Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 10/4/26

Numbers are up this week pretty much because of OTHER DESERT CITIES alone.

Happy trails to Michael Ivan Carrier, original Broadway cast member of & JULIET who left the show over the weekend.

I didn’t necessarily think so at first, but OTHER DESERT CITIES is looking like the bank heist of the season. Glad I got my tickets early.

That STRANGER THINGS number is an embarrassment, especially now that we’re in spooky season.

OH, MARY also held up well even with Bowen’s preplanned 4 show absence. I think it’s clear at this point that the show is pretty much impervious to pretty much any obstacle. The only time they ever show anything remotely close to weakness for them (which even then would be a gross of about 1.5-2x their regular running cost) is if they have a Mary who is in the role for too long and/or more of a cult favorite. But all the $$$ they get when big stars are on board subsidizes those “lesser” weeks when they can experiment with casting more.

I have begun to think that Chicago may outlast Phantom, something I never thought was conceivable. If it can continue to have the success it has recently had with stunt casting of people I have never even heard of, thanks to Reality TV, who knows how long it can last. The fact that it made more than this year's Tony winner for Best Musical, which has not even been open for six months, and only made $50K less than The Lost Boys, which has also not yet run for 6 months, is staggering. I may be wrong, but I am thinking that it may just have its highest grossing year ever in 2026.

We may also be in territory that we have not been in for decades with non-musicals, thanks to Harry Potter and Oh, Mary. However they count their performances (given several years of two performances being required to see one play)...BW says they have completed their 1,996th performance post opening; but given their opening date -- and taking 18 months of Covid out of the equation -- at 8 performances a week, they have probably 'gone on' for close to 3,000 times since opening. You have to go back to the 1930s to have a non-musical have that many performances. Re Oh! Mary, BW says that it has already run 931 performances since opening, and it shows no signs of slowing down. Given its success with stunt casting, and what I assume is a low weekly breakeven with lesser names in the title role, I can also see this running for years into the future. wen is the last time a comedy ran for a thousand performances, let alone a couple of thousand, which I believe is likely to happen, at the very least.

On other fronts, I am really surprised that Billy Crystal did not sell out, particularly when ODC sold out with an average ticket price of $275 (vs. Crystal's $159).

I find it very interesting that MJ grossed considerably more last week (hundreds of thousands of dollars more) than comparable weeks the past two years, and very close to the same week 3 years ago. I am thinking for the first time that this one is going to be around 5 years from now, which would represent over 4,000 performances.

Yet, despite this being a good week, it sure seems that an awful lot of musicals that have not announced closing dates -- BVSC, Gatsby (Vanity producer), Outsiders, MHE, Rocky Horror and maybe BOM -- are losing money every week. I wonder if the theatre owners have given them deals rather than have a bunch of empty theatres.

Jarethan said: "On other fronts, I am really surprised that Billy Crystal did not sell out, particularly when ODC sold out with an average ticket price of $275 (vs. Crystal's $159).

Yet, despite this being a good week, it sure seems that an awful lot of musicals that have not announced closing dates -- BVSC, Gatsby (Vanity producer), Outsiders, MHE, Rocky Horror and maybe BOM -- are losing money every week. I wonder if the theatre owners have given them deals rather than have a bunch of empty theatres."

Re: Billy Crystal - You have two entirely different animals to compare. One is a beloved veteran of stage and screen doing a one man show in one of the largest of the Broadway theatres and commanding high prices out of the gate. The other is a prestige revival of a play with a blockbuster cast featuring a major debut and an Oscar winner. Both are doing well considering how they exist in the Broadway ecosystem.

Re: Closings - I think as a general concept, we should maybe put a hiatus on speculating when shows might close. Citing the current ecosystem, shows seem to be running much longer than we think, in part due to a very empty pipeline. BOM and Outsiders has already made their money back and so they are free to do as they please. BVSC and Rocky Horror are likely about halfway to recoupment. The rest - who knows? Maybe it’s possible we might finally see the rent bubble on Broadway burst if a slate of closings result in longstanding empty theatres.

What’s going on with outsiders

A part of me would love to see David Diggs return to Hamilton - just to see him again.

Another part of me just wants to see how much money he would command upon returning!