Broadway League To Resume Releasing Weekly Grosses — Page 3

SouthernCakes said: "I’d be curious to compare Hamilton in Chicago’s theater size to that of the winter garden. Those road houses tend to be far bigger!"

The CIBC Theatre (where Hamilton played in Chicago) has 1800 seats, and the Winter Garden can seat 1600.

When we all went back circa last 9/14, those numbers were unimaginable. It’s still early but surely this is hopeful news of the best sort.

Some scattered thoughts:

-Company is doing very well overall, though I wonder how high their operating cost is with so many principle contracts. Looks like grosses took a major dive when Patti was out, which is partly surprising, and partly not. She’s obvious a big star, but I don’t recall her having that much box office power in her recent Broadway outings.

-Six’s financial model continues to astound me. Not because I doubted the show’s likability, but even crowdpleasers often have a hard time selling on Broadway without recognizable IP or stars. They’ve done one hell of a marketing campaign, made all the more impressive by the fact that they had so many pre-Broadway engagements. I was sure they were going to saturate the market, but look at them go! Even on their lowest week they were probably making well over their operating cost.

-Harry Potter’s number seem to be more stable than they were before the pandemic, though not necessarily much higher. Even so, they’re probably doing better margins with the new version of the show. Before, even a $900k-1MM weekly gross was unstable for their high operating cost.

-Paradise Square’s numbers are pretty bad – they seem to be the worst numbers for a commercial show right now. But I won’t say any more about it since I might be deemed a “vulture.”

-Dear Evan Hansen isn’t doing as badly as I think some people theorized. I wonder if they’re able to continue chugging along with 600-800k since the running cost is fairly low. Same thing for CFA, their they had a pretty brutal winter, and their numbers are only just now starting to climb back up.

-Girl From the North Country’s numbers were pretty dismal. I love that show, but I don’t understand how they plan to come back. I hope they win some well-deserved Tonys, but at this point it seems unlikely.

-I guess the Lyceum Plays numbers should be taken with a slight grain of salt because they each only had 4 performances a week. So while neither ever broke $200k, it was really more like $400k for the pair. Not enough for them to recoup, especially considering their lowest weeks were REALLY low. But not QUITE as bad as it appears on paper. For comparison, that’s about the amount Diana was making, with a presumably lower operating cost. Though Diana was obviously a major flop too, so it’s not exactly a favorable comparison.

-Jagged’s numbers weren’t all that bad, but I guess they saw the advance was bad, and Omicron was the clincher.

-The drop for Tina immediately following Warren’s departure wasn’t as damning as many expected, but the numbers seemed to have dropped significantly since then. The numbers probably aren’t so bad for many shows, but I’d guess the running cost for Tina is pretty high.

-The numbers for Pass Over, Chicken and Biscuits, and Thoughts of a Colored Man were all pretty abysmal. Some of the worst of the bunch. I said this in another thread, but I really hope these shows don’t get scapegoated for the “lack of commercial viability” of Black plays. Partly because it was obviously a difficult time for Broadway plays, but also because these particular productions blatantly ignored conventional wisdom about what sells on Broadway (stars, IP, or at the very least some substantial buzz from pre-Broadway). And even many of the shows that DID meet those criteria didn’t do very well. It seemed like they were doomed to fail due to the circumstances, so again I really hope they aren’t used as an excuse to stop producing work from Black artists that DO have commercial viability.

JBroadway said: "

-Girl From the North Country’s numbers were pretty dismal. I love that show, but I don’t understand how they plan to come back. I hope they win some well-deserved Tonys, but at this point it seems unlikely.

-I guess the Lyceum Plays numbers should be taken with a slight grain of salt because they each only had 4 performances a week. So while neither ever broke $200k, it was really more like $400k for the pair. Not enough for them to recoup, especially considering their lowest weeks were REALLY low. But not QUITE as bad as it appears on paper. For comparison, that’s about the amount Diana was making, with a presumably lower operating cost. Though Diana was obviously a major flop too, so it’s not exactly a favorable comparison.

