Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 11/10/24

[Moderator]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 3:43pm

Click below to access all the Broadway grosses from all the shows for the week ending 11/10/2024 in BroadwayWorld's grosses section.

Also, you will find information on each show's historical grosses, cumulative grosses and other statistics on how each show stacked up this week and in the past.

Click Here to Visit the Broadway Grosses...
 

Up for the week by attendance (% of capacity) was: WATER FOR ELEPHANTS (16.8%), A WONDERFUL WORLD: THE Louis Armstrong MUSICAL (16.7%), THE NOTEBOOK (12.8%), SIX (12.5%), BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE MUSICAL (11.5%), LEFT ON TENTH (10.4%), THE GREAT GATSBY (9.1%), CHICAGO (8.8%), YELLOW FACE (8.8%), OUR TOWN (8.5%), THE BOOK OF MORMON (7.9%), HADESTOWN (7.6%), & JULIET (6.2%), MAYBE HAPPY ENDING (6%), THE ROOMMATE (5.7%), MOULIN ROUGE! THE MUSICAL (5.2%), ONCE UPON A MATTRESS (4.4%), SUFFS (4.2%), HELL'S KITCHEN (4%), HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD (3.8%), THE HILLS OF CALIFORNIA (3.8%), STEREOPHONIC (2.9%), CABARET AT THE KIT KAT CLUB (2.5%), SUNSET BLVD. (2%), ALADDIN (1.6%), THE OUTSIDERS (1%), SWEPT AWAY (0.8%), THE LION KING (0.4%), WICKED (0.2%),

Down for the week by attendance (% of capacity) was: TAMMY FAYE (-5.8%), HAMILTON (-2.9%), MJ THE MUSICAL (-2.1%),

Click Here to Visit the BroadwayWorld Grosses...

[ACL2006]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 3:49pm

Now it's working 

[Kad]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 3:49pm

There is really no way to spin how bad Tammy Faye is doing- and I'm surprised their capacity went down, considering they would have likely started papering houses as critics started to attend.

[pablitonizer]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 3:50pm

Terrible numbers for Tammy, MHY and Swept away. What a wonderful world had a better week but it won't last long either. Tammy had 58% of attendance last week, that's Bad Cinderella numbers. It'll be gone after Thanksgiving 

 

Does anyone know why Death becomes her only had 6 shows? 

Updated On: 11/12/24 at 03:50 PM

[CoffeeBreak]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 3:53pm

Tammy and Maybe Happy Ending won't last long even with good reviews.  They cost too much to keep open.

Wonderful World and Swept Away might limp into the new year.

What's next for the Palace, Belasco, Studio 54 and possibly Longacre? 

Updated On: 11/12/24 at 03:53 PM

[Ravanne_1]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 3:56pm

MYE got the reviews that they wanted (especially from the NYT) but you can't escape the fact that they just are not filling the theater. I get that this was press week and they were probably comping a lot of tickets (which would decrease the average ticket price), but you can't escape the fact that there are a lot of unsold seats every week. And when the show spends at around $700k just on operating costs each week, they're bleeding money. If the reviews don't turn things around rapidly, they're toast.

[IdinaBellFoster]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 3:58pm

How on earth is their weekly operating costs 700K? Is it all of the additional technical elements somehow?

[pablitonizer]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 4:01pm

IdinaBellFoster said: "How on earth is their weekly operating costs 700K? Is it all of the additionaltechnical elements somehow?"

Someone noted that 700-750k as the basic weekly cost is the new norm for most shows. 

[GottaGetAGimmick420]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 4:14pm

Supposedly Glengarry Glen Ross is taking the Belasco next... 

[CoffeeBreak]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 4:16pm

IdinaBellFoster said: "How on earth is their weekly operating costs 700K? Is it all of the additionaltechnical elements somehow?"

It's more than this.  The cost is not the cast.

[Sauja]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 4:30pm

Imagine how hard it would have been to get a ticket to McNeal if the reviews had been any good. Wild to me that it has the highest average ticket price this week!

[quizking101]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 4:34pm

TAMMY is toast. Honestly shocked but not surprised.

 

[EvanstonDad]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 4:36pm

It boggles the mind that someone paid $267 to see Chicago.

[OhHiii]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 4:43pm

I never really thought of Veterans' Day as a key holiday week, but several shows really did well. 

Sunset is really a runaway train at this point. I don't see the "controversy" having a material affect with grosses at that level. As others have already said, days are numbered for Tammy and MHE, unless the latter picks up steam after the raves it got. Wonderful World may be that show that opens in the fall that limps along to to the spring. Maybe not though. Either way, it's not long for this world either. If only Suffs could have pulled in sustained numbers like this, but alas. Everything else is pretty status quo. 

