Broadway Grosses: Box Office Strong on Fall Holiday Weekend

Broadway box offices were humming on a lovely Columbus Day weekend, with numbers up across the board and seven shows topping $1 million for the week. For the first time in memory, the top two frontrunners for percentage of capacity were plays (God of Carnage and its next-door neighbor A Steady Rain, a statistic that would have pleased the men their theaters are named after, Shubert honchos Bernard B. Jacobs and Gerald Schoenfeld). One new entry joined the Broadway roster, the revival of Finian’s Rainbow, which gave its first four performances at the St. James Theatre.

Here is a look at who was on top and who was not for the week ending October 11:

FRONTRUNNERS (By Gross)
1. Wicked ($1,552,645)
2. Billy Elliot ($1,457,463)
3. The Lion King ($1,413,511)
4. A Steady Rain (1,276,106)
5. Jersey Boys ($1,167,196)

UNDERDOGS (By Gross)
5. The 39 Steps ($244,730)
4. Finian’s Rainbow ($224,754)*
3. The Royal Family ($199,663)**
2. After Miss Julie ($197,117)***
1. The Neil Simon Plays: Brighton Beach Memoirs ($131,987)***

FRONTRUNNERS (By Capacity)
1. God of Carnage (102.11%)****
2. A Steady Rain (101.37%)
3. Jersey Boys (101.22%)
4. The Lion King (100.05%)
5. Billy Elliot (100.03%)

UNDERDOGS (By Capacity)
5. Finian’s Rainbow (72.24%)*
4. Burn the Floor (71.46%)
3. Shrek the Musical (69.88%)
2. Superior Donuts (65.49%)
1. The Neil Simon Plays: Brighton Beach Memoirs (56.29%)***

*Number based on four preview performances.
**Number based on three preview and five regular performances.
***Number based on eight preview performances.
****Number based on seven regular performances.
Data provided by the Broadway League.