Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 4/6/25- Page 2

[Auggie27]

Posted: 4/9/25 at 8:51am

Was having a conversation about how this season is slightly overstuffed with a certain sub-genre: the lighter high concept true musical comedy, i.e. Death Becomes Her, Smash, and Boop all have approximately the same audience, though said audience doesn't necessarily have the cash/impetus to see all three or even two of the three. Yes, I know they're different pieces, but from a marketing standpoint, they are a blurring mix of similar elements, and none has over-the-title stars that pull bigger bucks. It will be interesting to see how they do in awards season and over the summer. I've always thought Boop a hard sell, and Death a show that could fall prey to the Tootsie-Mrs. Doubtfire-Groundhog Day syndrome (the very qualities that earn a show a brand name also remind audiences that you can watch the source at home.)

[SteveSanders]

Posted: 4/9/25 at 10:09am

Call_me_jorge said: "SteveSanders said: "I don't recall previous Roses having an alternate one night a week."

Just because they didn’t have one doesn’t mean shouldn’t have had one."

It would be interesting to hear what Patti, Bernadette, and Audra think on the subject.

Updated On: 4/9/25 at 10:09 AM

[MemorableUserName]

Posted: 4/9/25 at 10:42am

Auggie27 said: "Was having a conversation about how thisseason is slightly overstuffed with a certain sub-genre: the lighter high concept true musical comedy, i.e. Death Becomes Her, Smash, and Boop all have approximately the same audience, though said audience doesn't necessarily have the cash/impetus to see all three or even two of the three. Yes, I know they're different pieces, but from a marketing standpoint, they are ablurring mix of similar elements, and none hasover-the-title stars that pull bigger bucks. It will be interesting to see how they do in awards season and over the summer. I've always thought Boop a hard sell, and Death a show that could fall prey to the Tootsie-Mrs. Doubtfire-Groundhog Daysyndrome (the very qualities that earn a show a brand name also remind audiences that you can watch the source at home.)"

Death Becomes Her is already doing better than any of those shows so is in a much stronger position. Other than two early weeks when it had fewer than 7 performances, it's never dropped below 90% capacity or a million dollars for a week. Tootsie started off well enough in its first few weeks but immediately dropped off; Doubtfire and Groundhog Day started off weak and that never changed. Plus DBH has a core fanbase whose demographic is much more likely to buy tickets to a musical (girls and gays) than Tootsie (whose target audience I never understood), Doubtfire (families?), and Groundhog Day (people who loved the movie but wished it had more songs and less Bill Murray?). The advance doesn't look great, but it seems to have no trouble selling those seats by showtime (rush, TKTS, etc.) 

[dan94]

Posted: 4/9/25 at 11:01am

People are only looking at capacity and drawing the wrong conclusions. Gypsy made money this week. In a bad week when everyone saw a downturn, it still made money. Audra also missed a performance. Had she not missed, it would likely be sitting at 1.2M. 

What we are seeing with Gypsy is a show that does not have a large widespread appeal, but a performer who has appeal to high end ticket buyers. If you look at advance sales, Audra is moving premium tickets.

Yes, it will have to win at the Tonys to extend past August. There aren't signs that it will close ahead of that time. It had the highest ATP of all new musical productions aside from Just In Time this week. Outside of freak occurrences (cancelled performances, funerals that had to be attended), it's made money every single week of it's run. I don't see how that translates to doomsday predictions.