I’m no Ghost-like psychic, nor do I-See-Dead-People . . . but every once in awhile I do get a feeling that something isn’t right.  And when I read the latest closing notice up on the ol’ Playbill.com, I thought . . . there seems to be more shows than usual walking-towards-the-light-Carol-Ann.

But spooky feelings aren’t enough for a blog, otherwise I’d have to write one every time I hear the word ‘Scientology.’

So, I went data diving to see if I could find some numbers to back up this uneasy feeling I’ve got inside.

I looked at the number of shows running at Tony time for the last thirty years.  Then I looked at the number of shows closing during the period from the Tony Awards through Labor Day.  Then I looked to see how this year compared to the past.

And, well, maybe I should open up a storefront and start charging people to talk to their long-lost-Grandpa-Joe, because I was unfortunately right.

• Over the past thirty years, there have been an average of 27.23 shows running at Tony Time.
• On average, 10.61 of them have closed before Labor Day.
• Weighting the averages appropriately gets us an average close rate of 38.96% of all the shows running.

This year?

• There were 34 shows running on the day they handed out the trophies.
• A whopping 17 are closing over the summer, for a close rate of 50%.
• That’s a rate that has happened only twice before, and not since 1996.

(Insert creeptastic music here.)

As I was looking over the numbers, I did notice a dramatic increase in the number of shows running in June that hasn’t happened since the late 90s.  Get this:

• Over the past fifteen years, there have been an average 32.27 shows running at Tony Time.
• For the fifteen years prior to that, there were only 22.5 shows running at Tony Time.
• Over the past fifteen years, an average of 12.73  closed over the summer.
• Over the prior fifteen years, an average of 8.625 shows closed over the summer.
• That’s a weighted average of 39.46% for the past fifteen years, and 38.33% for the prior fifteen.