My question though is are there enough shows waiting in the wings to fill this many potentially empty theaters in the Spring? I know we will have a few out of nowhere shows announced, but as far as new musicals go I wonder. 

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 4:49pm

EvanstonDad said: "It boggles the mind that someone paid $267 to see Chicago."

The content I come here for

[CoffeeBreak]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 4:54pm

My question though is are there enough shows waiting in the wings to fill this many potentially empty theaters in the Spring? I know we will have a few out of nowhere shows announced, but as far as new musicals go I wonder."

Yes.  Like MHE and Tammy, there are other shows ready to go from previous regional, european or Korean runs. A few already booked into the theaters for the shows listed.

[BorisTomashevsky]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 5:16pm

IdinaBellFoster said: "How on earth is their weekly operating costs 700K? Is it all of the additionaltechnical elements somehow?"

Has some producer written in some extravagant office fees for themselves? That show should be 400-500k. 

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 5:27pm

GottaGetAGimmick420 said: "Supposedly Glengarry Glen Ross is taking the Belasco next..."

So one Jeffrey Richards show closes to make room for another?

Re: running cost comments, Maybe Happy costs $750,000 per week to run. When a Broadway show is selling that badly, royalty participants and service providers are asked to waive weekly fees (sometimes even actors) to get their salaries down to the weekly minimum. I don’t know how much money that could save them tho, because every show is different and some of those costs can’t budge…maybe they can reduce by $75K? $100K? Waivers also can’t go on indefinitely. 

[binau]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 5:37pm

Can anyone name a single show that has ever turned around these kinds of grosses without winning the Tony Award for Best Musical? I just can't recall it ever happening....not in the last 17 years at least....

I remember next to normal had a slow start but it didn't have these costs...

[Kad]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 5:43pm

It seems extremely doubtful to me that any production can pull itself out of this kind of hole short of selling out at full price starting immediately and continuing to do so for weeks or months.

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 5:43pm

Gentleman’s guide always gets tossed around as an example of show that turned things around, but I’ve never really taken a good look at the shows grosses to say if that’s accurate.

[binau]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 6:03pm

It is accurate but it took the tony award for best musical. Same with Fun Home. After the excitement of the reviews has died down a little I’m starting to wonder if it’s literally impossible to resolve this problem. If they don’t run out of money the theatre owners will almost certainly suggest kindly or not so kindly by the end of the year they need to leave soon to make way for another show in early spring because the opportunity cost would be too high. 

It would be amazing feat to suddenly see things turn around but the kind of volume of interest they’d need to translate into full price ticket sales immediately would far exceed the reach of theatre reviews I guess. It’s not even that the show is ambiguously plodding along and we’re wondering if it could go either way it’s actually haemorrhaging…..

 

[kdogg36]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 6:06pm

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "When a Broadway show is selling that badly, royalty participants and service providers are asked to waive weekly fees (sometimes even actors) to get their salaries down to the weekly minimum."

Does this mean that professional composers, lyricists, and bookwriters are asked for the unpaid use of the fruits of their hard work? I have trouble wrapping my mind around that. I can't imagine anyone who's not independently wealthy saying "yes" to that request.

ETA: I missed what you said about the "weekly minimum." What's the weekly minimum for the creators?

Updated On: 11/12/24 at 06:06 PM

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 6:07pm

binau said: "Can anyone name a single show that has ever turned around these kinds of grosses without winning the Tony Award for Best Musical? I just can't recall it ever happening....not in the last 17 years at least....

I remember next to normal had a slow start but it didn't have these costs..."

I posed the same Q a couple weeks ago and haven’t got a good answer. To my knowledge it is basically unheard of for a fall musical of comparable cost to start this low and last through June (never mind recouping). Even Gentleman’s Guide, which was labeled as “the little show that could” started stronger.

If this had opened on April 10th it would be a different story.

This will be a test of the power of the NYT.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 11/12/24 at 6:16pm

kdogg36 said: "ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "When a Broadway show is selling that badly, royalty participants and service providers are asked to waive weekly fees (sometimes even actors) to get their salaries down to the weekly minimum."

Does this mean that professional composers, lyricists, and bookwriters are asked for the unpaid use of the fruitsof their hard work? I have trouble wrapping my mind around that. I can't imagine anyone who's not independently wealthy saying "yes" to that request."

Yes. But it’s not intended to be a longterm thing. The rationale is “if we don’t reduce running costs, we close. If we can get the number closer to the break even, that leaves more money for advertising or reduces losses, allows it to run longer, and hopefully bounce back.” That doesn’t always happen.

Remember the weeklies aren’t the only way authors are paid. They get up front fees and option payments too.

A longer Broadway run can also help a show’s chances later on in licensing, touring, etc.

It’s also their choice. They could be asked to reduce and say no.