Broadway Grosses w/e 1/21/2018: I’ve got good news. And bad news.
The bad news. Sales fell off a cliff last week, dropping 16% from the week before.
The good news? Last week was one of the worst of the year. And it’s over. There is an end to the winter in sight (although beware of Super Bowl Sunday).
The tip to learn from this week’s numbers is this: if you’re producing a show written by a super successful pop singer, get her to come back to the lead role during the worst weeks of the year . . . so you can gross more than Wicked.
That was the strategy at Waitress, as Sara Bareilles rejoined the company, and it paid off to the tune of $1.6mm. (Having Jason Mraz as her love interest didn’t hurt, either.)
Other shows that jumped out at me were John Leguizamo’s solo show grossing $525k and John Lithgow’s grabbing $381k and Steve Martin’s Meteor Shower with its $911k final week.
And if the worst we’re going to see this year is a week that was 28% up from where we were a year ago, then things ain’t so bad on Broadway.
Here is a list of all the shows’ grosses:
| Show Name | GrossGross | TotalAttn | %Capacity | AvgPdAdm |
| A BRONX TALE THE MUSICAL | $726,004.16 | 7,520 | 90.04% | $96.54 |
| ALADDIN | $1,289,666.50 | 13,456 | 97.39% | $95.84 |
| ANASTASIA | $902,693.50 | 9,041 | 98.87% | $99.84 |
| BEAUTIFUL | $744,588.00 | 6,982 | 85.06% | $106.64 |
| CHICAGO | $592,355.90 | 7,355 | 85.13% | $80.54 |
| COME FROM AWAY | $1,201,167.80 | 8,423 | 100.66% | $142.61 |
| DEAR EVAN HANSEN | $1,707,785.02 | 7,985 | 101.44% | $213.87 |
| FARINELLI AND THE KING | $866,337.30 | 8,235 | 97.94% | $105.20 |
| HAMILTON | $3,096,068.00 | 10,753 | 101.75% | $287.93 |
| HELLO, DOLLY! | $372,200.44 | 2,897 | 100.17% | $128.48 |
| JOHN LITHGOW: STORIES BY HEART | $381,991.60 | 5,359 | 90.52% | $71.28 |
| KINKY BOOTS | $746,654.50 | 8,555 | 75.10% | $87.28 |
| LATIN HISTORY FOR MORONS | $525,197.70 | 5,942 | 84.55% | $88.39 |
| METEOR SHOWER | $911,462.46 | 6,246 | 100.87% | $145.93 |
| ONCE ON THIS ISLAND | $588,350.50 | 5,542 | 99.53% | $106.16 |
| SCHOOL OF ROCK | $670,746.00 | 7,993 | 65.60% | $83.92 |
| SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS | $764,450.50 | 10,023 | 77.82% | $76.27 |
| SPRINGSTEEN ON BROADWAY | $2,407,327.50 | 4,740 | 100.00% | $507.88 |
| THE BAND’S VISIT | $993,214.50 | 7,942 | 95.55% | $125.06 |
| THE BOOK OF MORMON | $1,200,930.50 | 8,590 | 100.73% | $139.81 |
| THE CHILDREN | $276,407.00 | 4,295 | 82.60% | $64.36 |
| THE LION KING | $1,852,483.00 | 13,539 | 99.79% | $136.83 |
| THE PARISIAN WOMAN | $471,454.00 | 6,230 | 79.71% | $75.67 |
| THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA | $864,767.51 | 10,491 | 81.71% | $82.43 |
| THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG | $338,040.75 | 5,122 | 74.97% | $66.00 |
| WAITRESS | $1,608,291.60 | 8,632 | 103.25% | $186.32 |
| WICKED | $1,583,593.00 | 15,116 | 98.10% | $104.76 |
| TOTALS | $27,684,229.24 | 217,004 | 91.44% | $129.85 |
| +/- THIS WEEK LAST SEASON | +$5,997,617.20 | |||
| PERCENTAGE +/-THIS WEEK LAST SEASON | +27.65% |
*Broadway Grosses courtesy of The Broadway League.
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