In The Week Ending September 28, 2014, On The Town And Love Letters Are Both Struggling To Attract Audience Members To Their Theatres.


“On The Town” Demonstrating Limited Promise

Last week, On The Town began its run with just one performance, so it was too early to tell whether this ambitious old-fashioned revival would perform well out of the gate. Unfortunately, in its first full week of eight performances, On The Town still only grossed 29.19% of its gross potential. In the week ending September 28, 2014, the show brought in $518,116.

Still, it managed to fill 70.0% of the 14,992 seats across the eight performances, which is testament to heavy discounting. Nevertheless, On The Town does have the apparent victory of increasing its gross the most from last week out of any show: it increased by $414,530, which was higher than all the other shows in terms of increase. However this number is artificially inflated because the show only played one performance last week.

New Show This Week: “Disgraced”

The Pulitzer Prize winning played Disgraced has begun performances this past week. Ayad Akhtar’s drama about Islamophobia and race in contemporary society transferred to the Lyceum after a successful run at Lincoln Center’s Off-Broadway Claire Tow Theatre through the LCT3 program for new writing.

In its first week of only two performances, the show grossed $100,824, which represents 50.33% of its gross potential. Time will tell whether audiences take to this unusually themed play on the Great White Way.

“Love Letters” Struggling Despite Star Cast

A.R. Gurney’s two-hander Love Letters began its revival at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre last week, but even in its first full week of eight performances, it was the lowest performing show on Broadway in terms of percentage of gross potential. With a weekly gross of $178,812, it only brought in 20.15% of its potential, filling only 39.3% of the seats across the eight performances. This must have been quite disappointing for the two stars – Brian Dennehy and Mia Farrow – who are used to attracting a lot of attention.

Dennehy in particular is a huge Broadway star, whose most famous success was his lead performance in Death of a Salesman. Fortunately, the duo will not need to withstand the empty audiences for long, as first Farrow and then Dennehy will switch out to be replaced with a rotating cast of stars. Hopefully word of mouth will pick up as the run progresses.

The following are the Broadway ticket sales numbers for the week ending September 27, 2014:
Broadway Show Ticket Analysis w/e 9/27/14
Show GrossGross Total Attn %Cap AvgPdAdm
A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER $807,444 7,093 97.75% $113.84
ALADDIN $1,293,112 13,504 97.97% $95.76
BEAUTIFUL $1,278,681 8,250 100.51% $154.99
CABARET $566,136 5,117 71.63% $110.64
CHICAGO $498,324 6,185 75.38% $80.57
CINDERELLA $568,115 8,438 60.24% $67.33
DISGRACED $100,824 1,583 86.22% $63.69
HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH $498,220 5,271 74.78% $94.52
IF/THEN $590,185 8,493 80.98% $69.49
IT’S ONLY A PLAY $1,261,025 8,554 100.02% $147.42
JERSEY BOYS $817,139 7,770 79.09% $105.17
KINKY BOOTS $1,230,190 10,522 92.36% $116.92
LADY DAY AT EMERSON’S BAR & GRILL $630,847 5,151 94.41% $122.47
LES MISÉRABLES $665,663 7,670 68.04% $86.79
LOVE LETTERS $178,812 3,360 39.33% $53.22
MAMMA MIA! $649,855 7,804 83.66% $83.27
MATILDA $776,248 8,761 76.48% $88.60
MOTOWN THE MUSICAL $972,330 10,063 83.47% $96.62
ON THE TOWN $518,116 10,494 70.00% $49.37
ONCE $355,062 4,887 57.68% $72.65
PIPPIN $444,549 5,728 72.32% $77.61
ROCK OF AGES $315,948 3,720 79.76% $84.93
THE BOOK OF MORMON $1,596,473 8,752 102.63% $182.41
THE COUNTRY HOUSE $225,325 4,927 94.75% $45.73
THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME $590,727 7,065 99.14% $83.61
THE LION KING $1,754,196 13,446 98.87% $130.46
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA $834,859 9,996 77.85% $83.52
THIS IS OUR YOUTH $395,194 5,140 60.56% $76.89
WICKED $1,386,090 12,923 89.30% $107.26
YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU $381,328 7,384 86.02% $51.64
Totals: $22,181,013 228,051 81.58% $93.25
Broadway ticket sales raw data are provided courtesy of The Broadway League All other data, text, opinion, charts and commentary are copyright © 2014 nytix.com