Broadway grosses were up 5% from last week with summer officially underway. Bonafide smash The Audience played its final performance and pulled in its highest gross to date, at $1.42 million. The play, led by Tony-winner Dame Helen Mirren, has consistently pulled in more than $1 million a week since opening, and recouped its costs in April. Tony winners The King And I, Fun Home, and The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time all saw modest boosts, while former contender An American In Paris posted another massive haul of $1.43 million, just shy of its record best from last week.
Larry David's Fish In The Dark saw an uptick in sales, but is still reeling from a $400k drop two weeks ago when David departed and Jason Alexander took over the lead role. The show, however, has already recouped, and just announced plans to extend its run until August 1st. Super-producer Scott Rudin is likely not feeling much of a sting.
Something Rotten! and Finding Neverland, both denied major Tony wins, continued to build their respective momentum and each posted their highest gross to date, at $1.23 and $1.22 million respectively. Similarly overlooked, On The 20th Century continues to bring in a solid slice of its potential gross, fueled by star Kristin Chenoweth's performance and hosting duties at the Tony Awards. Not so fortunate was On The Town, which despite a boost of nearly $80k is still the third least-attended show currently running, measured by percentage of potential audience.
Meanwhile, the snubbed It Shoulda Been You continues to defy expectations, with a $70k bump this week and not a closing notice in sight. With a cast recording on the way and a flush of national goodwill toward gay marriage after the Supreme Court decision, the comedy is likely to see a decent uptick in the coming weeks, and is also a strong contender for expansive regional licensing after its Broadway run. [Note: almost immediately after this article went up, It Shoulda Been You announced its closing date. Apparently the bump wasn't big enough. Licensing will be handled by MTI.]
Hand To God continues to be the little-show-that-could, as its low running costs give it a higher profit margin than many bigger productions. Though it only hit 60% of its potential gross, it still turned a profit, as it has for the last 12 weeks straight. With Wolf Hall closing this week, the pool of plays on Broadway is rapidly dwindling, and Hand To God is likely to benefit as the summer goes on. (A longer piece on the show, and its lead producer Kevin McCollum, will be posted Wednesday. Stay tuned, puppet fans.)
New musical Amazing Grace came in at just under 30% of its maximum potential gross, with only five performances in its first week on the boards. Next week will give us a better sense of how the show is shaping up in a notoriously tough time slot for new musicals.
The week ahead brings the summer's biggest holiday. But in contrast to most others, July 4th creates serious trouble for Broadway, and consistently brings in diminished grosses across the board. This year, with the 4th falling on a Saturday, it is enough of a hurdle that shows are taking preemptive action. Something Rotten! for example, is not having a Saturday evening performance, anticipating a dearth in attendees as they flee the city for BBQ's on Long Island and elsewhere (it will supplement its schedule with an additional Wednesday show).
