Broadway ticket sales showed a welcome improvement for the week ended Feb. 10, with box office receipts reaching $14,567,001, up $1,306,119 over the prior week and higher than this same period a year ago. The frontrunners are the usual suspects: Wicked, Jersey Boys, The Lion King, The Little Mermaid and Mary Poppins. Variety’s sources estimate the sales for Young Frankenstein at about $1 million, upping the overall Broadway ticket gross to a total of $15.6 million.
Those productions showing the biggest increases in attendance this past week were Spamalot, Hairspray, Grease, Mary Poppins, and several others. The Farnsworth Invention had less than 43 percent capacity audiences, but November showed the biggest drop in ticket sales with a loss of $43,484.
According to a study by The League of American Theatres and Producers, a record 12.3 million tickets were sold to Broadway shows from June 2006 to June 2007. It will be interesting to see what impact the strike has on sales from June last year to June of this year; so far, grosses have been running about four and a half percent below.
Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Cat on a Hot Tin Roof will make history when it opens on March 6 at the Broadhurst Theater. It’s not simply another revival: it will be the first time that it is performed by an African-American cast on Broadway, with James Earl Jones, Terrence Howard, Tony award winner Anika Noni Rose and Phylicia Rashad.
The 39 Steps at the American Airlines Theatre was scheduled to close March 23 but is extending its run another week through March 29.
Passing Strange opened to previews Feb. 8 at the Belasco Theatre with its Opening Night scheduled for Feb. 28.
Broadway Gross Ticket Sales Week ending February 10, 2008
All data provided by The League of American Theatres and Producers
| Production (Theatre) |
Weekly Gross | Total Atten. | Prev. | Perf. | Total Capacity | Avg. Ticket Price | Atten. % |
| A Bronx Tale (Walter Kerr) |
$257,830 | 3,769 | 0 | 7 | 949 | $68.41 | 56.7% |
| A Chorus Line (Schoenfeld) |
$331,333 | 5,445 | 0 | 8 | 1,069 | $60.85 | 63.7% |
| August: Osage County (Imperial) |
$535,598 | 7,347 | 0 | 8 | 1,419 | $72.90 | 64.7% |
| Avenue Q (Golden) |
$290,751 | 4,505 | 0 | 8 | 796 | $64.54 | 70.7% |
| Chicago (Ambassador) |
$316,125 | 4,710 | 0 | 8 | 1,080 | $67.12 | 54.5% |
| Come…Sheba (Biltmore) |
$208,047 | 3,644 | 0 | 8 | 650 | $57.09 | 70.1% |
| Curtains (Hirschfeld) |
$449,637 | 6,715 | 0 | 8 | 1,422 | $66.96 | 59.0% |
| Grease (Atkinson) |
$549,274 | 7,226 | 0 | 8 | 1,072 | $76.01 | 84.3% |
| Hairspray (Neil Simon) |
$553,549 | 8,758 | 0 | 8 | 1,428 | $63.20 | 76.7% |
| Is He Dead? (Lyceum) |
$172,872 | 3,495 | 0 | 8 | 922 | $49.46 | 47.4% |
| Jersey Boys (August Wilson) |
$1,127,362 | 9,564 | 0 | 8 | 1,222 | $117.88 | 97.8% |
| Legally Blonde (Palace) |
$554,401 | 8,211 | 0 | 8 | 1,691 | $67.52 | 60.7% |
| Mamma Mia! (Cadillac Winter Garden) |
$686,709 | 9,807 | 0 | 8 | 1,498 | $70.02 | 81.8% |
| Mary Poppins (New Amsterdam) |
$731,687 | 11,235 | 0 | 8 | 1,797 | $65.13 | 78.2% |
| November (Barrymore) |
$380,713 | 5,009 | 0 | 8 | 1,058 | $76.01 | 59.2% |
| Passing Strange (Belasco) |
$55,129 | 1,189 | 3 | 0 | 1,010 | $46.37 | 39.2% |
| Rent (Nederlander) |
$314,407 | 5,626 | 0 | 8 | 1,181 | $55.88 | 59.5% |
| Rock ‘n’ Roll (Jacobs) |
$283,207 | 4,644 | 0 | 8 | 1,074 | $60.98 | 54.1% |
| Spamalot (Shubert) |
$623,348 | 9,000 | 0 | 8 | 1,441 | $69.26 | 78.1% |
| Spring Awakening (O’Neill) |
$491,070 | 7,191 | 0 | 8 | 1,090 | $68.29 | 82.5% |
| Sunday…George (Studio 54) |
$372,943 | 7,095 | 8 | 0 | 1,004 | $52.56 | 88.3% |
| The 39 Steps (American Airlines) |
$260,853 | 5,027 | 0 | 8 | 740 | $51.89 | 84.9% |
| The Color Purple (Broadway) |
$443,615 | 7,796 | 0 | 8 | 1,718 | $56.90 | 56.7% |
| The Farnsworth Invention (Music Box) |
$195,726 | 3,438 | 0 | 8 | 1,005 | $56.93 | 42.8% |
| The Homecoming (Cort) |
$225,219 | 4,060 | 0 | 8 | 1,082 | $55.47 | 46.9% |
| The Lion King (Minskoff) |
$962,925 | 11,986 | 0 | 8 | 1,654 | $80.34 | 90.6% |
| The Little Mermaid (Lunt-Fontanne) |
$889,942 | 10,017 | 0 | 8 | 1,518 | $88.84 | 82.5% |
| The Phantom of the Opera (Majestic) |
$554,729 | 8,852 | 0 | 8 | 1,607 | $62.67 | 68.9% |
| The Seafarer (Booth) |
$243,080 | 4,106 | 0 | 8 | 788 | $59.20 | 65.1% |
| Wicked (Gershwin) |
$1,310,705 | 14,132 | 0 | 8 | 1,809 | $92.75 | 97.7% |
| Xanadu (Hayes) |
$194,215 | 2,964 | 0 | 8 | 596 | $65.52 | 62.2% |
