Gypsy got back on track and Wicked stayed in the stratosphere during New Year’s week, with most of Broadway‘s 33 shows posting strong numbers even while dropping down from the previous (and very lucrative) Christmas week figures.
With Audra McDonald back in action after a week of illness that prompted the cancellation of all but one Gypsy performance, the musical revival played a full eight performances, grossing $1,799,134. That’s up $1,519,039 over the previous week’s single performance.
Wicked, meanwhile, was the Broadway chart’s top earner for the New Year’s holiday week ending January 5. The show’s gross of $3,294,179 bested the #2 earner, The Lion King ($2,800,071) by nearly a half-million dollars. Wicked, posting huge numbers in recent months (thanks, no doubt, to the movie’s high profile), had grossed $5,037,392 the previous week for nine performances, a record high for Broadway.
In its final week, Elf grossed $1,214,945, with 82% of seats filled at the Marquis, a noticeable drop from Christmas week’s 95% attendance. (During New Year’s week, Elf had a planned seven-performance schedule, as did & Juliet, Cult of Love, The Book of Mormon and The Great Gatsby).
Also playing their final performances last week were Back To The Future, selling out the Winter Garden and grossing $1,875,633, and Suffs, SRO at the Music Box with a $1,349,647 gross.
Other sell-outs were & Juliet, All In, Cabaret At The Kit Kat Club, Hadestown, Hamilton, Oh, Mary!, Romeo + Juliet, Stereophonic, The Book of Mormon, The Great Gatsby, The Outsiders and Wicked. Coming close to filling all their seats were Aladdin, Death Becomes Her, Gypsy, Harry Potter and The Cursed Child, Maybe Happy Ending, Moulin Rouge!, Six, Sunset Blvd. and The Lion King.
Grossing a million dollars or more were & Juliet, Aladdin, All In, Back To The Future, Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, Chicago, Death Becomes Her, Elf, Gypsy, Hadestown, Harry Potter and The Cursed Child, Hell’s Kitchen, MJ, Moulin Rouge!, Oh, Mary!, Romeo + Juliet, Six, Suffs, Sunset Blvd., The Book of Mormon, The Great Gatsby and The Outsiders. Hamilton was the roster’s third highest earner, with a gross of $2,379,897, while The Outsiders had the top average ticket price of $225.58 (average paid admission over all on Broadway was $155.37).
New to the chart was English, the Pulitzer Prize winning play by Sanaz Toossi making its Broadway bow (opening night is January 23). The non-prof Roundabout’s production grossed $131,427 for its first three previews, with 91% of seats at the Todd Haimes occupied.
In all, the 33 Broadway productions grossed a total $45,157,253 last week, a drop of about 19% from the Christmas week’s big numbers when many shows played an additional performance. This year’s number is a whopping 52% over last season at this time.
Total attendance of 290,640 was down about 5% from the previous week and 32% greater than last year.
Season to date, Broadway, in the 33rd week of the 2024-25 season, has grossed $1,137,628,573 up about 17% over last year at this time, with total attendance of 8,871,292 up 17%.
All figures courtesy of The Broadway League. For complete box office listings, visit the League’s website.