In this case I would place blame on the advertising and marketing. The audience perceives the show as a period piece which is a hard sell and the poster for the show does little to communicate the reviews or the fun of the show. Unfortunately re-branding or changing the way they communicate to the audience can be very expensive.
How is this possible? I booked my ticket about two weeks ago (1 seat only) for early December and there were absolutely no seats left over in the orchestra for the entire week.
Capacity may not be on the rise, but grosses most certainly are. Also realize that compared to most of the recent Roundabout Theater Company revival "hits" The Mystery of Edwin Drood is not as well know a musical, as Anything Goes and Bye Bye Birdie*, which have been done by almost every High School in the country before Roundabout revived them. Word of mouth for the production is amazing, and I only expect grosses to grow from here. On another note Roundabout uped their maximum prices to $147 which may also be hurting the show's bottom line.
*I know Bye Bye Birdie was critically panned, and I like most did not enjoy it, but you cannot deny the fact that it always had a capacity above 84% and was only below 90% capacity for 3 weeks during its run. Also for a subscription show it always maintained about 54% of its possible gross, which is amazing. Financially the show was most certainly a hit.
When I went to buy tickets weeks before the show opened and saw that the only tickets available for every performance were extreme rear and extreme sides of the orchestra, as well as rear mezzanine, I called Roundabout. I was told that the rest of the house was reserved for subscribers and that unused seats would be released to the public 48 hours prior to each performance (many of which end up selling at steep discounts perhaps). Seems a sure-fire way to dilute the grosses but maybe I misunderstood the policy.
I saw the show this past Friday and the orchestra was full. I can't vouch for the mezzanine.
The show's grosses may be affected by the aftermath of Sandy. Out-of-towners or suburbanites who might come in to see a show are still cleaning up after the storm--or just plain out of money.
