*

Disgraced, the Ayad Akhtar play, opened to largely good reviews this week at the Lyceum. The show ran before 82% capacity houses during the week, and took in 47% of the possible box office.

The Sting musical The Last Ship also opened at the end of the week. Attendance was up for the week by 1,413 to 9,312. Owing to the distribution of press seats and comps, however, box-office take was down by $28,240.

The first week of previews for the new star-studded production of A Delicate Balance got off to a smashing start. Performances at the Golden were sold out, and box office collections were 102% of the potential. Average ticket price was an impressive $137.87 — not quite It's Only a Play levels, but not bad at all.

Another starry show, the revival of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, also performed well. Seats at the American Airlines Theatre were 98% filled, and box-office gross stood at 70%. On the Town, which opened to good reviews last week, saw a nice bump. Monies were up $141,378. Still, box office was only 47% of the potential.

Sell-out shows were few in number this past week. Aside from A Delicate Balance, there was It's Only a Play, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and The Book of Mormon. Close but no cigar were A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, Aladdin, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and The Lion King.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch saw a slight increase under its new lead, actor Michael C. Hall, who began on Oct. 16. Both box office and attendance were up about 10%. Houses were at 87% capacity, and box office collections were a healthy 81%.

The overall box office take stood at $25,858,522, just slightly less than the week before. Attendance, too, was down only in the smallest way.