Tony Nominations Proving Slow To Boost Broadway Box Office
Spring was finally in the air this week. That, combined with two closings (The Heidi Chronicles and Living On Love), a curtailed run (just six performances for Hedwig And The Angry Inch, returning to normal this week) and plenty of freebies going out to Tony voters, resulted in a less-than-exciting surge in the wake of Tuesday’s announcement of this year’s crop of nominees for the Tony Awards, which will be handed out June 7.
Many of the top nominees were up
over the previous week but only incrementally: Best Musical contender Fun Home got a nice bump of $96K at the junior-size Circle in the Square, filling nearly all of the 730 seats per performance. Hand To God eked out a $2.8K lift at the Booth to $346K, 51% of gross potential but filling three-quarters of the 782 seats on average there.
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Two musicals, the much-nominated Something Rotten! and the non-nominated Finding Neverland, were building advance sales going into the summer, and Rotten showed an immediate boost of $84.4K over the week before at the St. James, hitting $801K or 77% of potential. Neverland beat the $1 million mark yet again, with a minimal decline of $3.5K at the Lunt-Fontanne. Best Musical nominee The Visit bumped $14K to $194, barely 25% of potential at the Lyceum despite the glowing reviews for star Chita Rivera.
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There were some major falloffs, as well, according to figures released by the trade group Broadway League: Les Miserables, down $153K; Matilda, down $260K; Wicked off $354K. Total box office for week 49 was $26.3 million for 35 shows, down 5% from the week before.
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