The nice Broadway Crunch of Spring 2024, when 18 new productions opened between mid-March and late April – 19 for those who depend the business switch of Applicable – appears to be displaying early indicators of the inevitable shake-out, with one present (Lempicka) closing soon and some others already taking part in to homes with attendance at 80% of capability or much less.
For the week ending Could 5 – the primary full week after the April 30 Tony nominations announcement – whereas total field workplace was down about 7% for all exhibits and attendance off about 6% from the earlier week, a great variety of the newcomers have been filling greater than 90% of their seats. Some way more.
Promoting out have been An Enemy of the People, which grossed $1,048,286; Cabaret on the Equipment Kat Membership, grossing $1,920,289 and never far off from the August Wilson Theatre’s home document set by the current Humorous Lady ($2,137,057); and Hell’s Kitchen, $1,270,519.
A really slight tier beneath have been the newcomers who stuffed between 91% and 98% of seats: Illinoise, with three closely comped performances, at $684,393 (91% capability); Uncle Vanya, $998,040 (92%); The Wiz, $1,458,478 (95%); Mom Play, $551,925 (95%); Mary Jane, $467,047 (97%); Stereophonic, $591,519 (98%); and The Outsiders, $894,176 (98%).
A 3rd batch fell between 80% and 88% of capability: Applicable grossed $659,263 (at 88% of capability); The Nice Gatsby, $1,049,784 (84%); The Pocket book, $673,430 (83%); Water For Elephants, $1,010,054 (83%); Lempicka, $275,049 (84%); Suffs, $630,781 (81%).
And within the fourth tier, all beneath 80%, have been: The Who’s Tommy, $910,354 (78%); The Coronary heart of Rock and Roll, with some press nights reducing into field workplace, grossed $287,056 (71%); and Patriots, $416,373 (67%).
Whereas Tony nominations can solely depend for a lot, it ought to be famous that almost all, however not all, of the exhibits within the third and fourth batches didn’t obtain Finest Musical or Finest Play Tony nominations, together with The Nice Gatsby, The Pocket book, Lempicka, The Coronary heart of Rock and Roll and Patriots. Lempicka and The Coronary heart of Rock and Roll (the Huey Lewis jukebox musical) had common ticket costs of $39.33 and $47.49, disastrous for business musicals.
Additionally to notice: Whereas Applicable fell into the third batch, the much-nominated and audience-popular play has been operating on Broadway since December, and solely makes the spring record due to a commercial transfer in March. And whereas The Who’s Tommy scored a Finest Musical Revival nomination, that nod was its just one, a shock given its robust evaluations.
In its closing week of performances, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Avenue grossed $1,762,444, a giant bump of $242,705 over the earlier week. The musical revival, which most not too long ago starred Aaron Tveit, Sutton Foster and Joe Locke, who had taken over for originals Josh Groban, Annaleigh Ashford and Gaten Matarazzo, stuffed the entire seats on the Lunt-Fontanne in its closing week.
In complete, the 35 Broadway productions final week grossed $34,757,296, a drop of seven% from the earlier week (however nonetheless 15% over final season at the moment). Complete attendance was 289,947, a drop of 6% from the earlier week (and up 12% from final season).
Season up to now, Broadway has grossed $1,467,169,372, with complete attendance at 11,708,225.
All figures courtesy of The Broadway League. For full field workplace listings, go to the League’s website.
