Broadway ticket sales fell 2.5 percent through the week ending June 24 as the Tony Awards hype begins to wear off, but a few Tony winners, particularly the musicals, are still managing to pull in big audiences and sales.
According to figures posted by The Broadway League, gross ticket sales totaled just under $25 million with earnings down among 11 shows through Sunday. Eight productions had a loss of over $10,000, while a few broke sales records with their increase.
“Wicked” continued to hold the top spot, breaking the $2 million mark with receipts totaling $2,038,405. “Once” had its best sales week to date breaking the $1 million mark with an increase of $52,774, according to figures on Playbill.com. “One Man, Two Guvnors” earned its own best week at the box office with sales up $8,105 over the previous week for a total of $656,610.
According to J. William Bruce, sales rep at Applause-Tickets.com, “‘Wicked’ should stay at that level until September when the kids go back to school as most family friendly shows see a drop in sales,” Bruce told TicketNews in a recent email. “That is why ‘The Lion King’ lowers their rates at that time. ‘Once’ should continue [this level of success] for the near future as it [is] the big Tony winner right now.”
“Porgy and Bess,” ($529,027) winner of Tonys for Best Actress and Best Revival of a Musical, was unable to continue its momentum through Sunday. With sales up $73,253 last week, sales for the show fell short this week with sales down $126,337, the biggest loss of any Broadway production. According to Bruce, the drop in sales may be attributed to the fact that actress Audra McDonald will be absent until July 3 due to inflamed vocal chords. McDonald won the Tony for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical.
“Clybourne Park,” which took home the award for Best Play also took a hit this week with sales down just over $10,000 with receipts totaling $440,462. While the show has seen some success, sales have not gone as expected for a show that the Tony for Best Play. “Even though reviews were great it is always the musical Tony winners that are the big sellers,” explained Bruce. “I believe it will play out its scheduled run and close.”
“The Book of Mormon” was the week’s frontrunner in terms of capacity at 102.6 percent, followed by “Newsies” at 101.3 percent, according to Broadway.com. Newcomer “Harvey” also played to a packed house at 100.2 percent capacity.
The Great White Way lost two shows from its lineup this week. “Priscilla: Queen of the Desert” said goodbye with a bang — the show had the highest gross sales through Sunday with sales up $225,098 over the previous week for a total of $727,110. “Godspell” increased sales by $111,294 with gross sales totaling $305,616. The shows also experienced bumps in capacity — “Priscilla” was up 17.6 percent over the previous week while “Godspell” jumped 18.9 percent.
Actress Kelli O’Hara’s two-week absence from “Nice Work If You Can Get It” does not seem negatively impacting ticket sales as the show took in $67,899 over last week’s receipts and nearly reached $1 million. The show’s capacity was up 3.6 percent.
To view the full listing of Broadway sales for the week ending June 24, 2012, visit The Broadway League.
