Sunset Blvd., Jamie Lloyd’s revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical starring Nicole Scherzinger and Tom Francis, topped the $1 million mark in weekly grosses last week, filling the St. James Theatre for all six previews and joining the ranks of McNeal and Romeo + Juliet as Broadway‘s most recent powerhouse newcomers.
Though it fell short of sell-out with attendance at about 93% capacity, Sunset Blvd. took in a strong $1,075,922 for the week ending October 6. Opening night for the revival is October 20.
Staying strong was Romeo + Juliet, director Sam Gold’s Shakespeare adaptation starring Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler, at standing room only for 7 previews at Circle in the Square and a $950,099 take. Opening night is October 24.
McNeal, with Robert Downey Jr. in his Broadway debut, had a good opening week at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater, filling the venue and grossing $969,768 for six performances.
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Also opening last week – to better reviews but lesser business – was Yellow Face, starring Daniel Dae Kim at the Roundabout’s Todd Haimes Theatre, filling about 88% of seats and grossing $298,725.
Other shows in previews include Our Town, Kenny Leon’s staging of the Thornton Wilder classic with Jim Parsons leading a big starry cast, filled 74% of seats at the Barrymore, grossing $562,408. Opening night is October 10. Left on Tenth, the Susan Stroman-directed romantic comedy based on the Delia Ephron memoir and starring Julianna Margulies and Peter Gallagher, grossed $466,850 with 7 previews, filling 69% of seats at the James Earl Jones Theatre. Opening night is October 23.
Of the 32 shows on the boards last week, five sold out – McNeal, Oh, Mary!, Romeo + Juliet, The Outsiders and Wicked, while Hadestown, Hell’s Kitchen, Moulin Rouge!, Stereophonic, The Book of Mormon and Wicked came very close.
Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, newly starring Adam Lambert and Auli’I Cravalho, was still finding its new legs, taking a pretty steep tumble since the show’s peak weeks with Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin. And Lambert called out of last Friday’s show, resulting in a large number of refunded or rescheduled tickets, with the weekly gross of $938,186 down $51,615 from the previous week. Attendance was at 87% of capacity for the week at the revamped August Wilson.
Water For Elephants saw an uptick in business following its December 8 closing announcement, jumping $32,137 over the previous week to $656,034. Attendance at the Imperial remained at a lackluster 62% though.
In all, the 32 Broadway shows took in $29,633,660 for the week ending October 6, up about 12% from the previous week and 10% from the same time last year. Attendance was 253,475, up 8% from the previous week, 20% from last season. About 87% of available seats were filled.
Season to date, Broadway, in the 20th week of the 2024-25 season, has grossed $615,653,855, up about 8% over last year at this time, with total attendance of 4,994,986 up about 7%.
All figures courtesy of The Broadway League. For complete box office listings, visit the League’s website.