Jarethan said: "The only thing that genuinely surprises me on the report is Chess. I will admit that the current production od Chess is probably my favorite production running. Asmuch as I loved Hamilton or Wicked or Chicago in their heyday, I was never as thrilled watching them as I was duringChess. Also, it was about as electric performances as I ever attended, although I will admit to seeing it in previews, so the audience was probably filled with Chess junkies.
I was genuinely surprised and disappointed that it did only 95% of capacity and had a lower average ticket price than BOM or Hadestown, to cite two long running shows that have not been doing great business for a long time. Hell, it only grossed $50K more than Gatsby, which has been on some level of life support for quite a while. Re Aaron Tveit missing a performance, it is my understanding that he called in very late, so I doubt that that had any impact on the box office. I can't help wonder whether we are starting to see what happened to SB last season (SB also underwhelmed a littleduring Xmas week, as I recall).
As silly as it sounds, I was also surprised that The Lion King did not sell out.
A few other throughts:
- Is this a temporary uptick for Stranger Things or will Season 5 actually result in its finally taking off on Broadway, if not at capacity, then at least performing noticeably better that much of its run to date (or will it be gone in 6 weeks?
- Is itpossible that Chicago's bad weeks are largely offset by a few spectacular weeks (at Christmas and Easter? I can't remember the last time that stunt casting helped a lot...seems like it was in 2024, not 2025. (Are the producers getting the horrible Ambassador Theatre for even less than we probably assume?).
- Why aren't the producers of Mamma Miamaking it an open-ended run. I am sure they can convince the Shuberts to move Salesman to another theatre. God knows they will never fill that theatre unless they charge 1990s prices, since neither Metcalf nor Lane in a drama (and without Matther Broaderick at his side) are box office attractions.
- Will Two Strangers be gone in six weeks or is it just not benefitting from Christmas week because tourists are unfamiliar with it?
- I wonder how much the Beetlejuice investors have cumulatively lost as a result of this ill-conceived revisit?
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Something else is going into the Winter Garden and Mamma Mia! is scheduled to go back out on tour so they can't extend. I don't get why people don't understand that just because a show is doing well, that doesn't mean they'll just keep extending.
