Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 9/5

[Rob]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 1:09pm

Click below to access all the grosses from all the shows for the week ending 9/5/2010 in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.

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.

https://www.broadwayworld.com/grosses.cfm

[ljay889]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 1:31pm

Omg, Night Music!!!!!

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 1:35pm

Good end to the summer with quite a few shows posting significant increases.

I don't get why ADDAMS FAMILY is doing so well. After the reviews came out I expected to see a nosedive. The book is not very good at all and the score is lackluster. The sets are great and the cast tries hard to make it work, but only the opening number really works. I think Andrew Lippa was the wrong composer for4 this piece. It needed someone like Marc Shaiman. Yet audiences are buying it, while other, superior shows are struggling.

Are modern audiences not as discerning?

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 1:39pm

Most wont read the reviews for a show like Addams as they are tourists, its also a name brand as is Lane.

I wish AI was in a smaller house, it does not need a venue that big

[Justaguy2]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 3:26pm

Yay CFA! Congrats on ending strong. $700k+ and over 70% average and a respectable average ticket price.

Agree that, like CFA, AI is in too big a house. Both rushed to Broadway too quickly because of the weak season if you ask me.

Overall a terrific end of the summer. Congrats to all!

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 3:26pm

So happy about ALNM. Good to know great reviews are still worth something and that legitimate Broadway stars can still sell seats.

[quizking101]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 3:33pm

ADDAMS FAMILY is going to nosedive once Lane & Neuwirth are gone. See the quick resurgence it made when Nathan came back from vacation?

I'm praying for AI to hold out 2 more weeks at least,just so i could see it. The venue is rather large, but where could one stick a show like AI?

[Phantom of London]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 4:05pm

I wonder now CFA is gone that Jersey Boys will do better, I know the percentage is good, but Jersey Boys have been on TKTS recently which is unheard of?

Also I wonder if ALNM extends until after Christmas now?

As with The Addams Family it is a strong brand and cast as SADM mentioned, but that has been on TKTS also.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 4:08pm

With Peters (and maybe also Stritch according to some reports) going into FOLLIES, its unlikely NIGHT MUSIC would be able to continue much past the holidays - I do think it may extend through Christmas though. Its probably too much to hope that we could possibly get yet another team of star replacements, but we can always dream :)
Updated On: 9/7/10 at 04:08 PM

[lull89]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 4:10pm

In the recent NY1 interview Bernadette said Follies rehearsals won't start until April, so there's plenty of time for her to extend. Also in the same interview, Stritch said a lot of that would depend on how she is feeling once she gets to the end of her current contract, so I wouldn't expect an announcement on her end for some time.

[wdwfreak]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 4:14pm

The show is selling tickets through January. The cast after November 7th is to be determined, but Stritch and Peters could extend.

[singtopher]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 4:20pm

It's funny to me how some of the more "tourist" shows were the ones who had drops in gross and attendance over the holiday weekend.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 4:22pm

I always enjoy reading the posts that bemoan the popularity of "inferior" shows.

They used to say "a hit helps everyone."

[ljay889]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 4:34pm

Will LA CAGE be able to survive the winter?

[TheatreFan4]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 4:37pm

Hodge & Grammar's contracts are through February so I think they'll shutter when they leave.

[nexttotheheights]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 4:53pm

Looks like NEXT TO NORMAL is scraping along and it is really funny how the tourist shows didn't do well during the holiday.

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 4:58pm

Thrilled for Night Music and what its success with Bernadette and Elaine, real Broadway stars, means for Broadway.
Updated On: 9/7/10 at 04:58 PM

[binau]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 6:01pm

Can't the producers of NIGHT MUSIC give 20,000 of these week's profits to PSClassics :P?

[Wayman_Wong]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 8:22pm

I was happy to catch Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch in 'A Little Night Music,' and I'm glad to see their grosses going up, but to put things in context, they're at the Walter Kerr, which is normally a smaller house that usually hosts plays. It's got only 931 seats; compare that to the theaters where 'Lion King' (Minskoff, 1,677 seats), 'Mary Poppins' (New Amsterdam, 1,797) or 'Wicked' (Gershwin, 1,809) are playing. And for the record, the original 'A Little Night Music' played the Shubert (1,470 seats) and then moved to the Majestic (1,615).

