The week ended with the presentation of the Tony Awards broadcast, which will doubtless prove a tonic at the box office come the end of next week. But for this seven-day period, it was business as usual on Broadway. Overall gross was $28,477,730, an improvement over the $27,019,163 of the previous week.
An Act of God, last year’s hit comedy, is back for another summer engagement, this time with Sean Hayes in the lead role. The reviews were good, but the impact won’t be seen until next week, given the number of press seats still being handed out. For the time being, the play took a $36,563 dive at the box office, taking in only 38 percent of its gross. Seventy percent of the seats were filled.
Elsewhere, June was busting out all over across Broadway. The Street, which saw an across-the-board decline at the box office the week before, experienced the reverse last week. Nearly every show enjoyed some good news, collections-wise. The box office at The King and I, which won a nice review for its new star Marin Mazzie in the New York Times, leaped up more than $100,000. The Color Purple, which got the same treatment from the Grey Lady, vis a vis its new star Heather Headley, got a bump nearly as good: $93,425.
Theatregoers ran like the dickens to catch the last week of the Broadway run of Blackbird, the taut two-hander starring Jeff Daniels and Michelle Williams. The play at the Belasco had one of its best weeks, and certainly its best week in months. Houses were at 91 percent capacity. The gross was $552,394, fully $139,110 more than the previous week, making for a box-office take of 62 percent of the potential. That was the third-highest rise of the week, after Hamilton and Wicked.
Bright Star, the struggling Steve Martin-Edie Brickell musical at the Cort, may be benefiting from the publicity crush the show has been enjoying in recent weeks, which has seen Martin sometimes performing with the orchestra. Monies rose nearly $90,000, climbing to $527,807, and 80 percent of the seats were occupied.
Waitress experienced its best week yet and also set a new record at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, grossing $1,058,461 for the 8-performance week. The previous record for an 8-performance week was held by The Odd Couple at $1,039,505 for the week ending January 1st, 2006.
Just the Numbers: View Complete Broadway Grosses for June 6-12
