Broadway took some modest steps towards brighter days last week, with cumulative grosses rising just over 6% to $32.9 million. With these numbers reflecting the first post-2023 Tony Awards data to be released, producers will be hoping that last week's box office performance becomes the quiet beginning to a larger summer trend of rising fortunes.
Best Musical and Play winners Kimberly Akimbo and Leopoldstadt were, perhaps predictably, amongst the week's biggest winners. The latter brought in $924,033.35, its highest gross since last December. The former's performance was less meteoric, besting last week's total by about $170k to a total of $695,404.58. That sum is the highest gross of the production's entire run, though the Jeanine Tesori-David Lindsay-Abaire musical will be looking to beat that record again by a higher margin in the coming weeks.
Kimberly Akimbo wasn't alone. Also seeing the highest grosses of their runs last week were Shucked; Prima Facie; Parade; Good Night, Oscar; and Sweeney Todd, arguably showing that the national television exposure that comes from a Tonys performance might be just as, if not more, powerful than actually winning those statues. Case in point: & Juliet won no Tonys yet played the highest-grossing eight-performance week of its run immediately after.
Sweeney Todd, which has been a consistent top grosser thanks to its above-the-title stars Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford, took the mantle of the show theatregoers are paying the most to see. Average ticket price at the Sondheim revival was $183.15 last week, the most of any show on the Main Stem. With a total of $1.94 million for the week, we'll be watching to see if the musical breaks into the $2 Million Club this summer.
But things move fast on Broadway. The Tony Awards are hardly a distant memory, and already we have the first two new productions of the 2023-2024 season up and running. Grey House has struggled to fill seats at the Lyceum. The thriller played to just 58%-full houses last week, bringing in $368,707.61. Compare that to the other new show, Here Lies Love, which played its first preview Saturday June 17 with 100% capacity at The Broadway Theatre; only one preview for the musical is included in the week's numbers. If Here Lies Love is able to keep those totals up, the immersive musical will debut in the $1 Million Club for its first full week of previews.
Unfortunately, a post-Tonys bump was not enough for some shows. Though the already Olivier-winning Life of Pi won three Tony Awards and was slightly up this week with a total of $494,001.40, the show still announced its closure today. It is the first post-Tonys casualty. The upcoming weeks' grosses will determine the fates of other shows.
Take a look at the full report here.
The $1 Million Club (shows that earned $1 million or more at the box office):
- The Lion King ($2.35 million)
- Wicked
- Hamilton
- Sweeney Todd
- Funny Girl
- MJ The Musical
- Aladdin
- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
- & Juliet
- Moulin Rouge! The Musical
- Parade
- Some Like It Hot
- Prima Facie
(13 of 32 currently running productions)
The 90s Club (shows that played to 90% or higher of their seats filled over the entire week):
- Hamilton (101.14%)
- Sweeney Todd (100.8%)
- Kimberly Akimbo (100.7%)
- Here Lies Love (100%)
- Prima Facie
- Hadestown
- & Juliet
- Wicked
- Parade
- Aladdin
- MJ The Musical
- The Book of Mormon
- Moulin Rouge! The Musical
- The Lion King
- Shucked
- SIX: The Musical
- Funny Girl
- Some Like It Hot
- Fat Ham
(19 of 32 currently running productions)
