The holiday spirit – at least the kind measured at the box office – seemed to arrive on Broadway last week, for some shows anyway. Obvious case in point: A Christmas Carol, starring Jefferson Mays in his tour de force as every last ghost, miser and Cratchit in the story, was up a bountiful 34% in receipts, taking in $742,010 and filling 83% of seats at the Nederlander.
In total, the 35 Broadway shows grossed $37,217,001 for the week ending Dec. 11, a 10% bump over the previous week. Attendance of 283,548 showed a 7% increase. Average ticket price for the week was $131.25.
Some Like It Hot opened to excellent reviews, jumping by nearly $125,000 over the previous week for a total take of $747,142. Expect a similar trajectory in the coming weeks.
Other strong performers in this countdown to Christmas include & Juliet at the Sondheim, grossing $1,152,409 with 95% of the house filled.
A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical seems to have settled into a healthy run at the Broadhurst, grossing $1,447,503 with 95% of seats filled. That dollar figure represents the highest grossing musical in the history of the venue – the overall box office record is held by the special event production of Hugh Jackman Back On Broadway from 2011, which grossed $1.5M.
Funny Girl had its usual big take ($1,892,378), as did The Music Man ($3,389,857), Leopoldstadt ($1,078,215), The Piano Lesson ($938,103), The Phantom of the Opera ($2,020,245) and stalwarts from The Lion King to Hadestown. Kimberly Akimbo, filling 86% of seats at the Booth at $108 a pop took in $570,155.
Struggling to find ticket-buyers was Ain’t No Mo’, Jordan E. Cooper’s terrific Broadway debut, grossing just $164,592, with the Belasco only half-filled; Ohio State Murders ($300,180, 64% capacity at the James Earl Jones); and Topdog/Underdog ($264,965, 52% at the Golden). All three shows deserve bigger audiences.
In its final week, KPOP grossed $281,757, filling all seats at the Circle in the Square (producers offered 200 complimentary tickets to the AAPI community for the final performance on Dec. 11).
Two shows are in previews and will be the final pair of productions to open before the new year: Between Riverside and Crazy at the Hayes (opening Dec. 19) and The Collaboration at the Friedman (opening Dec. 20).
Season to date, Broadway has grossed $841,596,045, with total attendance of 6,616,571 at about 87% of capacity.
The 35 productions reporting figures on Broadway last week were & Juliet, 1776, A Christmas Carol, Ain’t No Mo’, Aladdin, Almost Famous, A Beautiful Noise, Beetlejuice, Between Riverside and Crazy, The Book of Mormon, Chicago, The Collaboration, Death of a Salesman, Funny Girl, Hadestown, Hamilton, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Into the Woods, Kimberly Akimbo, KPOP, Leopoldstadt, The Lion King, Mike Birbiglia: The Old Man & the Pool, The Music Man, MJ, Moulin Rouge!, Ohio State Murders, The Phantom of the Opera, The Piano Lesson, Six, A Strange Loop, Some Like It Hot, Take Me Out, Topdog/Underdog and Wicked.
All figures courtesy of The Broadway League. For the complete box office listings, visit the League’s website.