Holiday weekend boosts Broadway
Sales heat up over 'Hot Tin Roof'
|
The starry revival, with a cast toplined by Terrence Howard, Anika Noni Rose, James Earl Jones and Phylicia Rashad, brought in $678,305 in its first eight previews, playing to houses filled to 88% of capacity.
Meanwhile, crowd-pleasing tuners benefited from the influx of holiday weekend biz. "The Color Purple" ($735,311) jumped by more than $290,000 and "Mary Poppins" ($975,067) floated up almost $245,000. "Rent" ($526,013), "The Lion King" ($1,168,780) and "Monty Python's Spamalot" ($826,302) all went up by more than $200,000 each.
But those weren't the only musicals with rising receipts. "Hairspray" ($750,390), "Legally Blonde" ($738,942), "Chicago" ($485,269), "Grease" ($711,050) and "The Phantom of the Opera" ($726,995) stepped up by more than $150,000 each, while "Curtains" ($582,440) and "Spring Awakening" ($607,961) also saw six-figure increases.
The only downturn of the frame was a negligible $5,000 slip at "Sunday in the Park with George" ($367,988), attributable to the start of press perfs over the weekend.
The lineup of plays weren't left out of the good news, even if they got predictably smaller bumps. "November" ($446,566), up more than $65,000, saw the largest nontuner increase of the frame, with "A Bronx Tale" ($317,358) and "The Farnsworth Invention" ($250,039) climbing almost as much. "August: Osage County" ($571,349) and "Is He Dead?" ($209,776) were both up around $35,000 each.
Of previewing tuners, "In the Heights" ($366,862) played its first six perfs to auds at 83% of capacity, while "Passing Strange" ($101,495) struggled to pull in theatergoers.
(Receipts for the week ending Feb. 3 were incorrect in the story printed in Gotham Daily Variety Feb. 12. Corrected version of the story can be found at Variety.com.)
