Grace Ake (2:50)

I mean, it's a year of big musicals, big celebrities and big houses in plays. I mean, you've got Good Night and Good Luck at the Winter Garden. Now you have Glengarry Glen Ross at the Palace. I don't know, Maybe. Maybe we get Night Mother at, you know, the Radio City Music Hall. I don't know, Matt. Like, I think it's crazy, but it's exciting. And I'm. I'm very interested to see audiences coming, hopefully in droves to these big houses to see these plays. I'm very, very interested in that.

Matt Tammini (3:24)

Okay, sounds good. I love that. There was one. There was one rumor at one point a number of years ago where Oprah and Audra were going to do Night Mother together. If they did that in Radio City Music hall, that might make some sense. But who knows? We will have to wait and see if anything like that ever plays there. We did get a couple of stories over the past 24 hours, Grace, where they are related. So I'm going to start with maybe the one that's not as big, but it'll feed into the next one. And the first one is that the Off Broadway commercial run of the musical Teeth has set its final performance Off Broadway at New World Stages. It will close up on January 5th. That is the musical by Michael R. Jackson and Anna K. Jacobs that had previously played at Playwrights Horizons in the spring of 2024 and then moved to New World Stages for a commercial run. Most of the cast transferred with it from Playwrights to New World Stages. But one of the people that was new to this production was Andy Karl, so keep him in mind. But if you want to see this show, you can make sure you head over New world stages by January 5th. I saw it. It was great. I'm very sad that it's not going to have a longer commercial Off Broadway run so more people get to see it. But you can also listen to the cast album wherever you listen to your music. But speaking of Andy Karl, yesterday we also found out that he would be joining the Broadway production of Moulin Rouge. He will be taking over the role of the duke beginning on January 28th. And he will be sticking with the show through July 20th. He will also be joined by Samantha Dodemaid, who I believe played the role of Nini in the Australian production of Moulin Rouge. So she is going to be making her Broadway debut. They will replace David David Harris and Sophie Carmen Jones in those roles. Once Andy Karl is done with his run in July, David Harris will return to the role of the Duke. So, Grace, you are a well known and established Groundhog Day fan. What does this mean for you to have Andy Karl back on Broadway in Moulin Rouge?

Grace Ake (5:41)

I'm like, careful, Matt. I do love that show. I do love that show and I love the role of the Duke. I think that David is incredible as the Duke. I just want to go on the record to say that I think this is also very good casting. Like, I do. I do love that Andy will be in this role. This is a new era for Andy Carl. Like, I think obviously we are entering a new Andy Carl era that is not the previous Saturday Night Fever, Groundhog Day, Rocky, Andy Karl. We are now in post Groundhog Day, overseas Teeth, the Musical, Moulin Rouge. I think it's just, I don't know, like, the new roles are very, very different from what I would have said. Like, oh, that's. I could see Andy Carl going into that show. Right. So I'm very excited. I can't wait to hear what he does in the Only Girl in the World and all that good stuff because he's gonna be great. I hope I get to see him. But in terms of, you know, the new Moulin Rouge casting, we got the update. They would be welcoming Boy George back. A lot of people had a lot of, like, what raised eyebrow with that? So I think that the eyebrow has been lowered back down to, yes, this is right. This is right.

Matt Tammini (6:56)

