For Broadway, a Tepid July 4 Week

— July 7, 2014 0 3

For Broadway, a Tepid July 4 Week

From left, Zach Braff, Karen Ziemba and Brooks Ashmanskas in “Bullets Over Broadway.” Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

The big-budget Broadway musicals “Bullets Over Broadway” and “Rocky,” the hit shows “Kinky Boots” and “Once” and the star-studded plays “The Cripple of Inishmaan” (with Daniel Radcliffe) and “Of Mice and Men” (with James Franco) were among several Broadway productions with soft ticket sales during the Fourth of July holiday week, according to box office data released on Monday.

Sales for all six productions were down by 10 percent or more compared to the previous week, and “Bullets Over Broadway” notched the worst box office gross – $492,009 – in its four months of performances. “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella” was down nearly 30 percent to $658,070, meanwhile, following the June 29 departure of its popular star from television, Fran Drescher.

The Fourth of July week is often a downer for Broadway shows, but last week was especially grim, with 27 out of 30 shows declining at the box office from the previous week; only “Chicago,” “The Lion King” and “The Phantom of the Opera” – all tourist favorites – had gains. Attendance may have been soft because of bad weather from Hurricane Arthur, holiday festivities and long weekend vacations away from New York. (Movies also performed badly last week.)

By far the weakest performer on Broadway was the new musical “Holler if Ya Hear Me,” which grossed $144,773 last week, or just 16 percent of its maximum possible amount. “Holler,” inspired by the music and life of rapper Tupac Shakur, opened to lackluster reviews last month and has been struggling to sell tickets.

Theater owners and producers would usually close a musical with such poor grosses, but no new show is poised to follow “Holler” into its theater, the Palace, and the theater’s landlord, the Nederlander Organization, has championed the production. A spokesman for the “Holler” producers said on Monday that there were no plans at close the show at this point.

Over all, Broadway musicals and plays grossed $25.1 million last week, compared to $22.8 million for the comparable holiday week last season (when fewer shows, 23 compared to last week’s 30, were running). Attendance was 250,849 last week, compared to 208,177 a year ago.

Reference: The New York Times