***

Business was steady across Broadway this past week, with the cumulative box office tally of $29,866,859 rising slightly from last week’s number of $29,634,670. The number of shows remained constant at 37. As has been the pattern for a few weeks, sold-out attractions included only The Book of Mormon and Hamilton.

The latter pulled in a handsome 123 percent of its potential box office, while Mormon went as high at 116 percent. No other shows came close to those figures.

The new, pared-down production of The Color Purple opened mid-week to excellent reviews. The impact of those notices won’t be seen until next week. As for last week, which included many critics performances and gratis seats, the box office puled in just 68 percent of the possible.

China Doll, David Mamet’s latest, offered only six performances last week. As a result, the Al Pacino vehicle dropped at the box office window by $187,027. The half dozen shows that were given played to houses that were 93 percent full, which is slightly less than has been the case in previous weeks. The Broadway debut of Sam Shepard’s drama Fool for Love ended its run at the Friedman last week. The revival got decent reviews, but its box office performance dropped slowly but steadily over the run. In its final week, it took in $250,127, which represented a fall of $68,614 from the previous week. Its houses were at 78 percent capacity and the take at the till was 43 percet of the potential.

The new revival of The Gin Game with James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson had a healthy bounce, climbing $138,443 at the box office. Still, attendance was at only 67 percent capacity.

Last month's addition of Bob Saget to the cast of the long-suffering comedy Hand to God has not done the show much good in terms of ticket sales. Box office take has been between 30 percent and 40 percent of the gross for the past few weeks. Attendance last week stood at 54 percent capacity.