*

Of Mice and Men, which closed last week, turned out to be a strong performer throughout its limited run. The James Franco-Chris O'Dowd starrer was received respectfully, if not enthusiastically, by critics, and didn't get much traction at the Tonys, but audiences came nonetheless. The production rarely played to full capacity, but was usually hovering just under, between 95-99%. The final week was no exception. Houses were just under capacity at 99.9%. But box office was well above potential, sitting at nearly 110% of the possible take. Average ticket price during the last week was $121.06. Should Franco wish to return to Broadway, it's a good bet that producers will welcome his back with open arms.

With Mice having scurried away, and The Cripple of Inishmaan having departed last week, Broadway now has a grand total of zero straight plays on the boards. All 27 attractions on offer are musicals.

The top perfomer among those tuners is, as always, The Book of Mormon, which never ceases to print money over at the Eugene O'Neill. Capacity crowds paid an average of $187.45 to gain admission to the smash. Collections were, however, down $177,002 from last week, but that's only because the production played nine performances last week, instead of eight. (And that's about as close to bad box-office news as you're going to get at Mormon.)

Coming in second in average ticket price was The Lion King with $169.42, followed by Beautiful: The Carole King Musical at $159.03 and Hedwig and the Angry Inch at $148.15. Hedwig beat them all, however, in terms of overall box-office draw, collecting 128.05% of is possible weekly ducats. The great majority of the musicals played to 90% or above capacity house. The only titles not to achieve that number were Bullets Over Broadway (which announced last week that it would close later this summer), Chicago, Cinderella, If/Then, Motown, Once, Rock of Ages, Rocky and Violet. Collecting the least percentage of their possible box office were Bullets and Once, at 49% and 51% respectively.