Broadway Box Office Up Slightly To $31M As Large Spring Roster Leaves Some Seats Empty

deadline.com:

With nearly all 36 productions settling into full schedules last week, the Broadway box office tally climbed a modest 7% from the previous week, totaling $31,199,660, with attendance of 249,219 showing a 3% bump.The attendance figure represents about 76% of available seats, indicating that the recently crowded line-up could be spreading the audience pool a bit thin.

Only eight productions approached sell-out status during the week ending May 8 – the week, notably, before Tony Award nominations were announced – including the usual roster of hits: The Music Man, The Lion King, Six, Plaza Suite, Moulin Rouge!, Macbeth, Hadestown and Funny Girl.

Hamilton, Aladdin, MJ and The Book of Mormon did well, filling at least 90% of their seats.A wide swath of the productions, even some of the best-reviewed shows of the spring, were playing to more than a few empty seats: In the 60%-70% of capacity ranges were A Strange Loop, American Buffalo, Beetlejuice, Birthday Candles, Come From Away, Company, Dear Evan Hansen, Paradise Square, The Minutes, Mrs.

Doubtfire, The Phantom of the Opera, Tina and Wicked, with only Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, How I Learned To Drive, Take Me Out and Chicago (with Pamela Anderson in a limited engagement) hitting the 80% mark or higher.Struggling hardest were Hangmen, grossing $252,543 with only 41% of seats filled; for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf ($159,093, 39%); POTUS ($380,674, 49%); The Skin of Our Teeth ($174,481, 39%); Girl from North Country ($274,782, 52%); and, in its final week of performances following an early closing announcement, The Little Prince ($330,668, 53%).Mr.