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Broadway box office took a slide last week as receipts for Sweeney Todd fell by more than $1 million with the departures of Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford (and before the February 9 arrival of big-name replacements Aaron Tveit and Sutton Foster).
Overall, box office for the 25 Broadway productions was off by 15% from the previous week, with receipts for the week ending January 21 (the first week of the annual Broadway Week 2-for-1 discount promotion) totaling $23,589,174. Attendance of 204,612 was down only 6% (and holding about even with last season at this time).
Average ticket price for all shows was $115.29, down from $126.70 the previous week (again, that 2-for-1 discount likely playing a part).
Most of the productions reported a drop in receipts, though none on the scale of the $1,315,747 hit taken by Sweeney: The acclaimed Sondheim musical revival grossed $795,400, compared to the massive $2,111,147 for the previous week, when Groban and Ashford came to the ends of their limited runs. Last week’s take was the lowest by a considerable margin since the revival’s first full week last March.
Sweeney‘s slip is all but certainly temporary, with Broadway favorites Tveit and Foster arriving early next month and Heartbreaker‘s Joe Locke taking the role of Tobias beginning January 31.
Elsewhere on the boards last week, more than half of the productions reported attendance figures at 90% of venue capacity or greater. They included & Juliet, Appropriate, Gutenberg! (coming to a close January 28), Hadestown, Hamilton, Merrily We Roll Along (the week’s sole sell-out, though Gutenberg!, Hamilton and Wicked came very close), MJ, Moulin Rouge!, Prayer For the French Republic, Six, Sweeny Todd, The Book of Mormon, The Lion King and Wicked.
Struggling to fill 65% of seats at their respective venues were A Beautiful Noise (with attendance at just 56% of capacity at the Broadhurst), and the soon-to-close How To Dance In Ohio (closing February 11) and Purlie Victorious (closing February 4); the latter two shows were at 63% of capacity. Harmony, the Barry Manilow-Bruce Sussman musical that recently announced a February 4 closing, was up just a tad, grossing $540,360 and filling about 80% of seats at the Ethel Barrymore.
Days of Wine and Roses, the new musical in previews at Studio 54, was at 66% of capacity, grossing $417,512. Opening night is January 28.
Season to date, Broadway has crossed the $1 billion mark with a gross of $1,021,222,013, with total attendance at 8,063,918. Broadway hit the same billion-dollar-mark last season around this time.
All figures courtesy of The Broadway League. For the complete box office listings, visit the League’s website.