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Aleki77
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March 8, 2010, 6:51 pm
A $15.2 Million Week for Broadway
By PATRICK HEALY
Broadway box offices grossed a total of $15.2 million last week, a fairly typical performance for the first week of March as the spring theater season starts unfolding, according to show-by-show grosses provided by the producers on Monday.
But last weekend did not prove to be a financial blockbuster sought by the producers of one troubled show, the revival of “The Miracle Worker,” which has struggled to build an audience. The production began preview performances on Feb. 12 and opened last Wednesday.
David Richenthal, the lead producer of “The Miracle Worker,” starring Academy Award nominee Abigail Breslin as Helen Keller, warned on Friday that the show might close imminently if ticket sales failed to pick up over the weekend. According to the grosses, “The Miracle Worker” grossed $186,559 last week — about 13 percent more than the previous week, but still only 26.3 percent of the maximum potential amount that the show could have grossed last week. (Producers do not break out weekend grosses in their publicly available data, only providing grosses for an entire playing week of eight performances.)
Mr. Richenthal said by phone on Monday that he was assessing the data but that he has not made a decision about the future of the show, the first revival of “The Miracle Worker” on Broadway since the original Patty Duke-Anne Bancroft production closed in 1961.
That 26.3 percentage is quite low for Broadway, an indicator that a commercial production of a play — which opened on Wednesday — may not be earning enough money to meet its weekly running costs, let alone start making money that producers might someday receive to at least cover their initial investment.
The only other Broadway shows with percentages below 30 percent last week were three productions that have just begun preview performances: The new musical “All About Me” (starring Dame Edna Everage and Michael Feinstein) and the new plays “Looped” (starring Valerie Harper of television’s “Rhoda”) and “Next Fall,” the transfer of the critically praised production that ran Off Broadway last summer.
The overall Broadway gross of $15.2 million was a gain on the previous week, when a snowstorm in New York was a factor in depressing the overall gross to $14.2 million. During the 2008-9 season on Broadway, the equivalent gross for the first week in March was $15.7 million.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/...k-for-broadway/'Miracle Worker' on B'way May Shutter
By ELLEN GAMERMAN
"The Miracle Worker" is off to a shaky start. On Friday, two days after the play opened on Broadway, producer David Richenthal released a statement saying that unless the show fared better at the box office over the weekend, it could close sooner rather than later.
The latest numbers came in Monday afternoon, and the play remained near the bottom of the Broadway pack. The drama, starring 13-year-old Abigail Breslin in her Broadway debut as Helen Keller, grossed $186,559 in the week ending Sunday—about a quarter of its potential box office haul.
The play showed a slight improvement over the previous week, when box office grosses tallied $164,830. But both weeks, the play's average paid admission was at or near the bottom for Broadway, with last week's average ticket at $38.55—compared to a top average ticket of $121.29 for "A Little Night Music" starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury.
"If we don't witness a significant increase in the box office over the weekend we will need to take a close look at our ability to keep the production open," Mr. Richenthal said in the statement released Friday. He also issued "a call to arms for anyone who has been waiting to see [the play] to act now." Mr. Richenthal could not be reached Monday afternoon, and a spokesman for the play said there was no further comment.
The play debuted on Broadway in 1959. This is the first Broadway revival of William Gibson's drama about a deaf and blind child, who discovers language through the help of her teacher, Annie Sullivan, played in this production by Alison Pill. The in-the-round production opened at Circle in the Square last Wednesday to mixed reviews.
In his statement, Mr. Richenthal praised the show: "I've never seen families and young children react to a play the way we've witnessed at Circle in the Square. It is our hope that momentum will build so we may continue to share this powerful story of the resilience of the human spirit with a new generation of theatergoers."
Ticket sales were up across Broadway last week, with shows grossing $15.2 million compared to $14.2 million the previous week, thanks partly to a strong opening week for "Come Fly Away," the Twyla Tharp musical that began previews last Monday. Broadway also may have been bouncing back from a snowfall the previous week, which presumably kept crowds away.
Two shows grossed less than "The Miracle Worker" last week: "Next Fall," a play about a gay couple's struggle with religious faith, and "Looped," a comedy starring Valerie Harper as Tallulah Bankhead.
Tony Cacciotti, a producer of "Looped," said the show gained momentum after slow starts in three past productions, and he expected a similar pattern this time. A spokesman for "Next Fall" said the show plays to a small house, and he anticipated a bounce when reviews come out this Friday (it received warm reviews Off Broadway last year). Both shows' grosses were up slightly over the previous week.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405..._medium=twitter
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2010 - THEATRE - The miracle worker |
