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Hello and welcome to Broadway Radio's Grosses report for Wednesday, May 6, 2026. We're gonna look back at all of the Data from the 49th week of the 2025, 2026 Broadway season. That will be the week that day, May 3rd. After I get through the grosses. There are a number of fairly big stories that we need to cover that are not Tony's related. Although we did go through all of the Tony nominations yesterday and we will have tons more about the Tony Awards coming up in the weeks leading up to the ceremony. But starting at the box office. Last week there were 40 shows on Broadway and they grossed a total of $39,259,008. That was down 3% from last week and down 9% from last year. I went back and looked with a little bit of help from Greg Evans and Deadline, pointing to some of the really high priced tickets that were selling like hotcakes last year, mainly because of star vehicles. We had Othello with Jake Gyllenhaal and Denzel Washington. Good night and good Luck with George Clooney and Picture of Dorian Gray with Sarah Snook. We don't really have anything like that on Broadway this year. Obviously there are still certainly stars, but not necessarily at the magnitude of a Denzel Washington, Jake Gyllenhaal or George Clooney specifically. So that is really what seems to be accounting for the difference in the overall grosses from year to year. But still having an average at just about around $1 million a show per week is good. Obviously. Of course, not all of the shows are actually making $1 million. That's how averages work. But it's not a terrible number, even though it does appear to be down from the previous season. In total though, attendance is down from not only last week, but last year as well, coming at 321,900 people. And the average ticket price is at $129.94. That's actually up about a buck and a half from last week, but down about seven and a half dollars from last year. Unsurprisingly, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child continues to be the highest grosser on Broadway to come in at $2,290,728 followed by Hamilton at $1.8 million, the Lion King at 1.7, Every Brilliant Thing also at 1.7, just a little lower. And then Moulin Rouge in the final week even though she finished on Friday. So not the full week, but the final performances of Megan thee stallion at 1.69 million. The rest of the shows north of seven figures in descending order. Actually, Chicago was in sixth in Whitney Levitt and Mark Ballas his final week and it was just a couple hundred bucks, $304 out of fifth place behind Moulin Rouge. Then you had oh Mary, which set a not only a production but a Lyceum House record during Maya Rudolph's first week as Mary Todd Lincoln at 1.5 million. They actually also had the largest gross for a single performance in history at the Lyceum as well. Then you had Death of a Salesman, mj, Wicked Giant in just seven performances, Ragtime Aladdin and Lost Boys. Lost Boys came in at $1,003,881. Of course it opened at the end of that week, so there were some pretty highly comp performances and it only had 85% capacity at a Palace. Now of course the palace is a gigantic theater, so I would imagine that trying to ride the wave of being the most Tony nominated new musical of the season. It's a tie with Schmigadoon, but that will certainly be something that they push to try to increase not only their average ticket price but their capacity as well. Other shows that opened last week that I want to point to, Unfortunately Beaches, which did not have a single Tony nomination yesterday, is not doing great, although it did have a $43,000 bump from the previous week coming at $520,119. However, the really concerning sign is the fact that it played to only 47.8% capacity, the lowest on Broadway last week. I would imagine that by this time next week we will know that this show is closing. I have a feeling and heard some rumblings that it might have already been planning to close either last Sunday or this coming Sunday, but they were holding out hope for a Jessica Vosk Tony nomination or maybe some other ones and that just didn't come. So I would imagine that we will be hearing about a Beaches closing date sooner rather than later and that will end this show's run even earlier than it had already been planned as a limited run in September. Another show to keep an eye on here is my beloved Six. This was actually the second lowest grosser on the boards last week ahead of only the Ballisters, but again, that's a subscription house play. But six came in at only $435,385 last week and played to only 58 and a half percent capacity. This is another show that, like Death Becomes her and Ann Juliet and Operation Mincemeat are seeing declines at this time of year when there are new shows that are attracting not only the regular theater goers but tourists and people are opting to go for the new thing that has more marketing behind it. So I've long been nervous about Six potentially wrapping things up. I would not be surprised if January is when we see the end of that. I hope it makes it to January. You know, it could also be Labor Day, but I feel like they will probably try to ride out this summer and then try to get through the holidays one more time to wrap it up in January after hitting the highs of the holidays. It's already recouped so it doesn't need to make a ton. But I figure one more good holiday season would be a good time for six to close. In total, of Broadway's 40 shows, 20 played to 90% capacity or more. Just two were at or above 100%. Every Brilliant Thing 100% and Chicago again. Whitney Levitt, Mark Vallis 101.7 again. Last week was the 49th in the 20252026 Broadway season. In total, the Great White Way has grossed $1,793,557. That is up just around 5% from this time last year while total attendance is up 2% to come in at $13,603,156. Of course, always interesting this time of year to see how shows that were well represented at the Tony Awards are able to translate that into increases in capacity and average ticket price. And then of course those