Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 7/8/18

A bad week all around, but the CAROUSEL dip isn't a great sign.

Call_me_jorge said: "Even with that tony win Once on this island can’t keep those grosses up."

Even though I wasn’t the biggest fan, I think it’s biggest problems are it is not a revival of a well-known show and somewhat relatedly it doesn’t immediaitely attract Broadway’s key demographics: tourists (especially females, families and/or millenials and gay men who like Broadway shows when on vacation but gravitate toward the shows that are more well-known or more stereotypically Broadway) FYI: I’m a gay man who ventures beyond those descriptors.

Thinking back to successful revivals that won that coveted Tony for revival:

Chicago - ticks almost all the necessary boxes (except it’s not a “family” show)

Pippin - I know it didn’t run as long as many of us would have liked, I remember walking up to Kinky Boots’ box office and getting SRO tickets with no line. Meanwhile, the rush/lottery line for Pippin was loooong. I’d say it ticked almost every, if not every, box. Of course, it had hype (well-earned in my estimation) before the Tony Awards.

Hello, Dolly! - ticks every box.

In reality, on paper OOTI should appeal to almost all these demographics with the exception of being a revival of a well-known (to middle America) musical.

From what I’ve garnered on here, historically the best revival Tony really doesn’t assist the winning show that much.

In other news, I know many shows played less performances due to 7/4, but those numbers are not good for Carousel, Kinky Boots, and Summer. I wonder if any of them make it past January 2019. And ooof...Head Over Heals...I wonder if it makes it further than 30 days after opening.

Updated On: 7/9/18 at 03:35 PM

TNick926 said: "Wow! Bette is coming back to Dolly just in time....."

Do you think the constantly hyped triumphant return of the Tony winning star for a final incredible 6 weeks might have caused people who otherwise would have been perfectly happy to see it with Bernadette last week or this to instead hold off for a week or two to see it with Bette instead?

So realistically, how long do I have to see Carousel? I'm still focused on Carmen Jones right now.

Putting aside how much they're paying for the tickets, it seems like people are just not that interested in seeing Summer. But is it cheap enough to run to hang on as long as say... On Your Feet?

I think it's a problem of perception. As you said, you can make the argument that it should appeal to a lot of those key demographics. It's basically a fairytale and has some soap opera-ish elements which usually appeal to women. It's a combination of woke and problematic and the stars are in the right age range for millennials. The gender-bent casting and playing with camp elements could appeal to gay men. And even if it's not the most family friendly, it is a fairytale and does deal with themes of family and community. I think part of the problem is that diverse casts still don't have the easiest time (depending on the show) and for whatever reason those demographics believe it isn't the right show for them. I could pick things out but you could make arguments about why hit shows like Phantom, Chicago, Book of Mormon, and to a lesser extent Lion King and Wicked might alienate potential audience members. But they have the benefit of name recognition that OOTI does not.

Glad to see that word of mouth is catching up to Carousel.

"Yikes for Summer, Carousel, and Dolly"

There is no imminent yikes for any of these; they are all sustainable. We know Dolly's exit path; I suspect Carousel will close in due course because there is no reason to run it, and I think Summer's future depends on fresh marketing because the same audience represented in the advance remains largely untapped.

The news of the moment is that Head over Heels is getting a solid headstart in the competition for most clueless producing of the new season, and OOTI is basically in the same rut it was in before the Tonys, just on a slightly different plane: it is a chronic under-performer for its position.

I haven't seen much in the way of Head Over Heels on TV. They haven't done the morning talk show circuit, etc. There are posters all over town, but they're busy, and there's a lot of wording.

I think OOTI needs to focus its marketing on how UNIQUE this production is. I had a friend in town and she asked me what to see, and I said OOTI because you won't see that anywhere else. In the round. So close to the action. There's environmental staging, etc. It's VERY Broadway in the sense that you won't see anything else like it.

UncleCharlie said: "Do you think the constantly hypedtriumphant return of the Tony winning star for a final incredible6 weeks might have caused people who otherwise would have been perfectly happy to see it with Bernadette last week or this to instead hold off for a week or two tosee it with Bette instead?"


Yes. I think Rudin & co. were kind of stuck, but they still could have waited til a month and a half or 2 months out to announce Bette's return, instead of 3 months.


It was a horrible week because New Yorkers were out of town or BBQing instead of going to the theatre, and New York City is not a July 4 travel destination. These numbers don't mean much, but they reinforce which shows need a miracle.

If some of these stragglers try to hold on til the end of the year, this might be one of the bigger post-Christmas "closing days" in recent years. LCT should be praying that Carousel packs up its clambake in December (or sooner).

HogansHero said: "
The news of the moment is that Head over Heels is getting a solid headstart in the competition for most clueless producing of the new season, and OOTI is basically in the same rut it was in before the Tonys, just ona slightly different plane: it is a chronic under-performer for its position."

Don’t worry, GETTIN’ THE BAND BACK TOGETHER is opening soon...