As for the idea that 'Come Fly Away' and 'American Idiot' were 'both rushed to Broadway too quickly because of the weak season,' I highly doubt it. Charles Isherwood of the Times gave very good out-of-town reviews to 'Come Fly Away' in Atlanta in Sept. 2009 and to 'American Idiot' in Berkeley in Oct. 2009. His stamp of approval is what brought those shows to NYC in the first place. I can't imagine that the producers of those shows DIDN'T think of bringing them to Broadway before Isherwood saw them; I'd even speculate that they timed their shows, so that if they got great reviews out of town in the fall, they would come to Broadway in the spring, just in time for the Tonys.

[Justaguy2]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 9:39pm

Wayman_Wong you are making the same point as I am from a different angle. My point was that because of the strong reviews I suspect the producers of the two shows felt that it was worth rushing them to Broadway because in a weak season they would likely fair well both at the box office and at The Tonys. There was not going to be any Spiderman or Love Never Dies to take all the awards and the buzz was minimal on anything else (with all due respect). My argument is that the producers moved so quickly that neither show got to have a subsequent production or likely even a workshop to tweak things from Atlanta/Berkley. I've heard that CFA's next step was a tour in Oct 2011 to further refine the show and Atlanta was being seen as a "workshop production" and not an out of town. Added to this, the fact that the theatres that were available to them were too large for either show, in my opinion. That leads me to my point that the shows were rushed to Broadway. Both shows would have been better in a 1000-1200 seat theatre and rather than waiting until 2011 when one might have been available, they put them into the Marquis and the St. James respectively and now CFA is closed and A.I. is facing some challenges. If, instead both shows got to have workshops and/or subsequent productions (like Scottsboro Boys is doing at the Guthrie) and then CFA was opening October 2011 at the Nederlander or Rogers and A.I. was opening at the O'Neill or the Hershfeld then I think you would have a very different product and a very different result.

That's all I'm sayin'. I don't think either show was really going to be the next Wicked or Lion King so what is with the 1600+ seat theatres?

[ACL2006]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 10:51pm

I'm still suprised that La Cage isn't doing better.

[adamgreer]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 11:06pm

When was the last time the Tony winner for Best Musical didn't sell out during the summer it won the Tony?

[musicalman2]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 11:08pm

Justaguy, I understand what you are saying about AI, but it does not really make sense. AI decided to come to Bway because it had done an out of town tryout, got great rerviews from papers that mattered, and sold out its run basically. So even if it had come at a different time, it could just as well have chosen the St. James. There were other musical theater houses available as I recall. The producers must have wanted the St. James, and not taken it as a default.

[ljay889]

Posted: 9/7/10 at 11:09pm

I'm still suprised that La Cage isn't doing better.

Why? We just had a revival of the musical. Grammer can only sell SO many tickets. Tourists aren't buying tickets to see Douglas Hodge. I don't find it too surprising.

[Wayman_Wong]

Posted: 9/8/10 at 12:37am

Justaguy2, if 'Come Fly Away' and 'American Idiot' weren't going to come in this past season, when would they have come in? Do you really think that the respective casts of those shows were willing to put their lives on hold, so their show could come in the following season (which now proves to be even more crowded)? Let's face it: They both got wonderful reviews from the Times out-of-town by Charles Isherwood; why would they want to workshop it anymore, since Isherwood already enjoyed their show and would re-review it on Broadway? Why tinker with success? The Times basically was giving them the green light to come to New York. I have no doubt that the producers thought they had it made: All they had to do was open on Broadway, get another rave from Isherwood, and they'd have it made. Isherwood certainly held up his end of the bargain; he gave them both even better reviews in N.Y.; have you seen a more thru-the-roof Broadway rave than what Isherwood wrote for 'American Idiot'?

Not only that, Isherwood, who had quibbled about the book of 'AI' in his out-of-town review, now dismissed any possible criticisms of the book in his Broadway review (rationalizing them away, and comparing its libretto to Italian opera!).

I'm with Musicalman2; there were other theaters available. But I'm told that the producers of 'AI' really wanted the St. James because they believed they were gonna be a big fat hit. They expected to clean up at the Tonys. And the momentum was in their favor; the Times was in their favor; it was put together by a number of Tony-winning alumni of 'Spring Awakening.' As someone on BWW put it, the Tony was theirs to lose.

(As for my mention of 1,600-seat theaters, that was a comparison to the current 'Night Music,' which plays to 931 seats at the Walter Kerr. It has nothing to do with 'AI.')