Broadway Grosses Analysis: Robert Downey Jr.-Led McNeal Brings in Almost $1 Million in a 5-Performance Week
The Oppenheimer film star and Academy Award winner is leading the new Ayad Akhtar play at Lincoln Center Theater.
Graphic by Vi Dang
The upcoming Broadway season has lots of A-list stars coming to the boards, and last week on Broadway may be showing us that this was an excellent strategy. Lincoln Center Theater’s McNeal, which stars Academy Award winner Robert Downey Jr., played just five previews last week (the typical Broadway week includes eight performances) but brought in nearly $1 million—$954,624 to be exact. Next week will be the show’s first with the production’s typical full schedule of seven performances, and if ticket sales remain that healthy, we might just be seeing major numbers at the box office.
With 1,095 seats, Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater is not one of Broadway’s largest, but McNeal‘s healthy average ticket price of $174.36 is letting it perform that well despite the lack of seats. It’s also got one of the highest top ticket prices currently on the boards: $349. If that star power translates into similar ticket sales for Broadway’s upcoming starry productions like Gypsy (to star Audra McDonald) and Othello (to star Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal), we might have a very fortuitous spring ahead on the Main Stem. We’ll cross our fingers and stay tuned.
Elsewhere, Cabaret also saw a six-plus-figure increase compared to the week previous, likely as theatregoers took in Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin’s Tony-nominated performances one last time. Both departed the production alongside fellow original company members Ato Blankson-Wood and Natascia Diaz September 14. The box-office boost took it from fourth to third highest-grossing on Broadway last week, bested only by top five mainstays Wicked and The Lion King. Hamilton and Hell’s Kitchen took the fourth and fifth slots.
McNeal helped fortunes rise on Broadway overall, which saw a cumulative 7% increase compared to the week before, which translated into a total gross of $27,262,406. Thanks to a busy summer, it currently appears that this season is outperforming the last, and by more than 7%. Attendance is up, too, by almost 5%, compared to this time last season. More than 94% of seats were filled last week, with an average ticket price of $116.19. Producers will likely be looking for that number to rise in the coming weeks, but it’s an admirable performance in what is typically a slower time on Broadway as schools start back up again. It also bears mentioning that last week was the final days of Broadway Week, a promotion offering two-for-one tickets to many shows. With that alone, we should start to see that average ticket price start climbing again with next week’s numbers.
Take a look at the full report here.
The $1 Million Club (shows that earned $1 million or more at the box office):
(11 of 28 currently running productions)
The 90s Club (shows that played to 90% or higher of their seats filled over the entire week):
(21 of 28 currently running productions)
