Broadway Grosses Analysis: Parade Rises Above the Haters and Plays to Sold-Out Crowds in 1st Week | Playbill

Grosses Broadway Grosses Analysis: Parade Rises Above the Haters and Plays to Sold-Out Crowds in 1st Week

Previews of the Jason Robert Brown-Alfred Uhry musical's revival were met by neo-Nazi protesters.

Graphic by Vi Dang

The first preview of Broadway's new revival of Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry's Parade was met by neo-Nazi protesters—but if there was any concern that the dust up would negatively impact sales, that wasn't born out in the production's first week on the boards. If anything, the free press and community support the anti-Semitic agitators helped inspire may have been a boon to the production, which played to more than 100% capacity houses last week and brought in $587,006 at the box office in just four performances—more than respectable for a brand new production's first week of previews.

And, the revival is just one of several new productions with encouraging grosses during previews. A Doll's House, starring recent SAG Award winner Jessica Chastain, pulled in the most impressive grosses of Broadway's newest crop with $811,261 in receipts, followed by Bad Cinderella with $684,822.

Also new to the boards and showing early success is the revival of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Sweeney Todd, led by Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford. The Thomas Kail-directed musical only played its first preview last week, but clearly audiences were eager for an early look. Every seat was filled at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, bringing in $260,691. If the production can keep that up across a full eight-performance week, it would be the second highest-grossing production on Broadway behind only the moment's current hot ticket The Phantom of the Opera. We'll have to wait for next week's numbers for a clearer look at this particular Broadway newcomer.

The top five was yet again dominated by The Phantom of the OperaHamilton, and The Lion KingFunny Girl, a usual top fiver, dropped down last week with its stars Lea Michele and Ramin Karimloo both out on pre-scheduled vacations, letting Wicked and MJ The Musical close out the top five in its absence.

Broadway also continues to be incredibly well attended on the whole, with cumulative capacity percentages hovering in the low to mid 90s—only five of the 23 currently running productions played to less than 90% full houses. The larger houses are still bringing in the most number of individual theatregoers. WickedAladdin, and The Lion King continued their dominance of that particular metric with totals of 14,633, 13,767, and 13,548 tickets sold, respectively, last week. If you're wondering why those shows still all got beat out in box-office totals, compare Phantom's average ticket price of $198.34 and top ticket price of $497 to Wicked's $121.75 average and $275 top.

Take a look at the full report here.

The $1 Million Club (Shows that earned $1 million or more at the box office):

(10 of 23 currently running productions)


The 90s Club
(Shows that played to 90% or higher of their seats filled over the entire week):

  • The Phantom of the Opera (101.65%)
  • Hamilton (101.17%)
  • & Juliet (100.58%)
  • Parade (100.44%)
  • Hadestown (100.19%)
  • Moulin Rouge! The Musical (100.19%)
  • Sweeney Todd (100%)
  • MJ The Musical
  • The Lion King
  • Aladdin
  • Chicago
  • The Book of Mormon
  • SIX: The Musical
  • Wicked
  • Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
  • A Doll's House
  • Kimberly Akimbo
  • Bad Cinderella

(18 of 23 currently running productions)

 
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