All right. We will see how that new casting impacts the grosses, but let's dive in and see exactly where Moulin Rouge is on the grosses ladder. Coming up from last week. In total, Broadway had 37 shows running last week. And coming out of the Thanksgiving holiday, things obviously came back down to earth. But they weren't nearly as much as I thought they might be. They did decline by 9%. But overall, Broadway gross 40, $42,021,721 and attendance dipped to 309,802 bucks. The average ticket price was at $135.64 at the top of the ladder continues to be Wicked, pushing closer and closer to $3 million. Even though it declined about 147k last week, it still ended up grossing $2,782,795. The Lion King was next on the list at just under 2.5 million. Then Hamilton, a third show above 2 million. Then we had Sunset Boulevard and Elf. Rounding out the show's north of seven figures in descending order are mj, Gypsy, the Outsiders, Aladdin, Hell's Kitchen, the Great Gatsby, Death Becomes her, the aforementioned Moulin Rouge, Cursed Child, O mary cabaret, the KitKat Club, the book of Mormon and Juliet, Back to the Future and Suffs. Rounding things out, Water for Elephants in its final week on Broadway was very close, picking up an extra $163,000 to come in at just under 958,000 overall. Grace A really good week on Broadway and what's encouraging is is that the bottom seven shows on the gross's ladder all saw fairly significant increases week over week. The Roommate was the only one that was under $55,000 increase, but they only did so Eureka Day, Cult of Love, the Roommate, Tammy Faye and its final week on Broadway, the Hills of California left on 10th and swept away all saw improvements from $57,000 up to $160,000. So it's encouraging to know that it wasn't just the big family musicals that were packing in a bunch of people, but it was the shows that had not been doing nearly as well that were getting some love from some extra butts in seats and some extra dollars being spent at the box office last week. In total, 23 shows played in 90% capacity on Broadway last week or more. Two of them were at exactly 100%. That was Wicked and O Mary. The Outsiders was the Top show at 101.86%. Speaking of ticket sales, Grace, coming up on Friday there will be a special lottery over at O Mary where you can get tickets for just one performance for $5. And the reason is that is to celebrate mary Todd Lincoln's 206th birthday. It'll be an in person five dollar lottery ticket for Friday's show. Those interested will need to be at the lyceum theater between 3:30 and 4:30 and you have that, that's when you enter and then they will announce the winners at 4:30 for that night's show. Every winner can get two tickets but you can only have one entry per person. So I love this Grace. It is a little cheeky to be celebrating her one or 206th birthday but if any show is going to make something like that happen and also give a little bit more accessibility to tickets, it makes a lot of sense for a Mary to pull something fun like that.

Grace Ake (10:26)

I know, it's so. I love that there's like a ham for ham and then there's a Lincoln for Lincoln. Like, what? What else can we do?

Matt Tammini (10:35)

I didn't even think about that. Yeah, that's brilliant. Of course. So smart.

Grace Ake (10:41)

Yeah. So I'm just wondering what the next thing is.

Matt Tammini (10:45)

We gotta get a wash. You know, a show about George Washington. You know, do a Washington for Washington or something.

Grace Ake (10:51)

Yeah, Hamilton kind of does that. So maybe we'll make a musical about the wooden teeth or something.

Matt Tammini (10:58)

I love. I love it. Love it.

Grace Ake (11:00)

This is what happens when we're recording, by the way, when I'm on like seasonal allergy medication, like, I just apologize.

Matt Tammini (11:08)

It's all right. I love the idea. A whole musical about wooden teeth. I'm here for it. All right, Grace, I've got two feel good recommendations, and the first one comes to us from the Kelly Clarkson show when we had a little bit of a SpongeBob SquarePants reunion. Because the two guests on Kelly's show earlier this week were the star of the upcoming Peacock comedy series, Laid, Stephanie Hsu, and one of the stars of the Wicked movies, Ethan Slater. They, of course, they of course co starred in SpongeBob on Broadway. So they had a nice little chat and Kelly asked if they kept in touch and if they'd seen each other since they stopped working together. And Stephanie revealed that not only do they keep in touch, that she actually called him earlier in the week just to tell him how much she loved Wicked. And he broke it to her that they were going to be on Kelly Clarkson together. So it was very fun, very, very sweet. And they have some nice throwback pictures from their time in spongebob, so check that out. But then also, Grace, this one is also something that I know that you love quite a bit. Stark Sands and Adrian Blake Insko went over to the Playbill studios and performed the song Murder in the City from Swept Away. Obviously they play Brothers at the center of this show and it's a great song and they sound amazing together. And if you don't really understand what the of the Avett Brothers sounds like or how it translates to musical theater, you should definitely check out this song. The show is scheduled to close on Sunday, December 15, so if you want to make sure that you see it, you need to get over to the Longacre asap.

Grace Ake (12:46)

Yeah, I just have to say that, like, it's my favorite song in the show. I love where it falls in the show, but it's my favorite Ava Brothers song, so knowing that it was going to be in the show made me really happy. But I just love their voices on it. I love Adrian's voice. If you have fallen in love, as many of us have, with Adrian and Adrienne's work, I think that I need them, regardless of, like, the Swept Away album that's, you know, forthcoming. I need them to record more. I know that people are big fans of Bandits on the Run, which is their band, along with their spouse and then I think a best friend, they write musicals. You know what I mean? And this group, I think we should all be. That should be also on your radar. You should be looking out for their stuff going forward.

Matt Tammini (13:28)

All right, that's all that we've got for you today. Thanks for listening to today on Broadway. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Arduino, you can follow me on Instagram @BWW Met Grace. Where can people find you?

Grace Ake (13:36)

You can find me at its Grace Hockey.

Matt Tammini (13:37)

All right, everybody, have a wonderful Wednesday, and we will talk to you tomorrow.