two things feed into the weekly grosses and then house shows that weren't necessarily as fortunate on Tony nomination day are able to kind of continue to push the marketing and highlight the things that have gone well for them. The one show that I'm obviously really interested in seeing how they are able to hopefully pick things up as two strangers carry a cake across New York. It was the lowest grossing new musical of the season. Last week was actually fourth lowest overall to come in at just $506,589 at just under a 69% capacity. But with nominations for both of the shows stars, the only two people in the show Best Musical nomination as well, hopefully they are able to kind of ride some of that momentum and turn this into a positive for them and keep that one running for a long time over the Longacre. I think this is a very, very open best musical race. But to me I still have not seen Lost Boys. I'll see that later this afternoon, but that feels like to me my favorite show. Loved Titanic but again haven't seen Lost Boys. Schmigadoon didn't do it for me, but that's what I would go for for new musical as of now. So I'm hoping that they're able to find a way to continue that run. Alright, let's make a pivot real quick and talk about a few major news stories. And the most newsworthy thing happening on Broadway this week is the fact that unfortunately on Monday morning the Eugene o' Neill Theater celebrated suffered a fairly substantial fire. There was a three alarm fire on the roof of the Eugene o' Neill Theater which is where Book of Mormon is playing. No one was inside the theater so there were not any injuries to Eugene o' Neill's staff. However, one firefighter did sustain some injuries. Apparently the production has canceled performances for a couple days. From what people are saying on social media and around the Broadway sphere, it probably will be a lot longer than that. It does not look very good. There aren't a ton of confirmed details at this point, although we know there was an electrical fire and as of now the New York Times is reporting that the show will be closed indefinitely. There was substantial damage to the fourth floor according to the New York Fire Department, as well as in the electrical room which contains the lighting equipment and hanging chandeliers. So that's obviously something if you're dealing with issues with the lighting equipment. You can't do a Broadway show without lighting, so this is obviously something to keep an eye on. I am currently on the Book of Mormon website. It still just says quote, out of an abundance of caution for the cast and company of the Book of Mormon, performances will be canceled on Tuesday, May 5, yesterday and Wednesday, May 6. That's today. Please contact your point of purchase with any questions. As of now, they are still selling tickets for Thursday at 7pm I don't know if that's going to happen. Hopefully things are able to be cleaned up pretty quickly. But it does look pretty significant and I would be shocked if there are not further cancellations. Going from one shock to a different kind of shock, guys, we have a new Broadway show beginning performances next week. No, you heard me. It was announced on Monday. That celebrity autobiography, which has run off Broadway and in spaces around New York City for a long time and had much pretty previously planned on coming to Broadway, is finally going to make its Broadway debut at the Shubert theater beginning on May 16 with an opening on May 18. The show was supposed to be on Broadway in 2018, but ended up canceling that run, presumably because it was not selling specifically well. But this is a show that welcomes in stars of various levels of fame and they act out, quote, unintentionally hilarious autobiographies of other celebrities. Some of the names that are going to be involved in the opening group of performers are Mario Cantone, Jeff Hiller, Jackie Hoffman, Gayle King, Andrea Martin, Bobby Moynihan, Kenan Thompson, Nia Bardalas, Rita Wilson and more. Other folks who are set to be rotating in include Pamela Avlon, Lewis Black, Christie Brinkley, Danny Burstein, Bob Costas, Tate Donovan, Chloe Feynman, Will Forte, Gina Gershon, Kathy Griffin, Christopher Jackson, Ken Jeong, Stuart Lane, Susan Lucci, Ralph Macchio, Donna McKechnie, Eric McCormack, Sherry O', Terry, Tyler Peck, Billy Porter, Tony Shalhoub, Sherry Shepherd, Molly Shannon, Jennifer Tilly, Bruce Valanch and others. You know, not superstars by any means, but it'll be interesting to see if this actually does find an audience as kind of like a filler thing. The one note I will make about the show is that it has a crazy schedule. Performances are not going to align with the traditional Broadway theater schedule. After opening, they only are doing shows Wednesday through Sunday, but they are doing evening shows on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Friday and then a 5pm on Saturday and a 9pm on Saturday and then a 2pm and a 6pm on Sundays. So if you are looking for a way to kind of like sneak in shows at different times, that might be an option for you. And then finally, the Pulitzer Prize for drama was announced earlier this week and the winner was Best Wolves Liberation, which I thought was a tremendous honor to a show that I am kind of thinking like it now gets back into the race for best play. Generally you don't think about best plays being those that have been closed for months. It closed on February 1st. But I think this certainly gives the opportunity for this show to really tout that success and potentially win that award this season. The other Pulitzer finalists were Bull EP by Nazareth Hassan and Meet the Cartosians by Talene Monaghan. And that's one that I imagine will be on Broadway sooner rather than later. All right, everybody, that is all that we have for you today. Thanks so much for supporting Broadway Radio. If you want more Broadway Radio, head over to patreon.com broadwayradio and keep an eye out for our new Broadway Radio app. Thanks again for listening. This is Matt Timminetti and I'll talk to you.
