Last week’s Tony Award nominations worked some magic at the box office of the awards contenders, with nearly all of the productions in the major categories reporting box office bumps in the days after Tuesday’s Tony announcements.
Similarly, productions that were disappointed with the nominations – Beaches, Dog Day Afternoon, The Fear of 13 – likely felt the same about the subsequent box office.
Among the biggest gainers in the post-nomination week were Schmigadoon!, The Lost Boys, The Rocky Horror Show, Titanique, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Ragtime, Every Brilliant Thing and The Balusters, among a few others. Giant, starring the Tony nominated John Lithgow, posted its best week ever with a gross of $1,290,105. That’s also last week’s highest gross for any new play.
Some specifics:
Schmigadoon! and The Lost Boys, which tied for the number of most nominations at 12 each, were up, respectively, by $197,100 to $843,229 and $131,265 to $1,135,146;
Ragtime, with 11 nominations, was up $77,977 to $1,196,461, a sell-out as usual;
With nine nominations each, Cats: The Jellicle Ball and The Rocky Horror Show were up
$22,221 (to $957,848) and $235,113 (to $1,065,366), respectively;
Death of a Salesman, also with nine nominations, had a planned seven-performance week, so was down by $6,752 to a still-stellar $1,457,033, with nearly 100% of seats filled at the Winter Garden;
Titanique, with four nominations, was up $122,713 to $853,143;
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, with five nominations, was up $152,203 to $1,094,676;
Every Brilliant Thing, with two nominations including one for star Daniel Radcliffe, was up $151,880 to $1,870,355;
The Balusters, with five noms, was up $93,225 to $388,782;
Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) saw a much needed boost from its eight noms, jumping $92,355 to $598,944;
Becky Shaw, with two nominations, was up $41,776 to $504,419;
Fallen Angels, with five nominations, continued to fill seats at the subscription-based non-profit Roundabout’s Todd Haines, with attendance holding steady about about 97%; revenue dipped about $68,845 to $575,766.
Beaches, a nomination shut-out, was down $44,518 to $475,601, with attendance at the Majestic hovering around the 50% of capacity mark. The Fear of 13, nominated for lighting and sound design but nothing for the play itself or stars Adrien Brody and Tessa Thompson, slipped by $10,337 to $707,598, filling about 82% of seats at the James Earl Jones. Dog Day Afternoon, with a disappointing three noms (for sets, costumes and lighting), dropped $43,751 to $847,667, with about 87% of seats purchased.
Chess, with star Lea Michele missing several performances (and a Tony nomination), was off by $103,705, grossing $868,401 and filling just 73% of seats at the Imperial.
Hardest hit last week – though not by the Tonys – was Chicago, which dropped a whopping $1,131,898 in its first week since Mormon Wives star Whitney Leavitt and her Dancing With The Stars partner Mark Ballas left the show. The gross for last week was $556,231, and attendance was at 64% (compared to the previous week’s 102%).
Also slipping was Oh, Mary!, with grosses falling by $293,475 to $1,247,505 in the second week of Maya Rudolph’s starring performance.
Aladdin was down $127,320 to $941,061 due to a heavily subsidized Wednesday performance for TDF’s Intro to Theatre program. Also, The Book of Mormon was dark last week due to the May 4 fire at the venue.
In all, the 39 Broadway productions (one fewer than the previous week due to Book of Mormon) grossed $38,297,488 for the week ending May 10, a drop of 3% from the previous week and down about 11% from last year at this time. Total attendance last week was 318,376, down 1% from the previous week and 4% year-to-year.
In the 50th week of the 2025-26 season, Broadway has grossed $1,831,853,911, up about 4% over last year at this time, with total attendance of 13,921,530 up 2%.
All figures courtesy of The Broadway League. For more box office information visit the League’s website.