Tuesday, January 4, 2011

The (Financial) Year on Broadway

2010 has been an up-and-down year on Broadway, with some shows becoming fast hits and others closing in the blink of an eye (does anyone remember Elling?).  The New York Times gives a more complete picture of the financial year on Broadway, but it looks like shows grossed about $1.037 billion in 2010.  Read the article below to find out more.


A Boffo Year for Broadway

For all of the shows closing this month, several at a loss to their investors, Broadway had a financially robust 2010. Brand-name musicals like “Wicked,” “The Lion King,” “Jersey Boys” and “The Addams Family” sold enough premium-price tickets (on the order of $250 to $350) for 2010 to help set an overall record for Broadway’s 40 theaters.
Shows grossed a total of $1.037 billion in the 2010 calendar year compared with $1.004 billion in 2009, according to statistics compiled by the Broadway League, the trade group of theater owners and producers. Roughly 12.11 million people saw a Broadway show in 2010, while 11.95 million went in 2009.
And yet: Many plays and some musicals struggled to sell tickets in 2010, and the chasm seems to be widening between the haves (“Wicked”) and the have-nots (quick commercial failures like “Elling” and “A Life in the Theater” and critically praised shows like “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” that couldn’t build an audience). Paging ArtsBeat readers! Is there any way for more plays and musicals to last more than a few weeks or months on Broadway?
The Christmas weekend blizzard of 2010, at least, did not seem to hurt shows. For the two-week period covering the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, Broadway shows grossed a total of $60 million in 2010 and $52.4 million in 2009. And with a total gross of $35 million, the week ending Jan. 2, 2011, was probably the highest-grossing week in recorded history, according to a spokeswoman for the Broadway League.



http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/a-boffo-year-for-broadway/?ref=theater

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