Image Credit: Carol Rosegg
The tongue-twisterly titled comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike also saw another spike — in ticket sales — in the week since it won the Tony Award for Best Play on June 9. According to figures from the Broadway League, Christopher Durang’s sendup of Chekhov grossed $654,304 for the week ending June 16, up a whopping 18 percent from the week before. That’s an impressive 85 percent of the potential earnings for the Golden Theatre. Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella — a Tony winner for Best Costumes, which were impressively on display during a production number early in CBS’ Tony broadcast — also saw a 19 percent boost in revenues last week, to $1.06 million. (That’s nearly two-thirds the show’s potential gross.)
Sales for the season’s most highly touted new musicals, Matilda and Best Musical winner Kinky Boots, both rose 4 percent last week, to $1.18 million and $1.47 million, respectively. Both productions have been top grossers, so dramatic sales jumps were unlikely even after their Tony victories — and both gave well-received mini-performances during the Neil Patrick Harris-hosted telecast. Tellingly, though, the average ticket price for each show climbed nearly $5 in the last week — signaling that producers will use premium pricing to eke out more profits from already popular shows. The new revivals of Annie ($962,027) and Pippin ($1.01 million) benefited even more from the primetime exposure, boosting their weekly takings by nearly 8 percent.
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