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BEETLEJUICE Gets Killed By A MUSIC MAN, Last Week’s Grosses, Golden Globe Noms, Recs and More
“Today on Broadway” is a daily, Monday through Friday, podcast hitting the top theatre headlines of the day.
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Ashley Steves [email protected] | @NoThisIsAshley
James Marino [email protected] | @JamesMarino
Matt Tamanini [email protected] | @BWWMatt
Welcome to Today on Broadway for Tuesday, December 10th, 2019. I’m arts and culture writer Ashley Steves…
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While it seemed of late that BEETLEJUICE had come back from the dead, Michael Paulson at The New York Times reported that the Tim Burton-inspired musical will play its final performance at The Winter Garden Theatre on June 6, 2020.
The musical will close up to make room for the upcoming revival of THE MUSIC MAN, which, as previously announced, will begin performances on September 9th, 2020 and star Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster. Tickets for that show, despite having not had a theatre, have been on sale since September.
BEETLEJUICE has been a recent surprise success story, grossing over $1 million in recent weeks, including a record-breaking house record over Thanksgiving week), but the Shubert Organization is invoking its “stop clause,” which allows it to oust a show whose grosses fall below an agreed upon level for two consecutive weeks. The problem is this is a very unusual situation because this happened back in May and the Shuberts notified BEETLEJUICE of this back in June. Since then, the musical has had an upturn.
A national tour for BEETLEJUICE is expected to launch in 2021.
https://www.broadwayworld.com/grosses.cfm
We’re currently in the not-quite-as-sweet spot between Thanksgiving and Christmas. 35 shows brought in $38,331,950 last week, down eight percent from the previous week. Attendance was up one percent, however, and the average ticket price fell by $13— always good to see.
The big show to note, though, is AIN’T TOO PROUD, which set a new box office record at the Imperial Theatre. The jukebox musical brought in $1,710,068, the highest for any week in the history at the venue. That record was previously held by BILLY ELLIOT, which earned $1,663,895 during a week in January 2010.
Fourteen other productions surpassed the million-dollar mark: ALADDIN, AMERICAN UTOPIA, BEETLEJUICE, COME FROM AWAY, DEAR EVAN HANSEN, FROZEN, HADESTOWN, HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD, MEAN GIRLS, THE BOOK OF MORMON, TINA—THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, TOOTSIE, and WICKED. Two took in over $2 million apiece—MOULIN ROUGE! and THE LION KING—and, of course, HAMILTON was the highest grosser at a whopping $3,060,685.
Broadway bid adieu to a pair of revivals last week as BETRAYAL and THE ROSE TATTOO closed up shop on December 8th. Both shows finished out their runs on at least slightly higher-than-usual grosses, with BETRAYAL up 14.77 percent from the week before and THE ROSE TATTOO up 0.37 percent.
The biggest falls in grosses this week, unfortunately, were BEETLEJUICE, down over $513,000, and surprisingly, FROZEN, down $442,000. Those numbers are a bit misleading as BEETLEJUICE brought in 82.18 percent of its gross potential and was over capacity— they’ve obviously coming off their record-breaking week last week where they were at over 120 percent of their gross potential. And FROZEN’s gross potential was up 9 percent from the previous week from 90.43 to 99.42 percent.
On the low end of the boards were THE LIGHTNING THIEF, SLAVA’S SNOW SHOW, SLAVE PLAY, THE ILLUSIONISTS – MAGIC OF THE HOLIDAYS, THE SOUND INSIDE, THE INHERITANCE, and DERREN BROWN: SECRET, all brining in under 60 percent of their gross potential, and with THE LIGHTNING THIEF bringing in the lowest grosses for the week at just over $296,000.
Nominations were announced on Monday morning for the 77th Annual Golden Globe Awards, and several Broadway favorites were recognized this year for their work on screen.
Among the nominees include Cynthia Erivo for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture—Drama for her performance as Harriet Tubman in HARRIET. Fellow Tony winner Scarlett Johansson joins her in the category for MARRIAGE STORY, as does Charlize Theron, Saoirse Ronan, and Renée Zellweger for embodying Judy Garland in Judy. Tony nominee Adam Driver was also nominated for his performance in MARRIAGE STORY. The category—Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture– Drama—also includes Tony winner Jonathan Pryce and Tony nominee Antonio Banderas.
Of course, the most stacked category was Best Original Song, with five Tony Winners penning four of the songs, including Andrew Lloyd Webber for CATS’ “Beautiful Ghosts,” Elton John for ROCKETMAN’s “I’m Gonna Love Me Again,” Bobby and Kristen Lopez for FROZEN 2’s “Into the Unknown,” and Cynthia Erivo for HARRIET’s “Stand Up.”
On the television side, Ben Platt scored his first Emmy nomination for THE POLITICIAN. Further nominees include Billy Porter, Helen Mirren, Brian Cox, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Michelle Williams.
The 2020 Golden Globes will air on NBC on January 5th.
Wrapping up yesterday’s big news day, over at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, it was announced that Broadway alum and TV star Tony Goldwyn will temporarily take over for John Benjamin Hickey in THE INHERITANCE, beginning January 5th.
This is so Hickey can go make his Broadway directing debut this spring with the revival of PLAZA SUITE, starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick. He’ll take a four-month leave of absence as the show is scheduled to open on April 13th at the Hudson Theatre, following an out-of-town engagement in Boston in February.
Goldwyn was last seen on Broadway in NETWORK opposite Bryan Cranston and has previously appeared in revivals of PROMISES, PROMISES and HOLIDAY.
Broadway News: Jeremy O. Harris: Showperson of the Year
The New York Times: Best Performances of 2019
Casting Set for U.K. Debut of BE MORE CHILL
http://www.playbill.com/article/casting-set-for-uk-debut-of-be-more-chill
Ramin Karimloo, Lucie Jones, More Will Star in THE SECRET GARDEN at the London Palladium
The cast is set for the debut of Joe Iconis’ BE MORE CHILL which will play London’s The Other Palace beginning in February. Scott Folan will lead the cast as Jeremy, with Blake Patrick Anderson playing Michael. Renee Lamb and Millie O’Connell, who were most recently in SIX, will also star with Miracle Chance, Stewart Clarke, Eloise Davies, and more. BE MORE CHILL will begin performances on February 12th. Stephen Brackett will once again direct.
And also in the U.K., The London Palladium concert productions of THE SECRET GARDEN have announced their starring cast. Ramin Karimloo, Lucie Jones, and Jac Yarrow will lead the two performances, which will be staged on April 4th at 3:00 and 7:30 PM. Nick Winston will direct. Additional casting will be announced shortly, and tickets can be purchased online at lwtheatres.co.uk.
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