Finding Neverland waved goodbye to Broadway last week. It was given a fine send-off. Box-office numbers were up by $91,708, climbing to a total of $720,603. Attendance was up by 719 ticket buyers, and houses stood at 79 percent capacity.
That $91,708 was the biggest box-office leap by far in a week that mainly saw collections drop. August continued to be a less-than-stellar month across Broadway, with attendance arguable drained off by viewership of the Rio Olympics. Overall box-office collections were down, from $24,414,933 to $23,009,994, a drop of nearly $1.5 million. Attendance fell from 231,726 to 222,667. The show count held steady at 26.
Aladdin, School of Rock, The Color Purple, The Humans, The Lion King, The Phantom of the Opera and Wicked all saw six-figure decreases at the till. The biggest fall belonged to Wicked, which plummeted more than $200,000 at the box office.
Even the powerhouse The Book of Mormon saw a box-office slide of $47,008. For most of these shows, the average ticket price was down from the previous week.
The Humans, in its second week at its bigger new home, the Schoenfeld, is still working hard to fill the extra seats. The award-winning play, often a sellout at the small Helen Hayes Theatre, filled 75 percent of its houses and took in 52 percent of its potential box office. Attendance was down by nearly 1,000 people.
The 2016-2017 season continued to lose ground to the 2015-2016 season in its early months. At this point last year, the 2015-2016 season had taken in $351,345,038—nearly $10 million more than the present season has earned. Moreover, last season achieved that total with only 272 playing weeks—23 fewer that the current season.
The Street will need a few new hits in the fall to bounce back. Hamilton, after all, can’t do all the heavy lifting.