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Box office for most Broadway shows last week wilted a bit as June’s Tony glow gave way to plain old New York summer heat, though a couple newcomers were among the handful bucking the downward trend, one very impressively so.
In its second week of previews, Back To The Future: The Musical grossed a whopping $1,222,731 for just six previews, filling 99% of seats at the Winter Garden. The stage adaptation of the Michael J. Fox comedy classic starring Casey Likes and Roger Bart opens August 3.
Another recent arrival, Alex Edelman’s Just For Us also made some dollar gains, if on a smaller scale. The well-reviewed one-man show took in $348,998 for the week ending July 9, nearly $20,000 more than the previous week even with attendance down a tad. A higher average ticket price – $64.73 compared to the previous week’s $58.44 – had some impact.
Here Lies Love, which played seven previews last week compared to the previous week’s eight, was down a commensurate $87,223 to $514,969, filling 95% of seats at the Broadway. The David Byrne-Fatboy Slim musical opens July 20.
New to the list is The Cottage, the Sandy Rustin comedy directed by Jason Alexander and starring Eric McCormack, Laura Bell Bundy, Lilli Cooper, Nehai Joshi, Alex Moffat and Dana Steingold. The production grossed $117,998 for its first three previews, filling 86% of seats at the Hayes. Opening night is July 24.
Among the productions showing particular signs of summer strain were A Beautiful Noise, down $111,208 and filling just 56% of seats; New York, New York, down $139,602 and at 70%; and Some Like It Hot, down $115,969 with attendance at 71% of capacity. Nearly half the available seats for Once Upon a One More Time were empty, with attendance at 51%. Smaller-scale plays Grey House and Good Night, Oscar were at 61% and 71% of capacity, respectively.
In all, Broadway’s 30 productions grossed $28,859,591 for the week ending July 9, a drop of 14% from the previous week when there were 33 shows on the boards (gone are Fat Ham, Prima Facie, Leopoldstadt and The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window). Attendance last week was 242,358, marking an 11% drop from the previous week. About 86% of total available Broadway seats were filled.
Season to date, Broadway has grossed $224,506,959, a 5% increase over last year at this time, with total attendance up 11% year-to-year to 1,840,675, 87% of capacity.
All figures courtesy of The Broadway League. For complete box office listings, visit the League’s website.