Broadway’s West Side Story and A Christmas Carol broke house records at their respective theaters last week as holiday business kept overall box office very sturdy. From the previous week, the 34 Broadway productions climbed 5% to a $40,645,773 box office total. The figure pushes Broadway’s season-to-date total past $1 billion.
Total attendance of 302,372 for the week ending Dec. 22 held steady from the prior week, with the boost in revenue attributable in large part to a bump in average ticket price: $134 compared to the previous week’s $128.
Director Ivo van Hove’s West Side Story, in its second week of previews, hit an impressive $1,497,319 with just seven preview performances, SRO with a strong average ticket price of $123. The seven-show take topples the Broadway Theatre’s previous house record of $1,479,890 set with a full roster of eight performances in 2013 by Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella.
At the Lyceum Theatre, Matthew Warchus’ fine staging of A Christmas Carol, the Dickens chestnut poignantly adapted by Jack Thorne, grossed $860,126, breaking the house record of $823,011 set by itself the previous week. (The Lyceum’s previous record of $804,513 was set in 2017 by the Nick Kroll-John Mulaney comedy Oh, Hello).
Reaching or surpassing full box office potential (or close enough, with grosses hitting at least 99% of a production’s potential) were A Christmas Carol, Ain’t Too Proud, David Byrne’s American Utopia, Beetlejuice, Dear Evan Hansen, Frozen, Hadestown, Hamilton, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Mean Girls, Moulin Rouge!, The Book of Mormon, Tina – The Tina Turner Musical, To Kill A Mockingbird, West Side Story and Wicked.
Not all shows took part in the pre-holiday feast: Coming in at 50% of their potential or lower were Slava’s Snowshow, Slave Play, The Inheritance, The Lightning Thief, The Sound Inside and Tootsie.
Season to date, Broadway has grossed $1,004,439,001, down about 7% year to year. Total attendance to date is 8,252,005, about even with last season at this time.
All figures courtesy of the trade group Broadway League.