The big Broadway crunch of spring 2024, when 18 new productions opened between mid-March and the end of April – 19 if you count the commercial transmission of Suitable – seems to be showing the first signs of the inevitable market shakeout with a show (Lempicka) is closing soon and several others are already playing to houses with attendance at 80% or less.
In the week ending May 5 – the first full week after the Tony nominations were announced on April 30 – overall box office for all shows was down about 7% and attendance was down about 6% compared to the previous week, but one good number of newcomers filled more than 90% of their seats. Some even more.
Were sold out An enemy of the people, which was gross $1,048,286; Cabaret at the Kit Kat Clubgross $1,920,289 and not far from the August Wilson Theater’s recently set house record Funny girl ($2,137,057); And Hell’s Kitchen, $1,270,519.
The newcomers, who occupied between 91% and 98% of the seats, were slightly lower: Illinoiswith three strongly composed performances $684,393 (91% capacity); Uncle Vanya, $998,040 (92%); The Wizard, $1,458,478 (95%); Mother game$551,925 (95%); Mary Jane$467,047 (97%); Stereophonic$591,519 (98%); And The outsider$894,176 (98%).
A third batch fell between 80% and 88% of capacity: Suitable extrapolated $659,263 (at 88% of capacity); The Great Gatsby$1,049,784 (84%); The notebook$673,430 (83%); Water for elephants$1,010,054 (83%); Lempicka$275,049 (84%); Enough$630,781 (81%).
And in the fourth stage, all below 80%, were: The Who’s Tommy$910,354 (78%); The heart of rock and roll, with a few press nights that limited the box office $287,056 (71%); And Patriots$416,373 (67%).
While Tony nominations are of limited significance, it should be noted that most, but not all, of the shows in the third and fourth series did not receive Tony nominations for Best Musical or Best Play The Great Gatsby, The Notebook, Lempicka, The Heart of Rock and Roll And Patriots. Lempicka And The heart of rock and roll (the Huey Lewis jukebox musical) had average ticket prices of $39.33 and $47.49, disastrous for commercial musicals.
Also to note: During Suitable fell into its third season, the much-nominated and audience-favorite play has been running on Broadway since December and only made it onto the spring list due to a commercial broadcast in March. And during The Who’s Tommy received a nomination for best musical revival, but that award was its only one, a surprise given the strong reviews.
In its final week of performances Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber from Fleet Street extrapolated $1,762,444, a big increase of $242,705 from the previous week. The musical revival, which most recently starred Aaron Tveit, Sutton Foster and Joe Locke, who replaced original cast members Josh Groban, Annaleigh Ashford and Gaten Matarazzo, filled all the seats at the Lunt-Fontanne last week.
Overall, the 35 Broadway productions achieved box office results last week $34,757,296, a 7% decrease from the previous week (but still 15% from last season at this point). The total number of participants was 289,947a 6% decrease from the previous week (and a 12% increase from last season).
So far, Broadway has generated revenue $1,467,169,372with total number of visitors 11,708,225.
All figures courtesy of the Broadway League. Complete box office lists can be found on the league’s website.