Broadway box office tumbled last week, dropping 26% from the previous week to a combined tally of $22,511,627 for the 31 productions. Attendance for the week ending Dec. 19 – a week marked by the emergence in New York of the Omicron covid variant and the beginning of a rush of Broadway cancellations – was down 23% to 184,227.
The previous week, ending Dec. 12, saw box office receipts of $30,533,809, with attendance at 240,602.
Next week’s box office chart – which will reflect numbers for this week – will no doubt show an even greater decline, as various productions have canceled additional performances due to Covid.
Among the productions that canceled performances last week were Moulin Rouge!, Hamilton, Jagged Little Pill, Mrs. Doubtfire, MJ, Tina – The Tina Turner Musical and Freestyle Love Supreme.
The Broadway League is not releasing box office numbers for individual shows this season, in a break with tradition, so the exact financial impact of the cancelations on each particular production is unverifiable. But the combined box office numbers indicate a significant toll on the industry as a result of the Covid surge.
In total, the 31 Broadway shows last week staged a combined 191 performances, a drop of 19% from the previous week’s 235 performances of 32 shows.
The season-to-date box office (since Aug. 4) for all Broadway shows is $310,424,595, with attendance of 2,476,217 at 84% of capacity. Average ticket price for the season is $125.
Productions on Broadway during the week ending Dec. 19 were: Ain’t Too Proud; Aladdin; The Book of Mormon; Caroline, or Change; Chicago; Clyde’s; Come From Away; Company; David Byrne’s American Utopia; Dear Evan Hansen; Diana, The Musical; Flying Over Sunset; Girl From the North Country; Hadestown; Hamilton; Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; Jagged Little Pill; The Lehman Trilogy; The Lion King; MJ; Moulin Rouge! The Musical!; Mrs. Doubtfire; The Phantom of the Opera; Six; Slave Play; Thoughts of a Colored Man; Tina; To Kill a Mockingbird; Trouble In Mind; Waitress; and Wicked.
All figures courtesy of the trade group Broadway League.