Holiday tourist traffic helped hit musical 'Wicked' claim Broadway's highest weekly gross ever.
'The Lion King' was among several shows posting record grosses during the week between Christmas and New Year's Day.
The 28 shows on the boards in the frame ending Jan. 1 raked in the highest weekly gross in Rialto history, a walloping $25,230,783.
That's nearly $9.7 million more than the previous week, and more than $3 million above the yield from the same sesh last year.
With Gotham full of holiday tourists, the week between Christmas and New Year's traditionally brings a giant spike in legit biz. More than a dozen shows helped drive up the tally by adding an extra perf for the holiday week.
"Wicked" ($1,610,934) posted the highest weekly gross in Broadway history with just its usual eight-show week.
And the No. 2 earner, "The Lion King" ($1,455,498), also did its best biz ever with eight.
Set to become the longest-running Broadway show in history Jan. 9, "The Phantom of the Opera" ($1,266,443) proved it still packs a punch. Playing nine performances during the frame, show reported its highest-grossing week and its best single year, earning almost $39 million in 2005.
Also among those breaking house records with nine perfs were "Monty Python's Spamalot" ($1,407,585), "The Color Purple" ($1,394,446), "Mamma Mia!" ($1,381,821), "Beauty and the Beast" ($1,229,825) and "Doubt" ($603,566).
"Color Purple" also touted the fact that its advance had climbed to $16 million.
Breaking records at their venues with eight-show weeks were "Jersey Boys" ($975,836), "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" ($573,557) and "Avenue Q" ($553,735).
Attendance for the week was 283,923, and the League of American Theaters & Producers reported a total weekly capacity of 93.9%, the second-highest in history.
Contact Gordon Cox at
gordon.cox@variety.com