Broadway Grosses Analysis: The Wiz Eases Off Broadway With Highest Gross of Entire Run
Plus, Oh, Mary! has broken the Lyceum house record with earnings placing it in The $1 Million Club.
Graphic by Vi Dang
With temperatures high and one less show to see, Broadway box offices saw a cumulative dip of more than 8% last week, nearly matching the 7% drop in attendance. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t some winners.
Sleeper hit The Wiz, which played its final performance August 18, closed to the highest grosses of its successful run—$1.95 million. It caps off a remarkable success for a production that was left fully empty handed on this year’s Tony Award nomination day, proving that sometimes audiences don’t care so much about awards. The production is going back out on the road (the Main Stem run itself was preceded by a pre-Broadway tour) next year, relaunching in Rochester, New York, beginning February 25. If its Broadway success is any indication, the revival can likely look forward to a long yellow brick road!
The Wiz‘s box office success landed it in the top five highest grossers for the second week in a row, this time beating out Hamilton and Cabaret for the number-three spot (mainstays The Lion King and Wicked took the top two).
Another winner was Oh, Mary! Formerly a downtown Off-Broadway cult hit, Cole Escola’s wacky comedy has proved a mainstream Broadway success, too. Last week saw the highest gross yet of the play’s run, bringing in $1.06 million. The total broke the house record at the Lyceum for the second time so far (the first time was the week ending July 21).
Overall, it seemed like a somewhat sleepy week for Broadway. Only five shows (The Wiz; Cabaret; Oh, Mary!; Suffs; and Moulin Rouge! The Musical) saw increases from the week previous. Summer is on its way out, and school has started back up again for much of the country, which is probably putting a damper on summer vacations.
But that just means the fall season will be fast upon us. We recently added Job and Once Upon a Mattress to the boards, and we’ll soon have The Roommate, The Hills of California, and McNeal up and running as well.
Take a look at the full report here.
The $1 Million Club (shows that earned $1 million or more at the box office):
(13 of 25 currently running productions)
The 90s Club (shows that played to 90% or higher of their seats filled over the entire week):
- The Outsiders (102.17%)
- The Wiz (100.8%)
- Hadestown (100.22%)
- Oh, Mary! (100%)
- Once Upon a Mattress (100%)
- Stereophonic
- Hell’s Kitchen
- Moulin Rouge! The Musical
- Cabaret
- & Juliet
- The Lion King
- Wicked
- Aladdin
- The Great Gatsby
- The Book of Mormon
- Hamilton
(16 of 25 currently running productions)