performances. If that performance carries over to a full eight-performance week, the show will handily join The $1 Million Club. From this week's numbers, that would have made the new musical the fifth highest-grossing on the boards, extra notable given that the Nederlander is not one of Broadway's bigger houses. Bringing the show to the Main Stem just as Wicked has made such a big splash in movie theatres may have been an excellent producing move: 2,306 theatregoers paid an average of $172.21 to see the musical's original star in her latest outing, the second highest average ticket on Broadway last week (beat only by the star-studded All In: Comedy About Love By Simon Rich).
The other big winner of the week was Chicago, which welcomed Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Erika Jayne back for an encore run as Roxie Hart last week. The show got a handy $200,000 boost at the box office as a result (grossing $852,800 overall), so it's no surprise the production extended Jayne's run in the show just earlier today. The name on ticket buyers' lips is gonna be Erika!
Wicked continued its now longstanding Broadway dominance at the top of the charts, last week the sole show to bring in grosses in excess of $2 million for a total of $2,415,881. Gypsy followed with $1.8 million, followed by fellow usual chart toppers The Lion King, Hamilton, and Sunset Boulevard. Star power seems to be the name of the game this season. Gypsy and Sunset Boulevard are both banking on major above-the-title names, and the star-packed All In has continued to be a top grosser and commanding Broadway's top ticket price, too (the current cast is led by Lin-Manuel Miranda). With a Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal-led Othello upcoming and Menzel in Redwood already on the boards, those famous names may just bring us one of the highest-grossing springs we've ever seen on Broadway. We're already beating this same period last season by almost 18%.
Take a look at the full report here.
The $1 Million Club (shows that earned $1 million or more at the box office):
- Wicked ($2.42 million)
- Gypsy
- The Lion King
- Hamilton
- Sunset Boulevard
- All In: Comedy About Love
- Death Becomes Her
- MJ The Musical
- Aladdin
- The Outsiders
- The Great Gatsby
- Cabaret
- Hell's Kitchen
- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
(14 of 29 currently running productions)
The 90s Club (shows that played to 90% or higher of their seats filled over the entire week):
- Romeo + Juliet (101.7%)
- The Outsiders (101.42%)
- All In: Comedy About Love (100%)
- Redwood (100%)
- Wicked (100%)
- Gypsy
- Oh, Mary!
- Hadestown
- The Book of Mormon
- Cabaret
- Cult of Love
- & Juliet
- Maybe Happy Ending
- Chicago
- Aladdin
- The Lion King
- Sunset Blvd.
- Hamilton
- Death Becomes Her
- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
(20 of 29 currently running productions)