Ouch! Broadway Box Office Slumps 13% For Holiday Week; 12 Shows Off $100K-Plus

The long July 4 weekend may have seen hot bodies seeking refuge in air-conditioned seats, but they weren’t cooling down in Broadway theaters. The 28 shows were off 13% from the previous week. An impressive 21 of them were down more than $50K; indeed, 12 shows came up more than $100K short of the week before: Beautiful, at the Roundabout’s Stephen Sondheim (-$193K); Wicked, at the Nederlander’s Gershwin (-$183K); Something Rotten! at Jujamcyn’s St. James (-$177K); Wolf Hall, in its last stand at the Shuberts’ Winter Garden (-$169K); On The Town, at the Lyric (-$163K); Kinky Boots, at Jujamcyn’s Al Hirschfeld (-$146K); The Book Of Mormon, at Jujamcyn’s Eugene O’Neill (-$143K); Finding Neverland, at the Nederlanders’ Lunt-Fontanne (-$135K); A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder, at Jujamcyn’s Walter Kerr (-$122K); The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, at the Shuberts’ Barrymore (-$112K); On The Twentieth Century, at Roundabout’s American Airlines (-$107K) and Jersey Boys, at Jujamcyn’s August Wilson (-$100K and change).

That’s an incomplete picture, however, thanks to Broadway’s creative accounting. Despite their $100K-plus drops, for example, Wicked and Book Of Mormon posted receipts above their listed gross potential, according to the figures released by the trade group Broadway League. Chalk up that conundrum to “dynamic pricing,” which makes the very term “gross potential” as fungible as the field of Republican presidential candidates and as slippery as a Clinton. You have to watch those suckers carefully, as they’re apt to misbehave.

Tony winner Fun Home, at Circle in the Square, continued to build a bit, up $8K. Disney’s double-punch of Aladdin and The Lion King were up $46K and $23K respectively. Top average ticket price for a musical was Mormon‘s $157.94; for a non-musical eit was An Act Of God, at $118.72. Total receipts were $24.6 million for the 28 shows, down $3.7 million from the previous week. As mentioned, Wolf Hall Parts 1 and 2 ended its limited run at the Winter Garden, and Amazing Grace is in previews at the Nederlander in anticipation of a July 16 opening.