-Jagged’s numbers weren’t all that bad, but I guess they saw the advance was bad, and Omicron was the clincher.

-The drop for Tina immediately following Warren’s departure wasn’t as damning as many expected, but the numbers seemed to have dropped significantly since then. The numbers probably aren’t so bad for many shows, but I’d guess the running cost for Tina is pretty high.

-The numbers for Pass Over, Chicken and Biscuits, and Thoughts of a Colored Man were all pretty abysmal. Some of the worst of the bunch. I said this in another thread, but I really hope these shows don’t get scapegoated for the “lack of commercial viability” of Black plays. Partly because it was obviously a difficult time for Broadway plays, but also because these particular productions blatantly ignored conventional wisdom about what sells on Broadway (stars, IP, or at the very least some substantial buzz from pre-Broadway). And even many of the shows that DID meet those criteria didn’t do very well. It seemed like they were doomed to fail due to the circumstances, so again I really hope they aren’t used as an excuse to stop producing work from Black artists that DO have commercial viability.
"

JBroadway, how did you find the historical grosses from this season?

kdogg36 said: "I think I've read on these boards thatPhantom doesn't have a stop clause. Is this true? If so, is it the only show that doesn't have one?"

Chicago doesn’t have a stop clause, and in the words of Barry Weissler, will “never close.”

The drop in To Kill a Mockingbird's numbers following the departure of Jeff Daniels is just astounding. The show grossed over $1million per week from reopening until his final performance (with the exception of the week ending 12/26, in which they had to cancel some performances due to COVID) and then dropped to $362,366 for 7 performances in Greg Kinnear's first week and $465,524 for 8 performances in his second. It really makes me wonder if the rumors about them abandoning their reopening plans are true.

everythingtaboo said: "Remember when people though the reviews would actually make a dent in The Music Man's numbers?"

People are paying to see Hugh Jackman. Going through the historical data today from January 2022, "To Kill a Mockingbird" nosedived from 88% houses and a $1.5 million gross in Jeff Daniels' last week to 44% full houses and a $360K gross after he left.

The reviews never mattered for Music Man. People aren't going to see "The Music Man". They're going to see Hugh Jackman live on stage. Just watch those grosses plummet (or maybe even a closing announcement) once Jackman's done.

These numbers are absolutely fascinating. I'm having a hard time understanding now why they didn't want to release them week to week! I mean, for some shows the numbers were really bad (would they be MUCH better in "normal times" though, for those shows?) but for the most part releasing them would prove just how resiliant Broadway actually has been in bouncing back.

You can see in the numbers the weeks where cases were extremely high and those would have been viewed as such, by the public. But really overall the numbers are kind of astounding.

Smaxie said: "Hadestown lost two shows the week before, both of its Saturday performances."

Makes sense.

MadsonMelo said: "Those CFA’s numbers are no good."



They're likely still making money or at least breaking even. CFA has low operating costs.

MadsonMelo said: "Those CFA’s numbers are no good."

CFA is pretty cheap to run I'd bet. Aside from the weeks they cancelled perfs, I don't know if they went under their nut more than maybe twice.

So Ain't Too Proud definitely took a hit after the shutdown but those still seem like respectable numbers for the weeks they were able to perform. The bigger issue looks like the falling attendance numbers and the cancelled performances.

There's not enough data as Jennifer had a lot of scheduled absences during her short run but it looks like Waitress was really selling with Sara and then fell off but was still doing solid business. There was debatably a slight dip with Ciara and Joshua but it just looks like with the short run and the risk to the cast and crew it just wasn't worth it to go on. But they certainly weren't doing horribly.

I still don't really get the rumors that Hadestown would close. Do they have really high weekly costs?

I guess Music Man proves people will turn out (and pay) for the right show.