Broadway Box Office Slips; ‘Head Over Heels’ Seeks Footing

With Bruce Springsteen still on a soon-to-end hiatus, competition from fireworks and two fledgling productions still getting their footing, Broadway box office was down about 11% for the week ending July 8, the 30 shows grossing a total $33,865,380.

Paid attendance of 272,945 put Broadway houses at about 92% of capacity, with an average paid admission of $124.07. That attendance is down about 6% from last week when the Street had 33 shows running.

New(ish) to the line-up, Straight White Men played its first full week of eight previews (compared to last week’s three performances), with the Josh Charles and Armie Hammer starrer taking in $302,222, about 47% of potential. Attendance of 4,139 was closer to the mark, about 89% of the 4,648 capacity. That means average ticket price was $73.02, well below the $149 most ticket buyers could have spent.

The Young Jean Lee-penned play had some cast upheavals in recent weeks, but nothing that would impact the marquee value too much – Hammer, Charles and Paul Schneider remain aboard. The originally announced Tom Skerritt left the production due to personal reasons prior to previews, with Denis Arndt stepping in as a replacement before parting ways due to “creative differences” last week. Stephen Payne (August: Osage County) now plays the character Ed.

Straight White Men officially opens July 23, three days before the Go-Go’s musical Head Over Heels, which struggled during Week 6 of the season, grossing $295,898, a small 34% of the $870K potential. Paid attendance was 6,412, 85% of capacity, translating to a modest $46.15 average ticket price.

SpongeBob SquarePants, which today announced a September 16 closing date, took in $891,818, a sizable $46K drop from last week, with 11,500 paid attendees taking up about 89% of available seats. Average ticket price was $77.55, a bargain for this well-worth-catching musical.

Playing to sold-out (or close enough) houses were Aladdin at the New Amsterdam Theatre; Angels in America (for six performances at the Neil Simon); Come From Away (Schoenfeld); Dear Evan Hansen (Music Box); Frozen (St. James); Hamilton (Richard Rodgers); Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Lyric); Mean Girls (August Wilson); My Fair Lady (Vivian Beaumont); The Band’s Visit (Ethel Barrymore); The Book of Mormon (Eugene O’Neill); The Boys in the Band (Booth); The Lion King (Minskoff); and Wicked (Gershwin).

Springsteen on Broadway returns from hiatus to the Walter Kerr on July 10.

Broadway season-to-date sales are $228,249,758, a jump of about 13% from last year at this time, and 85% of potential. Attendance is almost dead even with last year, with paid admission for the first six weeks of the season at 1,754,467, about 92% of capacity.

All figures courtesy of the trade group Broadway League.