The producers of Motown The Musical announced July 8 that the week ending July 7 was the Broadway musical's best week moneymaking period to date. The jukebox tuner took in a weekly gross of $1,500,580, topping its previous box office record.
That showing made Motown the fifth top Broadway breadwinner for the week, trailing behind perennial powerhouses The Lion King ($2,028,471), Wicked ($1,893,488) and The Book of Mormon ($1,684,525), as well as this year's Tony-winning musical Kinky Boots, which came in at a strong $1,611,599. Part of that latter total is coming from top ticket prices of $349 a pop, which put the freshly minted Cyndi Lauper hit somewhere between Wicked ($300 top admission) and Mormon ($477) territory. Its average paid admission, $140.38, places Kinky only behind Mormon, which commands an average ticket price of $192.47, and Lion King, at $149.12.
All five of those show are playing at 100% or more capacity. Other musicals also playing at capacity are Pippin and Newsies. (Matilda stopped short with a tantalizingly close 99.99%.)
Performing less robustly, but still handsomely enough, among musicals were Cinderella, at 81.46% capacity, Spider-Man at 83.1% and Mamma Mia! at 87.93%.
Among plays, Christopher Durang's Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is enjoying the benefits of its many accolades and awards, playing at 93.17% capacity, bringing in $621,093. The comedy recouped its entire $2.75 million investment in recent weeks. Only the Tom Hanks-fueled newspaper drama Lucky Guy did better, playing its final four performances (it closed July 3) to completely full houses, and earning $661,829. The Nora Ephron drama had already earned back its investment, as has the Durang comedy. Though Hanks did not win the Tony, as expected, the performance of Lucky Guy has proved his box-office mettle should he wish to return to Broadway in a different vehicle.
Drawing less fulsome audiences were Douglas Carter Beane's drama The Nance, starring Nathan Lane, which earned $360,241 and played to 70.66% capacity, The Trip to Bountiful, taking in $448,887 and commanding 65.15% capacity, and Alan Cumming's Macbeth, bringing in $292,722 (over six performances) from a 65.16% capacity crowd. Macbeth will end its run this week.
