This Past Week Was A Good One On Broadway, With 22 Of The 24 Shows Currently Running Seeing An Increase In Ticket Sales, Two New Shows Are Off To A Moderate Start: Fool For Love And Old Times


This Week’s Notable Movements on Broadway are:

Two New Shows: “Old Times” and “Fool For Love”

In the week ending September 20, 2015, two new shows began previews. On September 15, 2015, Fool For Love played its first preview at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. A Manhattan Theatre Club Production, this play by Sam Shepard is directed by Daniel Aukin, and stars Nina Arianda and Sam Rockwell. In its first week of six previews, it brought in $177,278, which represents 35.77% of its gross potential. The average paid admission was $56.19, and the average audience capacity throughout the partial week was 82.3%. This is a moderate but not great start for this small-scale play, which is enjoying its first production on Broadway despite being a New York revival.

Harold Pinter’s Old Times played its first partial week of previews on Broadway at the American Airlines Theatre. Beginning September 17, 2015, Old Times was off to a pretty good start, in a production directed by Douglas Hodge and starring Clive Owen in his Broadway debut, along with Kelly Reilly and Eve Best. In its first partial week of five performances, Old Times brought in $233,302, which represents 59.28% of its gross potential. The average paid admission was $73.48, and the average audience capacity was 85.8% across the five performances. Therefore, Old Times performed a bit better than Fool For Love in their first partial week of performances, although both have a long way to go before their box office fate is determined.

Overall a Positive Week on Broadway

This past week demonstrated an increased interest in Broadway overall, as the fall season is gearing up. Of the 24 shows that were running this past week, 22 demonstrated an increase in ticket sales. Overall, the industry saw a collective box office increase of $1,849,515. The only two shows that saw a decrease in ticket sales are both high performing shows. Hamilton, which has been breaking records, brought in an excellent weekly gross of $1,545,346, representing 115.76% of its gross potential; however, that was still a slight decrease of $16,294 from the week before, which was even more excellent. In addition, the Tony Award winning Best Play of this past year, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, saw a decrease in ticket sales of $36,577, bringing its weekly gross to $732,079, which represents 78.16% of its gross potential.

The audience capacity was quite good at an average of 94.9% across the eight performances. In addition to the two shows that began performances, six figure increases were seen by Something Rotten!, which went up by $140,956 to reach a weekly gross of $979,968. Neck in neck was An American in Paris, which saw an increase in ticket sales of $140,411, bringing in a weekly gross of $1,373,884. Furthermore, Kinky Boots saw an increase of $122,611, bringing it to a weekly gross of $1,001,377, and The Phantom of the Opera saw an increase of $114,928, bringing in a weekly gross of $959,752. The final six figure increase was seen by The King and I, which went up by $104,229, bringing it to a weekly gross of $1,007,837.

The Following are the Broadway Ticket Sales Numbers for the Week Ending September 20, 2015:

broadway show ticket analysis chart
Show NameGrossGrossTotalAttn
%Capacity
AvgPdAdm
A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER
$566,174
7,044
97.08%
$80.38
ALADDIN
$1,450,679
13,625
98.62%
$106.47
AMAZING GRACE
$353,166
5,240
56.37%
$67.40
AN AMERICAN IN PARIS
$1,373,884
12,848
95.65%
$106.93
BEAUTIFUL
$1,022,113
8,247
100.48%
$123.94
CHICAGO
$724,723
8,596
99.49%
$84.31
FINDING NEVERLAND
$881,095
10,461
86.94%
$84.23
FOOL FOR LOVE
$177,278
3,155
82.29%
$56.19
FUN HOME
$720,900
5,953
100.56%
$121.10
HAMILTON
$1,545,346
10,688
101.14%
$144.59
HAND TO GOD
$304,786
4,335
70.19%
$70.31
JERSEY BOYS
$778,367
8,206
83.53%
$94.85
KINKY BOOTS
$1,001,377
10,780
94.63%
$92.89
LES MISÉRABLES
$837,432
10,513
93.27%
$79.66
MATILDA
$766,043
10,179
88.85%
$75.26
OLD TIMES
$233,302
3,175
85.81%
$73.48
SOMETHING ROTTEN!
$979,968
10,346
85.99%
$94.72
SPRING AWAKENING
$473,074
6,708
81.73%
$70.52
THE BOOK OF MORMON
$1,478,350
8,751
102.61%
$168.93
THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME
$732,079
7,727
94.88%
$94.74
THE KING AND I
$1,007,837
7,968
95.13%
$126.49
THE LION KING
$1,791,791
13,570
100.01%
$132.04
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
$959,752
11,672
90.90%
$82.23
WICKED
$1,570,535
15,248
98.96%
$103.00
Totals
$21,730,049
215,035
91.05%
$97.28

Broadway ticket sales raw data are provided courtesy of The Broadway League All other data, text, opinion, charts and commentary are copyright © 2015 nytix.com