Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 7/29/18

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.

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Up for the week by attendance was: WAITRESS (10.0%), BEAUTIFUL (8.4%), HEAD OVER HEELS (7.8%), THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG (5.1%), SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS (4.9%), A BRONX TALE THE MUSICAL (3.9%), SUMMER (2.8%), KINKY BOOTS (2.6%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (2.3%), CHICAGO (1.6%), ALADDIN (1.6%), SCHOOL OF ROCK (1.1%), ANASTASIA (1.0%), HELLO, DOLLY! (0.5%), THE BOOK OF MORMON (0.4%), THE LION KING (0.4%), FROZEN (0.2%), SPRINGSTEEN ON BROADWAY (0.1%), THE BOYS IN THE BAND (0.1%),

Down for the week by attendance was: CAROUSEL (-4.2%), ONCE ON THIS ISLAND (-3.3%), PRETTY WOMAN: THE MUSICAL (-2.1%), MY FAIR LADY (-1.4%), STRAIGHT WHITE MEN (-0.9%), WICKED (-0.4%), DEAR EVAN HANSEN (-0.1%),

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75% plus gross potential is pretty good for "Chicago."

I'm surprised by Pretty Woman's numbers. Did they change a lot of things from the Chicago production? Because what I saw left me underwhelmed.

Question:

I'm not much of an economist so someone who's good at analyzing profit, please answer this. Is it a bit of a problem that 19 of the 32 shows currently on Broadway are grossing over $1,000,000? In fact, really only 6 or 7 shows are in what you might describe as a "negative financial situation". How is this not a problem? We've already seen how the average theatregoer is more willing to spend money on a commercialized product like Mean Girls instead of something original. With that in mind, and also considering how Broadway continues to net more profit year after year, what needs to change? At this rate, no wonder we're going to have barely any new shows next season. If I'm the owner of a theatre, why would I take a chance by evicting my well-established, money-making show in favor of something that may or may not succeed?

What needs to change to make original shows more commercially viable to producers and theatre owners? Are the facts I listed above non-issues?

Updated On: 7/30/18 at 03:25 PM

I understand the argument that Pretty Woman might be critic proof and therefore this season's Mean Girls, but while MG is flawed, Pretty Woman makes it look like high art. We're off to a ROUGH start with musical this season when I can say Head Over Heels is my favorite so far, and my review of that is, "Meh."

Carousel, Kinky Boots, and Summer are all pulling in less (in terms of percentage of gross and in some cases less actual gross) than shows that already announced closing like SpongeBob, Bronx Tale, and School of Rock. All three seem in danger, if not as much as Head Over Heels or Gettin the Band Back Together. I'm curious to see how this Spring shapes up because a month or two back, I didn't think there would be many available theaters, and now...I suspect I might have been wrong.

Interesting to see declines in both attendance and gross for that appalling, inept Straight White Men, despite the critics' wholly-predictable plaudits for its "subversion."

I feel very sorry for the poor audiences who have to suffer through the thing. I just hope they arrive late enough to avoid the affliction of the pre-show "music."

dramamama611 said:


Theaters have contracts with shows, so why would they even consider kicking them out? It would be foolish of them to do so. (And illegal, which is why you sometimes hear about a buy-out.)

Mama... typically contracts between theatre owners and productions include something known in the biz as a "stop clause" which stipulates that if a show isn't making enough money for X amount of time, the theatre can nullify the deal. This has happened and is typical in a situation where a theatre owner can book a new (presumably more successful show) if they kick the current tenant to the curb.

ACL2006 said: "RE: KINKY BOOTS, even if a big name is coming in for the Fall, they would still need a name for the winter. They could bring this name in and still close in mid-January. I still hope that when it is about to close, that Porter and Sands return for the final weeks."

*If* MOULIN is indeed going to the Hirschfeld in the 2019-2020 season, I wonder if the Roth family will choose to bleed a little money to keep KINKY going through it's 6th anniversary in April? (Though if they did that, then they might as well keep it going through the summer –– and if it runs through the end of next summer, it would outrun Hairspray)

If KINKY closes this January, that could be a year without a tenant in the theatre, unless there's a play or limited engagement that could go to the Hirschfeld. (This is all based on the un-confirmed Moulin rumor)

RaisedOnMusicals said: "willrolandsframes said: "Question:

I'm not much of an economist so someone who's good at analyzing profit, please answer this. Is it a bit of a problem that 19 of the 32 shows currently on Broadway are grossing over $1,000,000? In fact, really only 6 or 7 shows are in what you might describe as a "negative financial situation". How is this not a problem?

How does the number of shows that are grossing over $1 million relate to your question, or why is the number of shows that are grossing million or more a problem? As I’ve said here countless times, grosses tell you very little about how a show is doing. I'm not being snarky, I want to get a better understanding of what you want to know

"

Literally just two to three years ago, only about 10 shows were hitting the million mark. Thus, this caused a higher turnover in shows, allowing theatregoers more opportunities to see new productions. However, if all of these open-ended shows are continuing to succeed financially, then how are we going to get a wider variety of new shows? It feels like normally by this time of year, we tend to at least have a grasp of what our spring season might look like. But right now, all of these questionable transfer shows (Moulin Rouge, Hadestown, Beetlejuice, etc.) can't come if they don't have a theatre. And right now, none of the 19 shows that are open-ended are anywhere near closing, and really only 3-5 of the open-ended shows that are under the million mark have any remote chance of closing by the end of the year.

My point is that I'm concerned about the lack of new productions coming to Broadway, and I feel like the only way to increase this number is to increase the turnover among current shows, which cannot really happen if 19 of 32 shows are grossing 7 figures.

But, again, perhaps this is a non-issue. I'm just a fan of seeing more fresh and new content on the Great White Way, and I don't know when we're really going to see a year filled with that again.

willrolandsframes said: "Literally just two to three years ago, only about 10 shows were hitting the million mark. Thus, this caused a higher turnover in shows, allowing theatregoers more opportunities to see new productions. "

I don't think more shows are selling more tickets, they are just shifting money from the secondary market onto the primary market through premium tickets and such.

There still seems to be a pretty healthy turnover, either way. The hits just make a lot more, and the flops die even faster.