Broadway's Here Lies Love said hello to Tony winner Lea Salonga last week, and audiences did, too. The beginning of the Miss Saigon star's limited engagement in the immersive musical saw a box-office uptick of more than $250,000, with grosses rising by 52% from the previous week to $785,035.44, the highest yet for the new David Byrne-Fatboy Slim musical. Centered around controversial Philippines political figure Imelda Marcos, the musical is set to officially open July 20, meaning that those box-office gains came even as many tickets were being comped for critics and other members of the press. Producers will be watching in the coming weeks to see how the show fares with audiences as casting changes—Salonga's limited run is only scheduled to continue through August 13.
Also one of Broadway's newest shows and performing well is Back to the Future, which continued to dominate last week with fewer performances than most of its competition. While not breaking in to the top 10 this week, the screen-to-stage musical brought in an impressive $1.2 million with just seven previews—next week we'll get numbers from the new musical's first full eight-performance week.
Fortunes rose on Broadway overall last week at a modest 7%, bringing in a cumulative $30,899,311—both Parade and Good Night, Oscar saw the highest-grossing weeks of their runs so far. Choosing between 30 currently running shows, 254,004 people saw a Broadway production last week, with The Lion King dethroning the usual most-attended winner Wicked with an extra performance. Broadway was pretty well attended on the whole, with more than half of shows playing to 90% or higher full houses.
The top five were predictably the usual players, with The Lion King and its aforementioned extra performance handily taking the No. 1 spot with $2.64 million. Hamilton followed with $1.85 million, and then Sweeney Todd with $1.81 million, Wicked with $1.8 million, and MJ The Musical with $1.6 million.
Take a look at the full report here.
The $1 Million Club (shows that earned $1 million or more at the box office):
- The Lion King ($2.64 million)
- Hamilton
- Sweeney Todd
- Wicked
- MJ The Musical
- Aladdin
- Funny Girl
- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
- Parade
- Moulin Rouge! The Musical
- Back to the Future
- & Juliet
(12 of 30 currently running productions)
The 90s Club (shows that played to 90% or higher of their seats filled over the entire week):
- Hamilton (101.19%)
- Sweeney Todd (100.72%)
- Parade (100.08%)
- & Juliet
- Back to the Future
- Here Lies Love
- Aladdin
- Hadestown
- MJ The Musical
- The Book of Mormon
- Moulin Rouge! The Musical
- Wicked
- SIX: The Musical
- The Lion King
- The Cottage
- Kimberly Akimbo
- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
(17 of 33 currently running productions)
