Last week should have been what they call on Broadway a “boffo” box office week there. But with the subway and bus network hit by a strike shutdown for three days, there were many casualties – with particularly noticeable ones at the recently opened Broadway transfer for The Woman in White (down $276,197 or 19.8% attendance on the previous week, to come in at 53% capacity from 72.8% the previous week) and the soon-to-shutter Sweet Charity (down $173,274 or 19.9% attendance on the previous week, to come in at 56.2% capacity from 76.2% the previous week).
In fact, The Woman in White’s box office performance marks a particularly worrying fall to near the bottom of the musicals table – only Chita Rivera’s A Dancer’s Life and the soon-to-close Fiddler on the Roof, at 45% and 52.1%, scored lower. And it can’t all be blamed on the transport strike: a hit’s a hit under any conditions, and the long-running The Lion King and Wicked actually registered box office gains on the previous week.
The current week, however, is usually one of the strongest of the entire year, so it will be interesting to see where we stand next week, without the transport difficulties. I will keep you posted….
Declining audiences for Broadway musicals is neither bad or for that matter surprising. Broadway is undergoing a very interesting set of changes at the moment. As more and more musicals are moving out of the Big Apple and into Las Vegas the public are prefering to go and watch the LION KING or SPAMALOT in SIN CITY rather than Time Square. Thus more and more plays are moving into Broadway as more and more musicals are moving out. Therefore if Broadway becomes the traditional home of the playwrite and Vegas becomes the tradional home of the musical I think that can only be a good thing.